The attached document is provided for your information:

BCS/IAH (01603) 223300

9 May 2000

To: All Headteachers and Chairs of Governors,

My meetings with headteachers and Chairs of governors during the Spring Term celebrated the significant rise in standards in the Core subjects in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 and in the percentage of young people in Norfolk achieving 5+ A*-C in GCSE. We are all hopeful that there will be further success this year and that the outcomes reflect well on the hard work and skills of Norfolk’s teachers.

The meetings also focused on establishing a high level of commitment and understanding of the need for the LEA to intervene and support in inverse proportion to success and we explored the need to have an open professional dialogue where there are concerns. Our aim is to stop schools being identified as having serious weaknesses in the inspection process and to identify issues as early as possible to bring about school development. This is clearly preferable to acting in a remedial or fire fighting role

To achieve this we discussed the need for a frank and honest interchange between the school and the LEA about the performance of the school. This openness must include our communications with the governing body which must be responsible for ensuring improvements. We in turn are committed to providing the highest possible advice to support the school.

My meetings with headteachers this term are focused on exploring the outcomes of last terms discussions and setting out the approach we will be taking to secure the best possible standards of education in all our schools.

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RDA visits this term need to focus on agreeing a view about the school’s performance. This will determine the extent to which further support is required to enable the school to make good progress. The RDA will engage in this process through the Self-Review process.

1.- FOR PRIMARY PHASE ONLY - Understanding of and commitment to the achievement of the literacy targets. This is to include the issues raised in the Michael Barber letter and other issues raised by Chris Snudden. The RDA will discuss the nature of the support being offered to the school in the coming year to support the literacy strategy. This supports the management, curriculum and standards sections of the self-review process.

2. – FOR ALL SCHOOLS WITH NQTs - The agreed agenda for monitoring NQTs as set out in previous communications from Julia Stephens. This supports the management of people and quality of teaching parts of the self- review process)

3. – Where lesson observation is considered important it should try to link it to 2 or 1 above or to previously agreed monitoring.

4. – RDAs will ask for information on whether schools use item banks within their reporting to parents. This links with the parents part of the self-review and has been requested by a group of headteachers working on developments of the Phoenix package.

5. – a) If you have not explored the school’s PANDA with the RDA then this is an important introductory part of the self-review agreement of standards.

b) There was some misunderstanding about how far we could get with the Self-Review in this first year. The clear expectation is that the process should be completed during this academic year so that we can introduce the final version in the Autumn Term. It is essential that everyone goes through the yellow summary sheet this term. This will provide an overview of the school’s performance and should include where on a six point scale the school would place itself for school performance overall. It is essential in determining where we pitch additional RDA time for next term. Getting this overall picture is akin to the pre-inspection process of completing the Forms S 1-4. We will send, to every school, a disk version of these forms by half-term to aid you in having a draft of the forms available for future use.

Out of this process we hope to achieve a clear set of expectations for schools and for the Education Department to support school improvement. For you in the school it is about agreeing, openly and honestly how the school is performing and ensuring that there is a clear school improvement and development plan. (What we

previously called the management plan!). Where things are working well we hope

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to be able to agree this easily and determine the developmental role (within the self-review process) the RDA will work to in the coming year.

Where schools are already in Special Measures or OFSTED serious weakness categories their governing bodies have to produce detailed improvement plans and the LEA produces a statement of action and a commentary on the potential of the schools plan. We must now extend this process and agree where there are serious weaknesses, not yet recognised by OFSTED but identified through the self review process the same level of detailed action planning is required.

The most difficult area for us all to work on will be where we feel that the evidence points to probable future difficulties. We really need a mature, professional approach to this sensitive aspect. Before things reach the OFSTED / statutory level we need to have strong evidence in the school’s improvement and development plan that realistic and appropriate action is going to be taken. If this is not clear in the school’s plan there will be a requirement for more detailed action planning. The LEA will agree a statement of action with each of these school’s governing bodies.

My clear expectation is that every school, where there are agreed issues to be addressed, will have an appropriate plan of action agreed with the LEA and with each governing body. It will be the RDA responsibility to ensure that this is achieved.

I have discussed with many of you the desirability of bringing the RDA system into a more coherent Area support structure. While there is never a right time to change the allocations to schools the consensus of views is that we should rationalise the allocation as soon as possible. We therefore propose a major change to RDA allocations from September. We can discuss this at meetings this term if you wish to raise it or for further information contact any of the senior staff in the Advisory Service.

There is clearly much to be optimistic in the LEA at present. The RDA will also engage more rigorously in celebrating achievement across our schools. The tenor of the discussion we had at last term’s meetings was that it is in everyone’s interest for Norfolk to be viewed as successful. I hope you will agree that the approach we are taking through the RDA system will help us achieve high levels of success for our children and young people and engender high levels of confidence in the wider community. I trust I can depend on your continuing support in this, sometimes difficult, improvement journey. If you have any comments or queries about this please let me know or contact Bart Taylor or Fred Corbett.

Yours sincerely,

Director of Education