Management Information Sheet

We would normally be writing to you around this time of year to outline our approach to the categorisation of Local Authority (LA) maintained schools for the next academic year. With this year being far from normal, we have decided that, for the majority of LA schools the categorisation for 2019-20 will continue into the Autumn Term and possibly for the whole of the next academic year.

Exceptions to this would be:

• If the Lead Officer working with a Category 1 school, recommends a re-categorisation to Category 2 based on recent and consistent evidence that school leaders have the capacity and support in place to continue to improve the school without this level of local authority engagement
• If the LA becomes aware of a specific issue, so specialist support from a relevant team will be strongly recommended
• If the LA becomes aware of significant issues regarding safeguarding, inclusivity, leadership, governance, transition or the quality of education, a Category 2 school may be re-categorised to Category 1 and be assigned a Lead Officer

Lead Officers have continued to work remotely with their allocated schools throughout this challenging period and will continue to work in this way where appropriate.

During 2019-20 the Achievement Service began a programme of visits to Category 2 schools in order to find out more about each school and the way it is working. We found these visits interesting and rewarding and feedback from those with whom we held the conversations have said that they found them useful too. Visits scheduled from 17 March were cancelled but we would like to thank all of the schools we met during the year. For those whose visit was cancelled, we will discuss a replacement date when possible.

If you would like to discuss this risk assessment decision please contact John Crowley on 01603 222557 / 223007 or Sarah Burgess on 01603 307768 / 223007 , or send an email to cs.achievement@norfolk.gov.uk or a message via Microsoft Teams.