Doncaster Council

Implementation of the Education Development Plan (school improvement activities)

Statutory requirement - to raise standards in schools. The Education Development Plan(EDP) is the Local Education Authority's main vehicle for providing challenge and support to schools' improvement. It includes activities to monitor and evaluate the progress of the national literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools and the Key Stage 3 strategy in secondary schools. There is also a programme of activities designed to support and strengthen schools' own systems of self-evaluation. 

A key part of the activity programme is aimed at enabling schools to set challenging but realistic targets for improvement and to provide rigorous and helpful data to underpin this process. In order to bring about permanent and far reaching changes in school performance, the Local Authority has identified a programme of activities to further engage parents and the community in their children's learning. This is aimed at creating a positive culture which values learning highly. In turn, this should lead to greater expectations and support for children and young people and greater aspirations in the young people themselves.

A further key priority in EDP2 is to establish a coherent 14-19 strategy to improve participation and success for this age group.

Advice and Consultancy to schools

To provide rigorous support and development work on the school's own improvement agenda. The Service provides a wide-ranging programme of consultancy for schools wishing to purchase it. This is to enable schools to have individually tailored consultancy matched to the school's stage of development and the priorities in its school development plan.

Brokerage

To ensure schools have access to a mixed provision of good value, high quality support and to improve their skills of procurement.

Where the Local Authority cannot provide exactly what a school or group of schools requires, it undertakes to broker alternative provision.This has been particularly useful in securing secondary senior management expertise. It has also served to increase schools' knowledge and confidence in procurement.

Professional development programme

To contribute to a high quality programme of professional development for all those working in and with schools. The Service provides a comprehensive programme of professional support to school staff (including governing bodies) for those wishing to purchase it. This is designed to complement school's own provision for the professional development of staff and includes both external and internal providers.

Support for schools with priorities for improvement (SPI)

Statutory requirement to ensure all under-performing schools improve rapidly. The Local Authority has a statutory responsibility to ensure that all schools causing concern, whether that has been identified by the Office for Standards in Education (OfSTED), or by the Local Authority (or both), have well-targeted, intensive programmes of support in order to improve rapidly.

OfSTED Inspections

To maintain a secure working knowledge of OfSTED at the lowest possible cost. The Service ceased to be a contractor for OfSTED inspections from September 2002 as this was considered less important than working to improve performance in Doncaster schools.

Staff will continue to implement a very minimal programme of one or two OfSTED inspections per inspector per year. The purpose of this is to ensure sufficient knowledge and expertise is maintained by the Service to be able to confidently guide schools in the preparation and implementation of their post-OfSTED action plans.

Secondary and primary leadership programmes

The Service has put in place a number of strategies to support secondary school leadership, in particular the introduction of secondary management development forums and the provision of secondary senior management consultants. Additionally the Service in partnership with a seconded secondary headteacher from Warwickshire Local Authority has established a secondary leadership programme 'Tomorrows' Leaders'. This is aimed at extending opportunities for professional and career development for potential leaders at all levels in secondary schools.