Issue - meetings

This report presents a high level summary of York Learning’s Self Assessment Report (SAR) for the academic year 15/16. It presents the service’s High Level findings for its annual Self Assessment Report which are drawn from a number of contributory reports.

Resolved: That the York Learning Self Assessment Report 2016/17 report be received and noted.

Reason:    To help monitor the service and ensure robust governance arrangements.

The Executive Member considered a report which presented him with a high level summary of the York Learning Self Assessment Report (SAR) for the academic year 2015/16. The report presented highlighted key strengths and areas for improvement.

Officers informed the Executive Member that when the final SAR report for 2016/17 was published it would be longer and would cover five curriculum areas.

Two particular outcomes within the report were highlighted to the Executive Member. These were that there had been an increase in the pass rate in GCSE Maths from 62% to 79% and that overall success rates for the service were declining from 80% to 76%, although these still remained good and inline with similar services across the country.

The GCSE Maths pass rates were particularly noteworthy as these grades had been obtained from students who had previously failed the examination before being taught on York Learning programmes.

The decline in overall success rates were due to no longer  using short courses as building blocks to longer qualifications. These have been withdrawn following a review of English and maths qualifications. Where students had been unsuccessful, the service has identified individual  students personal circumstances as mitigating factors.  More coaching in exam preparation was being offered to try and improve overall student performance.

In response to a question from the Executive Member about partnerships and referrals routes for learners with mental health issues, Officers reported that along with the retention of a member of staff they had secured funding from the Big Lottery Fund to enable individual support to be offered to students along with mindfulness tutoring.

The Executive Member requested more details from Officers on where the provision would be delivered from in York and stated that he was happy to receive the report in its current format, before final publication.

Resolved: That the report be received and noted.

Reason:    To help monitor the service and ensure robust governance arrangements.