Agenda item

A report was circulated to the Forum entitled School Improvement Provision. This report had been published as a supplementary item for the agenda. 

John Constable explained that this was a joint report from the LA, SLP and Cambridge Education.  He explained that this paper is for information: providing background; clarifying roles and responsibilities and setting out proposals for the future. There will be a more detailed discussion at the next Forum when Cambridge Education will report specific figures.  John drew attention to a number of sections of the report including page 4 which explains proposed support for school improvement and school development from September 2015 onwards and page 3 which defines both terms.

Tony Smith explained that Cambridge Education is responsible for the LA statutory school improvement service and provides ‘intervention’ but not support.  It was agreed the message should be kept consistent and should be referred to as providing “intervention”.

It was noted that any possible reduction in the sum required by Cambridge Education could be redistributed to schools. Robin Crofts erred caution in that any such reduction in central funding  cannot be reversed  at a later date.

John Constable explained that funding streams for the SLP (page 7 of the report) were based on an assumption of no carry forward from last year and that if there was a carry forward that would minimise the need to come to Schools Forum seeking additional funding.

Maggie Waller said that the report was very helpful in defining the relevant parties’ responsibilities and roles and a useful basis for the next report in May.