Havering’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 5th March, 2024 (part two)

This agenda included a Housing item and the School Performance analysis. The latter is the focus of this blog.

Matt Stanton (1 hour47)¹ expressed concerns about how wide the variations in achievement between schools are. He asked the Director what was needed to rectify this problem. Trevor Cook replied ‘Context’ was needed to understand the issue. This is pivotal as it implies underachievement is inevitable. It chimed with remarks about fortunate authorities who suffered less from Covid-19 and had superior funding.

Praising Hall Mead and Redden Court damaged his argument. In 2019 both were below average.² They’re now average. This happened during five challenging years. Their performance has improved in the Covid-19 and Funding Crisis years.

The 2019 list of eleven below average schools has reduced to six in 2024.⁴ Emerson Park has dropped into the ‘below average’ group since 2019. A third of Havering’s secondary schools are below average (6 out of 12) and five schools left the 2019 list.

Matt’s concerns were echoed by Frankie Walker, Mandy Anderson and Judith Holt. Judith believed every Havering school should be above average. She refuted Trevor Cook’s response about Covid-19 and Funding. Her actual doubts related to whether his explanations were correlation or causation. All of Havering’s schools share the same challenges but nonetheless there are massive differences in outcomes.

Trevor Cook is soothing. However, members were in a combative mood looking for action. Some academies are successful but others are weak. A third of Havering’s schools are below average, which is far too many.

Notes

1 Agenda for People Overview & Scrutiny Sub Committee on Tuesday, 5th March, 2024, 7.00 pm | The London Borough Of Havering Go to webcast and then to one hour 47 for the beginning of his contribution

2 Havering and Redbridge: A Tale of Two Boroughs – Politics in Havering 29^th Nov 2019

3 All schools and colleges in Havering – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK (compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk) This gives the current status of every school in Havering.

4 Schools leaving the 2019 list are Abbs Cross, Hornchurch High, Royal Liberty, Redden Court and Hall Mead