Havering Council Meeting, 27th March 2024

The Conservatives had a humdinger of a motion for debate (see Addendum). It challenged the HRA/Labour *solution* to the budget deficit.¹This naïve commentator waited for fireworks from political heavyweights debating the future of Havering.

What should have happened

Keith Prince would denounce the £54m loan as reckless folly, mortgaging the future. He pointed out that £54m @7% for 20 years creates a stonking £68m² in interest payments, more than doubling the original debt. Keith could continue that the loan ‘kicked the can down the road’. In 2026 everything would be the same with Adult, Children’s Services and Homelessness turbo-charging the deficit. What, Keith thundered rhetorically, would Ray Morgon do then? Borrow another £54m?

Ray Morgon would angrily riposte that defending government funding was bizarre. In 2010, Havering’s grant was £70m and in 2023, £1.9m. Meanwhile, after 14 years of government mis-management, inflation added 47% to costs.³ Therefore, Havering needs a £103m grant just to stand still! Additionally, the council had unfunded responsibilities. Homelessness came from government policies with enormous costs for the council. Ray might finish by saying everything will be different in two years’ time.

What did happen

Ray Morgon and Keith Prince agreed not to have a debate and went home two hours earlier than usual.

Addendum: Conservative Motion

This chamber calls on the council to release to the public the full letters, from the Government Ministers and from the Leader, regarding the Capitalisation Directive. The chamber calls on the Government to provide the funding as a grant instead of a loan.⁴

Best speech: None

Runner-up: None

Best sarcasm: Barry Mugglestone

Notes

1 Havering Council: Budget Setting – 28th February, 2024 – Politics in Havering

2 It might not be, we haven’t seen the T&Cs yet. Actually the money is ‘drawn’ down over the next two years so the £68m is calculated for 18 full years of interest.

3 Inflation calculator | Bank of England

4 Public reports pack 27th-Mar-2024 19.30 Council.pdf (havering.gov.uk) p117

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)¹expressed 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.²They’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

Havering, Barking and Dagenham and The Attainment Gap, 2023

Providing great schooling is the single most important thing we can do to help any child from a disadvantaged background succeed. It’s also the single most important thing we can do to boost the long-term productivity of our economy George Osborne’s Budget speech in full (ft.com) 2016

Education is the, “single most important thing” (see above) for disadvantaged students and the national economy. George Osborne funded the Pupil Premium (PP), which, in 2023, had a £2.9bn budget as an investment.¹ Schools are allocated £1,035 per student from PP funds. They are expected to close the attainment gap because it is a negative in human and economic terms.

The ‘attainment gap’ is based on failing to achieve Grade 5 GCSE in English and Maths because of poverty. It is used by the government in their analysis of results.² There are shocking variations between boroughs in their achievement. Students in Redbridge are more than twice as likely to get the Gold Standard as those in Havering.³ (see graph below)

Barking and Dagenham is the fifth most deprived borough in England⁴whilst its neighbour Havering is prosperous. Many schools have a successful learning environment for disadvantaged students. Other schools, apparently, expect them to fail by not meeting their needs.

Havering’s 653 Year 11 disadvantaged students in 2023 achieved a ‘Gold Standard’⁵ pass rate of 27%. Barking and Dagenham’s 939 disadvantaged students achieved a 38% pass rate. Eleven percentage points is a chasm. If Havering’s schools matched Barking and Dagenham’s, the success rate would soar. Put simply, it equates to an additional 68 passes for Havering’s Year 11s in 2023.

All of Havering’s schools are academies who are accountable for these disastrous results. The academies are entirely responsible for educational outcomes.

Notes

1 SN06700.pdf (parliament.uk)

2 Compare the performance of schools and colleges in England – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) This is an invaluable resource and is relatively straight-forward.

3 Havering’s GCSE Attainment Gap, 2023 – Politics in Havering See also Havering and Redbridge’s Disadvantaged Secondary Students – Politics in Havering ‘Gold Standard’ as it is a principal gateway qualification post-16

4 IoD2019_Statistical_Release.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk) See especially map 2 on p12

Havering’s GCSE Attainment Gap, 2023

GCSE Grade 5 English and Maths is as crucial for disadvantaged students as for all other youngsters. Unfortunately, disadvantaged students do so badly in some schools, it’s as if they’re victims of a conspiracy.¹

The Gold Standard for GCSE is ‘Grade 5 English and Maths’. This is the benchmark used to define the attainment gap. It’s ‘Gold’ because it impacts on post-16 opportunities where success is a game changer. Regardless of the excellence of other GCSE results students must have Grade 5 English and Maths to progress to ‘A’ level for example.

St Edwards is the only Havering school with a level playing field for disadvantaged students.

The Human Cost

In 2023, 653 disadvantaged students sat GCSE. The national success result for all students is 45.3%.² This benchmark means 295 disadvantaged students should have achieved the Gold Standard in Havering. Their actual results are 175 Gold Standard passes (27%). 120 students were denied many post-16 opportunities because their school didn’t level-up the achievement gap by using government funds efficiently.

(If St Edwards is used as the benchmark, Havering’s attainment gap increases to 151 students.)

Government funding for disadvantaged students

Schools with disadvantaged students receive £1,035 per student Pupil Premium (PP) funding. ‘Disadvantaged’ means receiving ‘Free School Meals’ or being ‘Looked After’. The money is paid directly to schools as they’re trusted to use the funds wisely and ‘level-up’ achievement.³ The minimum the government paid Havering’s 18 schools for Year 11s, 2022-3, is £678,249. Most of that funding wasn’t used efficiently as can be seen from the table above.

The Attainment Gap: Marshalls Park and Emerson Park

Both schools achieved 45% ’Gold Standard’ results for students in general but utterly failed disadvantaged students with a ‘success’ rate of 16% and 17% respectively.

Emerson Park don’t publish exam results but state, “Emerson Park Academy is, once again, celebrating an outstanding set of GCSE results.” (my emphasis)
Marshalls Park don’t publish their results either. They say, “We believe that we provide an academic education, that is grounded in strong literacy and numeracy….” (my emphasis)³

The government’s PP funding stream for Year 11 disadvantaged students is £46,575 for Marshalls Park and £48,645 for Emerson Park. Neither the government or Year 11 disadvantaged students got ‘value-for-money’. It’s clear PP funding isn’t used to the best effect. Both schools have strategies which need an urgent revisit with external experts.

The Attainment Gap: OFSTED

The attainment gap is not discussed in OFSTED reports nor is the use of Pupil Premium funding.⁴

Notes

1 The-Forgotten-Third-Interim-Report-March-2019.pdf (ascl.org.uk) This research focuses on Grade 4 and is less than what is used for this discussion. Grade 4 is an entry level qualification and is discounted for ‘A’ level courses.

2 Key stage 4 performance, Academic year 2022/23 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk)

3 Emerson Park Academy – A message from Mr McGuinness regarding GCSE Results This relates to 2022 there is nothing for 2023 even though the data was accessed February 2024. See also Marshalls (marshallspark.org.uk)

4 Marshalls Park 50148108 (ofsted.gov.uk) See also Emerson Park 50193985 (ofsted.gov.uk)

Why isn’t there a Standard Format for the publication of GCSE results?

Havering doesn’t have a standard format for publishing GCSE results.¹ As a result they’re difficult to interpret. Havering’s schools aren’t alone;

Woodford County High, Redbridge²

No of Year 11 pupils	178
No of GCSE entries	1754
% of levels 9 – 7 (equivalent to A*+ A Grades )	80%
% of levels 9	32%
% of pupils achieving 5+ levels 9-5	100%
% of pupils achieving 5+A*-C levels 9-5 including English & Maths	99%
% of students attaining English Baccalaureate	97%

There’s little detail – does the school have any weak subject areas? – but what is published is intelligible.

Hornchurch High School³

This school offers time-lapsed results from 2022, even though the 2023 results came out in late August ’23.

Performance Measure
Progress 8 Score	-0.42
Attainment 8 Score	45.4
% pupils achieving a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths	40
% pupils entering the English Baccalaureate (EBacc)	72
English Baccalaureate Average Points Score	4.22
% of pupils staying in education or employment after KS4	88

Who this set of statistics is for is unclear. Current information can be found on the government website⁴ – which the school identifies. That website is full of statistical detail, which might not suit everyone.

Abbs Cross Academy⁵They offer 2023 results without mentioning subject areas beyond an English and Maths analysis. They offer a link to the government’s website for a league table.⁶ (They are average.)

Sacred Heart of Mary
Meanwhile Havering’s top performing school,⁷shows what should done and provides a template for every school in Havering. Every subject is listed with the outcomes and the number of pupils who sat each examination.

Conclusion

There’s no acceptable explanation why Havering’s schools conceal examination results from parents and taxpayers. Last year this blog wrote about the same issue and ONE school immediately took action. Schools should understand that the publication of results is in their interests. This is especially the case in an era of conspiracy theorists.

Notes

1 How Havering’s Academies Conceal their 2022 GCSE Results – Politics in Havering

2 Woodford County High School For Girls – 2023 Exam Results

3 Hornchurch High School » EXAMINATION PERFORMANCE, 2021-22

4 Secondary – Hornchurch High School – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK (compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk)

5 Achievement And Performance – Abbs Cross Academy The school’s analysis of English and Maths is very technical and beyond most non-educator’s understanding. Effectively it’s meaningless for most parents.

6 All schools and colleges in Havering – Compare school and college performance data in England – GOV.UK (compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk)

7 GCSE-RESULTS-SUMMER-2023-v3.pdf (realsmart.co.uk)