Concern over pass rates of city schoolkids
THE percentage of pupils attending ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ Coventry schools is higher than the national average - but concern has been raised over the performance of secondary pupils.
Overall 92 per cent of Coventry pupils attend ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ graded Ofsted provision across the city, compared to 87 per cent nationally and 82 per cent from neighbouring authority areas.
But just under 40per cent of children (a total of 60.2 per cent) are leaving secondary school without Grade 4 in English and maths - the standard pass compared to the 64.2per cent of children nationally.
Speaking at an Education and Children’s Services Scrutiny Board at Coventry City Council, Cllr Peter Male said the figure is “unacceptable”.
Cllr David Kershaw added: “Secondary school performance is not good enough, let’s be clear on that.
“Are we challenging enough? Are we being honest enough?
“It is so easy to say it is not our job as they are academies.”
Director of education and skills Kirston Nelson said she was “confident we are in a system that is improving”, adding: “The stark reality is 36per cent of children nationally aren’t [passing English and maths in secondary school], so it is a national issue.”
Anne Brennan, education advisor, added: “We know we still need to do a lot more around secondary and continue to improve both attainment, progress and achievement overall.” The percentage of children attending ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ secondary schools in Coventry has improved year-on-year since 2015 and at 85per cent is higher than the national average (83 per cent) for the first time in three years.
Coventry also has 100 per cent of pupils attending ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ special schools compared to 93per cent nationally and from neighbouring authorities.
But the percentage of pupils at good or outstanding Early Years centres is still marginally below the national average - 94per cent compared to 95 per cent.
Performance-wise, students in Key Stage 1 and 2 are performing below the national average in expected standards for reading, writing and maths.
Despite this, attainment at Key Stage 2 in the subjects has improved markedly, from 49per cent achieving the standards in 2016 to 62per cent in 2018.
“The attainment and progress of primary schools ia a proud record now in this city,” added Cllr Kershaw.
Coventry’s progress 8 scores - the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school - also improved 0.04 last year, compared to the 0.01 national.
But is still marginally below the average national improvement overall.
Ms Brennan added: “Although we are still not there in terms of being in line or above with national in many of our indicators, for almost every single indicator performance measure at Key Stage 4 we improved at a faster rate than national, so that is a success story.”