Warwickshire County Council Cabinet has today – Thursday 9 May – endorsed a series of recommendations aimed at tackling disparities in educational attainment rates across the county.
These important recommendations come from a working group established in July 2022 to investigate the issue and include:
Lobbying for legislative change to allow automatic enrolment for free school meals: This would help schools to identify disadvantaged pupils and access additional funding to support them.
Establishing a sub-committee of the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee: This sub-committee will monitor the implementation of new and existing education strategies.
Enhancing the promotion of opportunities for pupils: This includes more communication about the different pass rates in 11-plus examinations and the additional free tutorial support available to Pupil Premium children.
Continuing the progress of the Warwickshire Education Partnership Board: This board will ensure a strategic approach as well as facilitate collaboration and sharing of best practices between schools across the county.
The working group also identified the long-term ambition of improving mental health for children as a potential factor towards achieving higher attainment levels.
Cllr Kam Kaur, Portfolio Holder for Education at Warwickshire County Council, said: “Part of our Child Friendly Warwickshire ambitions are to ensure that every single one of our children and young people is encouraged and empowered to succeed and thrive in education. This working group has identified several key areas where we can create opportunities for young people, whose circumstances might otherwise place them at a disadvantage, so that they, too, can have the best possible start in life.
“We are confident that these initiatives and programmes of work will help us to close the gap in educational attainment rates across Warwickshire. The next step is to develop an action plan to implement these recommendations.”
The full report of the working group, including a detailed explanation of the recommendations, is available on the Warwickshire County Council website: https://democracy.warwickshire.gov.uk/documents/s36725/Educational%20Attainment%20Working%20Group%20Report.pdf