SIR JOHN DEANE’S COLLEGE
Minutes of the Meeting of the Curriculum and Quality Committee held at the College
on Wednesday, 18th June, 2014
Present:
1.
Mr I Oulton (Chair)
Mr P Allanach
Miss J Brandreth
Miss K Kirkwood
Mr A Redley
Mr D Sandbach
In attendance: Mr A Boden (DP Curriculum)
Mrs S Armstrong (Clerk)
APOLOGIES
Apologies had been received from Mrs L Allen who was attending the SFCA
Conference.
2.
DECLARATION OF INTEREST
None.
3.
TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 26TH
FEBRUARY, 2014 AND MATTERS ARISING
Resolved that the minutes of the meeting held on 26th February, 2014 be approved.
4.
TO RECEIVE A REVIEW OF UNDERPERFORMING COURSES
The discussion which took place under this item is detailed in the confidential Part 2
minutes of the meeting.
5.
TO RECEIVE AN UPDATE ON CORE MATHS
Level 3 Core Maths is a qualification taken over two years by students who have a
minimum grade C in Maths but who are not studying A level Maths. The government
has sought post 16 institutions to bid to become part of a national pilot and Mr Boden
reported that the College had provisionally been awarded its level 3 Core Maths bid.
The College had bid for the maximum for a single institution of £30,000 and was
awaiting final approval from the DfE. Delivery of the Core Maths programme would
start at the beginning of the academic year, even though the syllabus will be not
available until October.
Two cohorts would run on the programme for 2014/15, one made up of 16 year 11
students from the College’s four main partner high schools and a cohort of 20 Lower
Sixth students from the College. The students from partner high schools would be very
well qualified but not wanting to do Maths at A Level. In terms of the Lower Sixth
students, the College had a number of students from the gifted and talented group who
might benefit from this extra qualification. The Year 11 students would come to a
twilight session from 4-6 pm and then, for the second year, they would continue with
the programme whilst they are at College.
Mr Boden said that it was difficult for a Year 10 student to know if they are a Maths
student or not and it would be quite a commitment for them to make for the whole year.
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Leftwich already have students taking Additional Maths for GCSE so the programme
was a potential overlap with that. Miss Brandreth said that Leftwich did always want
to work with the College and appreciated the opportunities it gave the students. She
had looked at the proposal with care but did not see how they would be able to select
the children who could cope and see it through. She said that the children at her school
were so keen to come to the College that they might feel they needed to drop another
subject which they would not want to happen. If the school did not offer Additional
Maths she said that they would have been able to send more through for the programme
than the College required. She said that it might be possible for the school to join the
programme after the next academic year.
The Principal said that the work on the Core Maths programme had brought her and Mr
Boden much closer to the workload of Year 11 students. They would not see schools
who chose not to be part of the pilot as not supporting the College.
A Governor asked if the bid had been based on that number of students. Mr Boden
confirmed that it had, and that it was a great opportunity to enthuse gifted and talented
students and make them keen to come to the College. The Principal said that if the
numbers were not recruited from the Partner High Schools, they would run two Lower
Sixth groups.
6.
TO RECEIVE THE PREDICTIONS OF RESULTS
The information on predicted results was distributed to the Committee. Mr Boden said
that the A2 prediction should be more realistic and that a 99.6% pass rate was
predicted. Staff were told not to predict a fail all the way through the year and this had
been the first time they could predict a U. The predictions had not been shared with
students. Mr Boden said that some things were out of the College’s control on the
predictions and gave the example that two students had not turned up for a Business
Exam which one of them only needed 4 marks from in order to pass his A level.
Mr Boden said he did think that the predictions for high grades were a little generous.
He said that the predicted pass rate of 97.6% for AS level was far too generous and that
the pass rate for 2013 had been 90.7%.
Each member of staff was given their own data after each review so that they can see
each of their groups and their predictions for them. It was the first time that teachers
had been asked to predict in this way and that would become more embedded next
year. The College was evolving its understanding of data and it was hoped that by this
time next year the predictions would be more accurate.
The Principal said that there was a cultural shift in terms of individual responsibility. A
governor commented that the system would make staff think more realistically about
their data input at each stage of the year. The Principal said that the College would not
want predictions to tarnish students’ expectations of their own capability to achieve.
Miss Brandreth said that you needed to take into consideration the fact that there had
been a lot of changes. Even experienced staff were dealing with a lot of syllabus
changes and had to work out what the impact of that would be. She said she had a lot
of sympathy for them at the moment.
Mr Boden said there had been two instances where he had had to challenge the exam
board. The first was in Physics where, despite excellent teaching, many of the students
did not get to the end of the paper. The second instance had been in PE where the
moderator had come in and moderated three students’ work. One of those students had
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tonsillitis and the College was marked outside the tolerance which means that the
whole cohort was marked down. The College was denied further moderation but a
compromise was agreed whereby the College could re-submit video evidence. It has
gone to the Chief Examiner so there were possible grounds for optimism.
The Principal said that the new process was a step towards empowering teachers to
make decisions around their professional practice. When appraisals were carried out
there should be no surprises.
7
TO RECEIVE AN OUTLINE FOR CPD, LESSON OBSERVATIONS AND
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT REVIEW
Mr Boden outlined the lesson observation plan for 2014/15. The main changes were to
introduce a two cycle lesson observation system with formal observations scheduled
for both term 1 and term 2.
If a Grade 3 is awarded, support for teachers would be put in place by way of an
additional coaching observation, meetings with their mentor on at least two occasions
and observing a grade 1 tutor prior to their second graded re-observation. Governors
noted that the changes would impose an increased burden on Mr Boden, HODs and
Seconds in Department.
The report included in the papers gave details of the Professional Development plan for
2014/15. Mr Boden said there had been a successful twilight programme in place for
professional development throughout the current year. The college would be moving
to a triad system next year. Tutors would be placed in a group of three staff drawn
from different departments. The groups would meet three times per term. The first
meeting would be to plan one tutor’s lesson, the second would be for two tutors to
observe that tutor’s lesson and the third would be to reflect upon the session. The
process would be repeated in term 2 and term 3 with all tutors taking a turn to teach and
be observed.
A whole-College professional development day would be held on 28th August.
Teaching and Learning expert, Steve Garnett, would be presenting on the day.
Governors are welcome to attend.
The new performance management review plan for 2014/15 had been discussed with
the SCA. There would be a three review cycle with a more integrated and coherent set
of paperwork to provide for more effective reviews of performance. It looked complex
but it brings in lesson observation data, CPD data and the teacher’s actual data as well.
8.
TO RECEIVE AN OUTLINE OF THE QUALITY CYCLE FOR 2014/15
Mr Boden said that the SAR was at the heart of the quality cycle overview. This
generated a validated action plan and focus for the college and departments. The main
quality activities were detailed in the report, together with the schedule for the SAR
process for 2014/15. The SAR process which was used this year will be replicated next
year and governors would, again, be involved in both the curriculum and support
validation panel meetings. Mr Boden said that he would also be ensuring that there
were more external people on the validation panels this year.
The quality cycle highlighted the new two cycle lesson observation process as well as
the new three cycle performance management review.
Mr Boden said that the recent progress review day had included a university and
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careers fair. All students attended a HE talk as well as having the opportunity to talk to
representatives from various universities and organisations. The Principal said that
combining the two events had allowed students to think about their choice of A2
subjects in conjunction with their university applications.
Mr Boden said that learner views were not included in the document and he would be
drawing up an appropriate strategy for that.
9.
TO RECEIVE A REPORT ON ATTENDANCE AND RETENTION
The report compared attendance for 2012/13 with 2013/14. The College had insisted
that there was no study leave this year and students had to attend lessons during the
examination period. Mr Boden said that the key date to compare on the report was the
12th May and that showed that attendance was the same as last year. They had thought
that there was a problem with attendance in October/November but several measures
had been put in place which had improved it over the year. Next year, the Progress
Mentors will be focussed on their students’ attendance and Mr Boden said that they
were confident that attendance will be sharper.
Students all had a designated study period this year and they and to sign in when they
got to Learning Resources during that period. It was planned that next year the College
would require them to have had two sessions per week in the library and they would
use their badge to register their attendance at those.
Retention had shown a consistent pattern all year with Lower Sixth being better than
Upper Sixth. The figures indicated that there should be a better progression to A2 this
year.
The Principal said that the College had recruited a number of marginally qualified
students this year. The retention amongst those students was virtually identical to other
students.
10.
TO REVIEW THE SCHEDULE OF SUGGESTED STANDARD ITEMS TO
APPEAR ON THE AGENDAS FOR EACH CURRICULUM AND QUALITY
MEETING IN 2014/15
The schedule of items to be discussed at each meeting next year was discussed. It was
agreed that there should be a standing item on each agenda which was an update on the
progress against the strategic plan.
11.
TO DISCUSS THE PROCESS FOR THE SELF-EVALUATION OF THE
CURRICULUM AND QUALITY COMMITTEE
The Chair reported that it had been agreed that each committee would carry out an
annual self-evaluation. A draft questionnaire to be used for the Curriculum and Quality
committee was distributed and the process for carrying out the self-assessment was
discussed. The Committee approved both the form and the process for completing it
which would take place in September to tie in with the College SAR process.
The Committee reviewed its Terms of Reference and agreed some amendments to
them.
Resolved that the process for the self-evaluation of the Committee be
recommended to the Board for approval.
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Resolved that the amendments to the Committee’s Terms of Reference be
recommended to the Board for approval.
12.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
The Principal said that when the restructuring had been carried out last year they had
put curriculum subjects together to go with the best skill set of the HODs. There was a
department of Business and International Studies and another which was English, Film
and Media. This had now been changed and there would be a department of Business
and Computing and the English department would now be with foreign languages.
Media and Film have moved into Social Sciences. Computing had been taken out of
Biology and Biology would go back to being a single subject department because of the
problems it had had over the last year. The updated structure will be sent out to
governors for information.
The Principal said that the House system would be re-introduced next year. The
Houses will be Brunner, Witton, Deane’s, Wilbraham and School
Mr Boden distributed information on STEM applications. The overall increase in
applications for 2014/15 had resulted in an increase in applications for STEM subjects.
The extra applications were from non-partner high schools and the Principal said that
they were still business planning on a very conservative conversion rate for those
applications. It was not known if the online application system had made it easier for
students to make multiple applications and how many of those applicants would enrol
at the College. Two pre-Sixth Form days had been arranged for applicants from nonpartner high schools and 350 students would be attending those days.
13.
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
24th September, 2014 commencing at 3.15 pm
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