Derbyshire Education Improvement Service
'The service has the benefit of good capacity, capability and commitment.'
(Ofsted 2005)
The services for Education Improvement include:
The Derbyshire Education Improvement Service
The Early Years Education Improvment Service
The 14-19 Education Improvement Team.
All of these services are dedicated to raising standards of achievement and improving the quality of education for children and young people from birth to age 19 in schools, centres and settings.
The three posts of Deputy Assistant Director are located within Education Improvment Service. They have principal responsibility for the leadership and management of programmes and services across Education Improvement in support of the goals of the Derbyshire Children and Young People's Plan.
This strategic plan sets out the key priorities of the Department of Children and Younger Adults and guides the key strategic work of
Education Improvement
The services provide support and challenge to schools, centres and settings; they ensure effective intervention to prevent failure; and they provide quality assurance to ensure the effective delivery of the Every Child Matters outcomes.
The services are acknowledged by OFSTED, HMI, Government Office and the National Strategies to be well led, effective, innovative and well supported by schools.
Inspections and assessments of the local authority have confirmed that standards of attainment are good, that intervention in schools causing concern is effective; that implementation of the National Strategies is good and outstanding; that the authority's process for school improvement dialogue is robust and that the authority has outstanding capacity for further improvement.
A brief outline of each service is provided below:
Education Improvement Service
The Derbyshire Education Improvement Service is located within the Children and Younger Adults Directorate. Education Improvement Services are led by Jim Hickman, Assistant Director, and provide advisory support for education improvement in schools and settings for learners aged 0 − 19.
The Derbyshire Education Improvement Service is managed by three Deputy Assistant Directors, Saranjit Shetra, Chris Tilley and Gerry Richardson. The Service comprises 12 Senior Advisers for School Improvement, 24 School Improvement Advisers and 35 Consultants within specialist teams, together with a business support team.
The work of the Education Improvement Service is broken down into the 12 different portfolios of Educational Inclusion, Literacy, Numeracy, ICT, QDD, Early Years, Secondary Strategy, Leadership and Management, CPD, Information, Data & Target Setting, and Schools Causing Concern.
A senior adviser leads each portfolio. Advisers are attached to one of more of these teams helping to lead on specific aspects of school improvement. Each of these teams organises the relevant support programmes for schools, and also contributes to our own internal and professional development programme. In addition the portfolio teams are regularly engaged in supporting the work of national bodies, including the DCSF and NCSL.
The Business Support team of approximately 50 people, is managed by Angela Walker, Assistant Education Officer, and works in three core teams (Adviser Support, Finance and Traded Services, Information and Communication) and a number of specialist teams (Music Partnership, Out of School Hours Learning, ICT Curriculum Support, National Strategy Support). The team works together to ensure that the administrative needs of the service are met to the high standards expected and delivered each year.
As a result of all this work, the Education Improvement Service enjoys a high reputation locally and a developing reputation nationally for providing good quality advice, guidance and publications. The high quality of link adviser support, especially in schools causing concern, is acknowledged regularly in HMI and OFSTED reports.
Early Years Education Improvment Service
The Early Years Education Improvment Service provides support and challenge to non-maintained, independent and private providers of nursery education in the EYFS. It works closely with the Education Improvment Service to support maintained schools in the EYFS and to build partnerships and networks across the sector.
The Early Years Manager, Pennie Akehurst leads a team of EY Improvement Co-ordinators and Improvement Officers to provide support for schools and the 42 proposed Children's Centres. The Deputy Assistant Director, Early Years, Inclusion and Cross Phase Projects, provides strategic leadership and oversight of this service.
14-19 Education Improvment Service
Three 14-19 managers support schools, workplace and training providers to develop 14-19 curriculum pathways, in close liaison with the AIS. Their work is led strategically and quality assured by the Deputy Assistant Director (Secondary Strategy).
Striving for excellence
Education Improvement services have made a significant contribution to achieving "excellence" status for the council. The EIS was judged to be a highly effective service in our most recent OFSTED inspection and annual performance assessment.
The service has provided support programmes to other authorities and has developed national training materials for middle managers in collaboration with NCSL.
Currently, the Education Improvment Service is at the forefront of a number of exciting initiatives including:
piloting secondary Intensive Support Programmes
piloting national pathfinders in the Early Years
developing collaborative learning across school improvement clusters to support local learning communities
developing strategies for Creativity and Personalised Learning.
Standards in Derbyshire
Overall, standards of attainment in Derbyshire are good. Standards have continued to improve across Derbyshire schools as a whole over recent years.
At Key Stage 1, pupils continue to attain above national outcomes in literacy and numeracy, putting Derbyshire into the top ten of the highest performing authorities and first in the statistical neighbour group.
At Key Stage 2, standards are above national outcomes and compare favourably with other local authorities in Derbyshire's benchmark group.
At Key Stage 3 & 4 standards have also continued to improve steadily and are above national outcomes in most areas.