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Geraint James, statutory head of education services at Conwy County Borough Council and chair of the North Wales Consortium, explains why six Welsh authorities are working together to raise standards in schools.

The latest GCSE results seem to suggest that the achievement gap between English and Welsh children is widening. Although not directly comparable due to the inclusion of the IGCSE maths qualification in some schools, according to the Department for Education, the number of English students getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths, has increased by nearly 5% to 58.3%, whilst in Wales, this figure stood at 49.6% – a rise of just 2%.

The Welsh Government has pledged its commitment to reforming education for children in Wales and consultations on its School Standards and Organisation (Wales) bill are due to end on 5 January 2012. However, change is already well underway in North Wales, where we have brought six authorities together as a consortium to improve standards of teaching and learning in the area. By working together, we will be in a much stronger position to identify and address the issues preventing children from reaching their full potential on a regional basis. 

Achieving more for less

The Welsh Government wants to see greater collaboration in the public sector and in these challenging financial times, more and more councils are looking at how they can work more closely together to meet the needs of their communities.

The authorities that make up the North Wales Consortium include Conwy and Wrexham County Borough Councils, the Isle of Anglesey, Denbighshire and Flintshire County Councils and Gwynedd Council. Working as a group will make it easier for us to target human and financial resources in proportion to councils’ needs, which is one of the requirements set out by the Welsh Government’s new School Standards Unit.

We will be able to share staff, training and education expertise across all authorities and this will help us to maximise the resources available to us as a group. In addition to this, the councils can work much more collaboratively to implement effective early intervention and prevention measures that will help break down the barriers to learning sooner in children’s schooling and reduce the likelihood that more intensive support will be required later on. Data will have an important role to play in enabling us to achieve our objectives.

Using technology to improve outcomes

Having technology in place that will support effective data sharing is critical to the success of any strategic partnership. The authorities involved in the consortium chose Capita’s One solution to support meeting this challenge. One enables key data such as pupils’ attendance, behaviour and achievement from each council to be accessed and analysed. This wealth of data provides a holistic view of how children are progressing across the region. Using the same system and harmonising the data across all councils also ensures that all those working to improve educational outcomes for children have access to the information they need in their roles, regardless of where they work.

The authorities will be able to analyse the data available and use it to inform decisions being made on where resources should be invested to raise pupils’ attainment and support school improvement. School leaders will also be able to identify where measures have been put in place in neighbouring schools to tackle issues such as poor attendance and achievement successfully. There is a lot of great work being done in many schools and making it easier for this best practice to be shared will be vital to driving the change that is needed.

There are some financial benefits to using a single solution too, particularly from the ability to work more efficiently as a group in the provision of education services in North Wales.

Delivering a better service

Plans are underway to harmonise business processes across the consortium. This will ensure greater consistency and efficiency in the services we provide to children and families, but will also enable us to improve the way we deliver those services. If a child is identified as having additional learning needs, for example, or has been assessed by an education psychologist, details of the support put in place will be available if they change schools or as they move into the next stage of their education. This will provide practitioners with the most up to date view of a child’s progress so that they can make more informed decisions on any additional support they might need. Authorities within the consortium will also be able to use the information to measure the success of the strategies that have been introduced to improve educational outcomes for specific groups of children. The most effective services can then be replicated across all schools.

Although there is still some work to do, we believe that the consortium is set to transform the way that education services are planned and delivered in North Wales. The group is committed to improving the life chances of Welsh children and providing them with the highest possible standard of education is the first step.