Modernising Education Programme Draft Strategy

MEP Strategy

The most recent Estyn report published in September 2023 notes the following with regards to the authority’s educational objectives and strategy:

• The authority has a clear strategy for modernising and re-organising its schools, which is based on sound principles and objectives. The strategy reflects the authority’s desire to create a range of high-quality schools, which meet the needs of their current and future learners. There is an appropriate link between the objectives of the school modernisation strategy, the council’s well-being objectives and the education service’s ten-year plan. This includes the vision to ensure that children and young people have the best possible start in life, as well as making their communities safe and prosperous. The authority has specific plans for providing community facilities to reduce the effects of poverty on the achievement of pupils and young people.
• The commitment of senior authority leaders, the Council Leader and the Cabinet Member with responsibility for Education and Children's Services to make the strategy a reality, is a positive feature. They are working effectively with the school modernisation team and other stakeholders to review the strategy to ensure it is intertwined and responsive to the authority's current requirements. For example, they adapted the strategy to support Curriculum for Wales, the Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP) 2022-32 as well as meeting challenges such as recruiting school leaders in rural areas of the county.
• However, delays in decision-making, including following formal consultations, have meant that the authority has not fully addressed their plans to reorganise and modernise education.

This strategy has been developed to direct the future delivery of the new MEP.

The MEP is guided by a set of strategic objectives:

• To develop a schools’ network that is educationally effective, resource efficient and sustainable for the long term.
• To develop a pattern of provision within which every learning setting can facilitate a high-quality education to all its learners, either as an individual institution or as part of a federation or collaboration with other settings or providers.
• To create school environments that allow every child within every school to access a curriculum and experience teaching that motivates them to achieve their full potential, whilst also facilitating a programme of extra-curricular activities that stimulate their physical and emotional well-being.
• To develop infrastructure at all schools that is equipped for learning in the 21st century, facilitating the realisation of core objectives for raising educational standards and sustaining them at high levels of performance.
• To deliver a strategic approach to capital investment, integrated with a programme for the rationalisation of provision across the schools’ network to effectively match supply with demand.
• To rebuild, remodel, refurbish or modernise all school settings that are to be retained for the long-term, so that they conform as closely as practicable to adopted design standards.
• To contribute to the achievement of wider policy objectives, for example, community regeneration and renewal, healthy lifestyles, etc., through the development of appropriate enabling infrastructure.
• To improve the efficiency and educational viability of the schools’ sector by reducing the number of empty places to a reasonable level, whilst facilitating wherever practicable the expression of parental preference, responding effectively to demographic change.
• To develop infrastructure at schools that is fully accessible to all persons and enables all learners to access a high-quality education, irrespective of individual needs.
• To develop individual and collaborative school solutions that contribute to a county-wide single comprehensive education system.

To facilitate the future transformation of the schools’ network, a set of principles have been developed and act as a benchmark for what every primary school in Carmarthenshire should have as a minimum.

 

Carmarthenshire’s Primary Educational Principles

• Have sustainable leadership, with leaders who are free to lead and manage, with no permanent teaching commitment.
• Have no more than 2-year groups per teaching class
• Have sufficient pupil numbers to sustain the above structural arrangements.
• Be financially viable under the Local Management of Schools (LMS) funding framework and able to operate for the long-term without a budget deficit.
• Have access to suitable outdoor teaching facilities to enhance learning and support physical well-being across the school.
• Be fully inclusive and accessible for all.
• Be equipped with modern facilities to support digital learning.
• Have a high-quality learning environment to support the wellbeing of all learners and to enhance learner progress and their achievements across a wide range of skills and curriculum areas.

It must be noted that:

• As part of any review, we will consider how we can realise Carmarthenshire’s Welsh in Education Strategic Plan and enhancing Welsh medium education.
• Should the decision to discontinue a Welsh medium school be taken, we will facilitate and support access to alternative Welsh medium provision.

The strategic aims and objectives/benefits of the MEP have been designed to promote and complement a range of expectations, alongside the Educational Principles and are centred around seven key themes:

 

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