Annual children’s services assessment
“Children’s services in Cheshire East have made good progress and continue to perform well.”
These are just some of the comments published today as part of Ofsted’s annual assessment of children’s services at Cheshire East Council.
The Council was judged to be “performing well” overall. It is a rating of three on a four-point scale. Ofsted inspected a range of services, including, schools, colleges, children’s centres, children’s homes, foster care, youth offending services and arrangements for contact, referral and assessment where there are concerns regarding the welfare of a child.
The report noted that progress had been made by the Council working with partner agencies in reducing the number of children aged five – 11 that are overweight, through promoting healthy lifestyles and providing services for children with emotional and mental difficulties. Additionally it acknowledged the recent unannounced inspection of front-line child protection services that found a number of strengths, some areas for development and no areas of priority action.
All schools and colleges were found to be good at helping young children to do well and enjoy their learning. The Council was also found to be providing good support to those schools that need it most. Ofsted also recognised that bullying is taken very seriously and anti-bullying strategies have been introduced across the authority.
Educational attainment was also praised with primary schools helping children reach a good standard of English and maths before secondary school. By the age of 16, more than half of young people gain five or more good GCSEs, which is better than areas of similar size.
There were areas where further development has been identified. These are:
- increasing the number of secondary schools that are good or better;
- improving attendance rates of those children who are frequently absent from school; and
- improving achievement for young people aged 16 and 19 from low-income families.
Councillor Hilda Gaddum, Cabinet member with responsibility for children and family services, said: “I am very pleased by the findings of this report. It recognises the amount of hard work being done by our staff within children’s services and those within schools, early years and college settings, on a daily basis to improve services for children and young people.
“This is all the more impressive considering Cheshire East is a new unitary authority, with all the challenges that presents.
“However, this is just one step along the way and by acting on the recommendations we must aim to achieve a rating of excellent next year.”
For a full copy of the report and more information go to www.ofsted.gov.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment