Pupil exclusions, attendance and overall performance are just some of the challenges facing Liverpool’s schools.
A report to go before a Liverpool Council committee has laid bare the stark reality facing the city’s education sector as it emerges from Covid-19.
According to data provided by Jonathan Jones, the local authority’s director of education and skills, more than a third of Liverpool’s 29 secondary schools currently fall below the Ofsted rating of good or better at just 60%.
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Ofsted operates a four-tiered review system, ranging from inadequate, requires improvement to good and outstanding, with just 17 meeting a good or outstanding mark.
However, Liverpool’s secondary schools remain extremely popular with parents as 93% of applicants for a year 7 place sought to send their children to a city location for September this year.
Of the city’s 120 primary schools, 89% - 106 - are meeting the objective while early years and special schools are reported as 100% and 93% respectively.
The levels of attendance across the 29 secondary schools in 2020/21 was also below the national average, with persistence absenteeism (PA) - when a pupil misses 10 per cent or more of possible teaching sessions - recorded at 14.5% compared to 11.7% in England overall.
By comparison, PA in all schools across the city was reported as 12.6% during the same period, compared to a 10.4% average across the country as a whole.
General absences across Liverpool schools have come down year-on-year however, from 5.2% in 2016/17 to 4.7% in 2020/21.
Mr Jones’ report, which was requested by Liverpool Council’s education and skills select committee, also documents how 42 children have been excluded from the city’s schools since the start of September 2021 - with the youngest between around 10 and 11-years-old.
Of those excluded, 28 came from academies compared to 14 from maintained or voluntary aided sites.
Boys outnumbered girls 22 to 20 when being dismissed permanently, with year nine students the most likely to receive the sanction at 17 in total.
A single primary school pupil in year six has been excluded since the start of the current school year.
The number of children excluded has more than doubled on 2020/21, with 20 released from schools during the coronavirus period.
In 2019/20, a total of 74 young people were removed from locations permanently during the same period.
Cllr Liz Makinson, teacher and member of the education and skills committee, said the report was symptomatic of a “wider issue in education.”
She said: “With the pandemic, kids have been really affected by it through loss, disruption and trauma.
“We need to work towards an approach that isn’t just three strikes and you’re out but that’s difficult without the necessary funding in place.
“This is detrimental to kids from deprived areas and lower incomes and education on the whole needs a rethink, with a move to get to the root cause of issues, rather than just handing out punishments.”
Cllr Makinson added that the current education system in Liverpool goes against the “caring philosophy” of the city.
She said: “There’s been a move to a uniform approach to teaching and this desire to micromanage teachers is actually detrimental.”
The report will go before councillors during the education and skills select committee on Wednesday.
Liverpool Council was approached for a response.
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