Friday 24 February 2012
The Education Department has published a comprehensive Annual Report and statistical digest to help the community learn more about the range of services it provides and monitor how it is performing against various indicators.
'Education Matters - the Annual Report of the Education Department, its schools and services 2010-11', includes information about the roles and responsibilities of all sections of the Department; it celebrates the achievements and developments that have taken place over the last academic year; there is information about individual schools' events and activities as well as data on school attainment and progress measures, public exams results, participation rates, exclusions and much more.
"Both the current and former Education Boards believe that we need to provide the community with more information about how our schools and services are performing," said Education Minister, Robert Sillars.
"We are committed to working within the six principles of good governance, as adopted by the States, and want to make sure that parents, politicians and the wider community have access to relevant statistics and information which help them better understand what we do and how we measure up," said Deputy Sillars.
The Annual Report includes sections on the Education Department, its structure, strategic focus and an overview of the budget; there is information about the actions and activities of the Department's individual sections and support services over the last academic year; the numbers of staff working in each of these sections is indicated and schools have submitted reports outlining their particular highlights of 2010-11.
"Although much of this information has been available in various different places before, including our website, this is the first time that we have brought all of this together in a single public printed report," said Deputy Sillars.
"There is a lot of data included in the statistical digest which I'm sure will be of interest to parents and will no doubt be reported widely in the media. We have published individual primary school progress and attainment data for the first time and have also provided information on average class sizes, pupil:teacher ratios and individual school exclusion and attendance statistics.
"It is important to note that schools have provided their own contextual commentary on their results and also indicated what they are doing to in terms of continuing to raise standards. All our schools are different with different numbers of pupils and different pupil profiles; there are some things we do the same as England such as GCSEs and A Levels but also things we do differently such as using teacher assessment rather than tests at primary level. This means it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between ourselves and other jurisdictions and also between individual schools," said Deputy Sillars.
"What we do know is this there is always room for improvement and that is what we will continue to strive to achieve."
Parents are always welcome to discuss any aspect of a school's performance with their child's headteacher. Parents of primary age pupils have already received information about their particular school and the data included in the statistical digest.
Copies of the Annual Report will be sent to schools, school committees, employers, politicians, other States Departments and organisations. Copies are also available from the Education Department's offices in the Grange.
