The Committee for Education, Sport and Culture is continuing to use the annual report as a benchmarking tool for the Education Strategy. It’s a wide-ranging strategy that guides ESC’s work as it attempts to bring island education into the 21st century.
“I think it’s important to note that speed doesn’t always assist in embedding deep, systemic change and that’s what we’re aiming for,” said the President of ESC, Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen.
“It’s clear that education has to change to meet the 21st century requirements. That was my vision of delivery when I stood as the President, and that if you’re going to change education, which in large part hasn’t changed too discernibly since it was pioneered in a sort of Victorian fashion… you have to take people along on a journey in a measured way.
“The change and the improvement… is happening at a pace that I’m content with. If it was happening any quicker, I think that it would not be as credible.”
The report highlights several key successes and areas still in need of development:
Attendance
Increasing attendance in States’ schools continues to be a challenge that ESC needs to overcome. The island’s Director of Education, Nick Hynes, said it is a “really complicated issue”.
“It’s a picture which other jurisdictions are struggling with coming to terms with and how they can improve attendance,” he said.
“Our attendance within primary schools has recovered far quicker than our attempts in secondary schools, the primary schools still aren’t quite at the pre-covid level, but they’re not far off.
“Secondary school attendance is taking longer to return and it’s still not where we want it to be.
“We are grappling with some of the same issues that other jurisdictions are having about mental health and wellbeing due to covid… because they didn’t always attend in the same way during covid and some of that becomes a habit.
“Attendance has been impacted by some people being ultra careful and not going to school or attending school where previously they might have done because of fears around the pandemic and infection.
“And we also need to tackle and work with parents about the importance of attendance, and how if their child isn’t attending, it does diminish their opportunities to be more successful… and it’s something that we’re working on and trying to pick apart.”
The pre-Covid attendance target is 95% and while attendance in all settings has risen, it still hasn’t met this level yet.
Pictured: Deputy Dudley-Owen and Mr Hynes.
Mathematics and literacy
While literacy levels have substantially increased in the island’s schools, mathematics is still behind where it needs to be. Mr Hynes said Education is “halfway through a substantial programme to improve maths across the island”.
During the past year each school was reviewed and subsequently provided with a dedicated maths plan to bring numeracy up to an appropriate level. While there has been some improvement, Year 6 results still sit below English standards.
Deputy Dudley-Owen emphasised the need for a community where everyone has a basic maths and english qualification. It comes years after GCSE level education was made mandatory, whereas before students could leave school at 15-years-old.
“Our community attitude towards the school leaving age – which was unique – was that it was okay, it was the Guernsey way.
“There were such high levels of employment… that it didn’t affect people’s employment opportunities or chances.”
Despite this, Deputy Dudley-Owen said the fallout from this way of thinking has led to wider issues in the community.
“How can you support your child with their reading if your reading age is no higher than a primary school child – and that’s no over exaggeration for some members of our community. They’ve managed to hide it… they’ve managed to make shortcuts to be able to live life, but actually, their level of satisfaction and their ability to reach their potential is significantly curtailed without those two key skills of being able to read and write properly.
“So, it’s really important for me, in government, to be able to make sure that all of our people are reaching their potential.”
This workstream includes an outreach programme where the College of Further Education through the Guernsey Institute is delivering adult literacy sessions in the community.
“People don’t want to come into a school or come into the college to access that,” said Mr Hynes, “So, they’ve been delivering sessions within cafes, they have been delivering it in some primary schools when parents are dropping off their own children.
“And we want to look at that programme for developing adult literacy numeracy over the next three years.”
Teacher training
One area of success is the installation of a new on-island Initial Teacher Training Programme, that has already seen a dozen people begin the journey to becoming fully trained teachers.
“I think that’s one of our significant successes,” said Deputy Dudley-Owen.
“It’s an investment in our local workforce… and investment in our islanders is something that the community wants to see.
“They don’t want us to be importing staff wholesale from the UK.”
Mental Health
Supporting the mental health of staff and students continues to be an area of development for Education and the work to provide a framework of help has been informed by several mental health surveys.
“I think it’s a really good example of how we’ve been listening to our workforce,” said Mr Hynes.
“We’re developing a mental health and wellbeing strategy for all our children and staff.
“We’re working closely with public health to make sure that our policy and strategy ties in with the overall strategy for mental health within the States of Guernsey because it’s all it’s all interlinked.”