On Thursday, the White British network of about ten schools came together at Haverstock for our most recent meeting. It reminded me of The Guardian article I had read earlier in the year, where the expression ‘white British’ or ‘white working class’, was a phrase itself that become so commonplace, that few recognised the actual definition of the concept. We poured over the Camden data for white disadvantage, which actually show some signs of improvement with gaps closing and positive progress scores at both the end of KS2 for all subjects and gains made at KS4. However, there still remains work to be done, to reduce the variability that exists across Camden schools, not just for white British but for other ethnic groups.

Although Camden Learning were unsuccessful in our bid to the strategic school improvement fund (DfE) for our project on the white British cohort, what the process enabled us to do, was to support the thinking around the actual theory of change and the key components for incremental improvement. Our network quite rightly is prioritising our time and resources to tackling attendance of the white British cohort, the significance of oracy and the related importance of transition between KS2 and KS3-the the attention of the key components, schools in Camden can continue to challenge the culture of underachievement and stagnation.

My thanks go to the schools/ Heads and staff who have completed the staff workforce survey (51 responses) that we recently circulated pertaining directly to Camden, so that the Schools Led Improvement Group (SLIG) can start applying the analysis and key messages to a local plan for addressing the challenges. The NFER this week, have published a report into workforce dynamics –https://www.nfer.ac.uk/key-topics-expertise/school-workforce with a clear headline that, Teacher churn continues to rise. The report suggests that Primary school teacher numbers have just about managed to keep pace with pupil numbers, however new trainees in particular secondary subjects has seen a sharp decline. Interestingly enough, the two standards meetings that I attended this week with Parliament Hill School and Camden School for Girls, both touched on the difficult subject of recruiting for subject specific subjects and retaining staff in the current climate. I will provide the analysis from the responses to the workforce survey in the next couple of weeks.

Finally, following on from the standards meetings with Parliament Hill and Camden School for Girls this week, I would like to highlight the terrific Progress 8 scores that both the schools achieved; the CSG P8 score of +0.89 was exceptional-well done to all.

Jon Abbey

Managing Director, Camden Learning