Secondary education roundtable discussion, 18 February

On 9 December 2024 the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel of the States Assembly published its review into secondary education funding in Jersey. The review went wider than that issue and provides the best current analysis of secondary education in Jersey, including the structure of secondary education and assessing performance. The Policy Centre’s submission to the review covered these two areas. The Centre’s comments on the review were published on 23 January 2025. The Minister’s response to the review was published on 24 January 2025.

To consider these issues a roundtable meeting was held on 18 February 2025. 22 people attended – members of the governing bodies of island schools and others with an interest in education.

Deputy Catherine Curtis, Chair of the Scrutiny Panel, summarised the report’s findings and the Centre’s Senior Adviser, Mark Boleat, commented on measurements of attainment. There followed an open discussion under the Chatham House Rule, that is that comments may be used but not attributed.

Two key issues were identified –

• The lack of ambition and vision for education in Jersey.
• Inadequate data and therefore no transparency, particularly in respect of attainment. There is reluctance to identify what needs to be published and then getting on with it.

In more detail, the following points made –

• The Scrutiny report provided an excellent analysis of the secondary education system in Jersey, including more data than the government has published.
• The response by the Minister was disappointing, with limited acceptance of the recommendations and references to matters being under review.
• Lack of transparency in respect of data relating to the education system was unsatisfactory. Very limited data are published on the government website and are almost invariably not up to date. A letter to the Scrutiny Panel in July 2023 contained much new information but is very difficult to find. Without adequate data bad policy decisions are more likely to be made. [This page of the Government website gives published statistics. Open Data is supposed to be the source of detailed statistics. There is just one table on education, showing pupil numbers by type of school.]
• There is a reluctance to measure attainment levels and to compare Jersey's position with comparable jurisdictions notwithstanding that the government’s ambition is “to continue to build an education system that is comparable to, or better than, other high performing jurisdictions”.
• Attainment 8/Jersey 8 measure exam results in absolute terms. Progress 8 measures value added. Data on both measures is published for all English state schools. Jersey publishes no data as a matter of course and no data at all on value added. However, it is understood that the data exist. A decision was taken some time ago, perhaps for good reasons at the time, that no data would be published which would enable comparisons to be made between schools.
• Parents make decisions on schools based on perceptions, which are often inaccurate.
• Comments made in Jersey Schools Review Framework reports referring to the performance of schools against equivalents were unsatisfactory as there was no indication of what the equivalents were or of the data used to make the statements.
• One of the known problems with both Jersey 8 and Progress 8 is the undue emphasis on Maths and English.
• Jersey does not have satisfactory arrangements for vocational education.
• A problem with using school/international attainment data is that if used comparatively it becomes the sole focus. Simplistic data should not be used to judge educational progress.
• Some data on Jersey are available from datasets in the UK. Research projects have been done about Jersey but not in Jersey.
• In July 2023 refining value-added progress measures was a priority. However, in January 2025 the issue was simply being reviewed.
• The current funding method (AWPU) does not work satisfactorily, particularly for the colleges, which are not on the new funding formula and have seen a real terms reduction in funding since 2018.
• The colleges are often seen as independent but they are state schools. Fee increases have to be approved by the Minister.
• It is reasonable to assume that greater expenditure per student should lead to better educational outcomes.  However, the lack of transparency on funding means that it is not possible even to compare funding per student figures between schools let alone to assess any relationship with outcomes.
• No consistent data on pupil numbers and year group distribution are published. This makes comparisons of cost per student difficult. Also, the significant decline in the birth rate has implications for school structure.
• Limited data are available on the private schools (eg De la Salle and Beaulieu) even though they receive government grants.
• The relationship between the department and the schools is often combative and unsatisfactory.
• Teachers and leadership teams are professional and should be given more autonomy. Monitoring should be on value added achievement/performance, not minutiae.
• There is no vision for education and no ambition. The need to increase productivity given the ageing population could be the starting point for a vision. The Economic Development department has a role to play.
• There is a case for moving responsibility for education to outside the Government system.
• The issues in respect of education are similar to those in other sectors, particularly health.

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