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A decision made on 16 July 2010 regarding a ministerial comment on Comprehensive Spending Review: Savings Proposals - Impact on Employment of Public Sector Staff (P91/2010)

Decision Reference:
Decision Summary Title :	COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW: SAVINGS PROPOSALS – IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR STAFF (P.91/2010) – COMMENTS		Date of Decision Summary:	16th July 2010
Decision Summary Author:	Business Manager - Schools and Colleges		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt? (State clauses from Code of Practice booklet)	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Oral		Person Giving Oral Report:	Business Manager - Schools and Colleges
Written Report Title :	COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW: SAVINGS PROPOSALS – IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR STAFF (P.91/2010) – COMMENTS		Date of Written Report:	15th July 2010
Written Report Author:	Business Manager - Schools and Colleges		Written Report : Public or Exempt? (State clauses from Code of Practice booklet)	Public
Subject: COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW: SAVINGS PROPOSALS – IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR STAFF (P.91/2010) – COMMENTS
Decision(s): Following discussion at the Council of Ministers’ meetings held on 8th and 15th July 2010 the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture decided to present a Comments paper on Part (a) of Proposition P.91/2010 to the States ahead of the debate to be held during the week commencing 19th July 2010. It was also agreed that a Comments paper in response of Part (b) of the Proposition would be presented in the name of the Council of Ministers.
Reason(s) for Decision: The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture, supported by the Council of Ministers, strongly supports the teaching of modern foreign languages in Jersey schools. An indication of this has been the long standing decision of the States for the compulsory teaching of French in primary schools. This means that all Jersey pupils receive five years of French before the age of fourteen. To further develop the teaching of French in our primary schools the Education, Sport and Culture Department has invested significant time and resources over the past two years. This has resulted in the primary teaching resources being re-written, new assessment tools being developed to ensure progression into secondary schools and twenty additional primary teachers being trained to teach French in Upper Key Stage 2 (9 – 11 years). The teaching of modern foreign languages in secondary schools is delivered by experienced and well qualified staff in appropriately resourced language departments. These departments have access to new technologies that increasingly support the learning of a language. In addition to this the Department has provided, and will continue to provide, language assistants to support the teachers and the pupils in their learning. The Minister believes that the Part 9 (a) of the Proposition is misguided and should be opposed. As such, the Minister wishes for the attached Comments to be presented to the States ahead of the debate.
Resource Implications: There are no financial or resource implications.
Action required: Business Manager - Schools and Colleges to arrange for Comments paper to be sent to the Greffe by 12.00 noon Friday 16th July 2010 for subsequent presentation to the States.
Signature:		Position: Deputy James Reed, Minister for Education, Sport and Culture
Date Signed:		Date of Decision (If different from Date Signed

Comprehensive Spending Review: Savings Proposals - Impact on Employment of Public Sector Staff (P91/2010): Ministerial Comment

COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING REVIEW: SAVINGS PROPOSALS – IMPACT ON EMPLOYMENT OF PUBLIC SECTOR STAFF (P.91/2010) – COMMENTS

Presented to the States on … July 2010

by the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture

Comments

Part (a) Language Assistants

Deputy Southern’s proposition makes reference to 2002 when the proposal was to remove all language assistants. For clarity, the current proposal is to reduce provision and make more effective and efficient use of the remaining support.

The Education, Sport and Culture Department is of the view that this proposal will not impact adversely on standards.

In most primary schools it will result in pupils losing approximately 10 minutes per week contact time with a foreign language speaker. The remaining permanent language assistants will focus their support in secondary schools, on pupils preparing to take examinations in a modern foreign language.

Introduction

The Council of Ministers strongly supports the teaching of modern foreign languages in Jersey schools. An indication of this has been the long standing decision of the States for the compulsory teaching of French in primary schools. This means that all Jersey pupils receive five years of French before the age of fourteen.

To further develop the teaching of French in our primary schools the Education, Sport and Culture Department has invested significant time and resources over the past two years. This has resulted in the primary teaching resources being re-written, new assessment tools being developed to ensure progression into secondary schools and twenty primary teachers receiving additional training to teach French in Upper Key Stage 2 (9 – 11 years).

The teaching of modern foreign languages in secondary schools is delivered by experienced and well qualified staff in appropriately resourced language departments. These departments have access to new technologies that increasingly support the learning of a language.

Excluding the cost of language assistants, in excess of £1.5m of the department’s budget is deployed annually to employ specialist qualified teachers of modern languages in provided secondary schools.

In addition to this the Department has provided, and will continue to provide, language assistants to support the teachers and the pupils in their learning.

1. Background

The CSR process within the States of Jersey requires that all departments examine their existing business and determine where savings can be made.

The Schools and Colleges Team examined in detail the role of the language assistants in schools for the year 2009/2010. This analysis of role included discussions with the temporary assistants at the end of their two year contracts. It was the department’s view that sufficient capacity existed to enable current provision to be reorganised without affecting standards adversely

With the recent investment at primary level, it was considered that the provision for language assistants for the next school year could be reduced without adverse impact on standards.

3. Existing Provision

Education, Sport and Culture currently spends £178,220 annually for the provision of modern language assistants.

These assistants deliver 186 hours a week across all provided schools supporting French, Spanish, Italian and German. Of this, only twenty-four hours is provided to primary schools for work with pupils learning French in upper Key Stage 2. The common practice is to extract a series of small groups of pupils from the class, for ten minutes each week, to engage in speaking and listening.

The Education, Sport and Culture Department currently employs five permanent staff providing for eighty-four hours, and eight temporary staff providing one hundred and two hours between them across four languages. It should be noted that the permanent assistants work the full school year of thirty-nine weeks and the temporary assistants only work from October to May.

In secondary schools the assistants work across all ages but their main role is to support those pupils taking external examinations at GCSE, A level and the International Baccalaureate (IB).

4. New Provision

It is proposed to reduce the total annual spend on language assistants from £178,220 to £101,725 and re-focus the remaining support more efficiently across our schools.

This budget change would not impact on any permanent States of Jersey employee.

With the benefit of a further 20 primary teachers trained in teaching French, updated resources and curriculum and new technologies, primary schools should be able to compensate for the loss of one hour per week per school of language assistant support. For parents who wish their children to access further language development beyond the Jersey Curriculum there are other organisations available to support this..

If States members support the proposals contained in the Business Plan, secondary schools will use their language assistants to focus their support on those pupils who are taking external examinations. Pupils in Key Stage 3 (pupils aged 11 to 14) will continue to be taught by trained specialist language teachers and supported by the opportunities offered by new technologies.

5. Impact of Change

The proposed changes have been discussed with the Heads of Modern Languages and the permanent language assistants.

It is evident that the expectations of schools for the coming year can be met if the proposed budget reduction is agreed and planned changes to provision are implemented.

These changes would be;

· No external support in primary schools;

· Focus of support in secondary schools for examination groups;

· Provision of additional language assistant support in Italian and German (all current permanent assistant are French or Spanish);

· Some additional hours of support in French and Spanish from experienced assistants in the Island;

· Schools to explore the use of video conferencing as an additional means to support language and cultural development.

In the event that the States do not accept this change in service identified in the Draft 2011 Business Plan, the Education, Sport and Culture Department is confident that experienced language assistants, already resident on-island could be used to fully support schools for the next school year.

Therefore it is not necessary to reinstate the recruitment process for the temporary language assistants.

However, for the reasons outlined above, the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture does not support Part (a) of this proposition and urges States members to reject it.