Buckinghamshire Education Strategy 2022 to 2027

In Buckinghamshire there are 126,804 children and young people under the age of 18. This represents 23% of the county’s total population (2020 Mid-year Population Estimate).

Buckinghamshire has 236 state schools and academies attended by 88,304 children and young people (January 2022), along with 328 early years settings.

As a county Buckinghamshire has a strong mix of education provision that offers variety and choice. We're currently 1 of only a handful of counties in the country with an almost fully selective secondary system, including a mix of grammar and non-selective secondary schools.

Provision also includes:

• a range of early years providers
• infant schools
• junior schools and combined schools
• free schools
• all age through schools
• pupil referral units (PRUs)
• special schools
• schools with additional resourced provision (ARPs)
• a further education college and other post 16 providers

You can see the distribution of schools in the county in the map (figure 1) below:

In Buckinghamshire in September 2021, the following had become academies:

• 85% of secondary schools
• 20% of special schools
• 50% of all age through schools
• 33% of pupil referral units (PRUs)
• and 22% of primary schools

This brings the total percentage of academies in Buckinghamshire to approximately 31% of all schools. There are strong established relationships with our schools, academies and early years settings.

Buckinghamshire has good schools that provide a good education for our children and young people. The percentage of pupils in Buckinghamshire schools rated as Ofsted good or outstanding has increased from 82% in 2015 to 89.2% in early 2022. This is nearly 3 percentage points above national standards (86.4% end of March 2022). The percentage of children in Buckinghamshire early years settings rated by Ofsted good or outstanding has increased from 88% in 2015 to 98.2% in early 2022. This is above both national and regional averages.

Education is fundamental to improving life chances and can transform the lives of children and young people. It should provide an exciting journey of self-discovery and fulfilment that sets up our children and young people for a lifetime of learning, ambition and achievement. This is made possible through an inclusive learning environment that's characterised by excellent teaching within a system that celebrates diversity.

Children and young people are at the heart of our:

• Education Strategy
• Children's Services priorities
• Children and Young People’s Partnership Plan

Our priorities are to:

• keep children and young people safe and in their families wherever possible
• enable and support children, young people, parents and carers to overcome the challenges they may face
• improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing
• provide opportunities for children and young people to realise their full potential

The priorities for children’s social care are:

• service improvement
• responding to the growing and unpredictable demand as a result of COVID-19
• the recruitment and retention of social care workforce
• the recruitment of in-house foster carers

The priorities for education are:

• special educational needs and disability (SEND) delivery and improvements
• improving education provision and educational outcomes
• working with schools to ensure that young people have access to good mental health support
• early help

The vision of this strategy is to build a better future for all children and young people in Buckinghamshire so they can realise their potential, whatever their starting point. The strategy focuses on addressing the differential of experience between the vulnerable children in Buckinghamshire and their peers.

Buckinghamshire is widely known as an affluent county with great outcomes. But this overall picture masks significant variations in outcomes, with some areas experiencing significant hardship.

In July 2022, Buckinghamshire partners agreed a local vision for levelling up in the county, supported by a shared commitment to focus our collective resources on tackling priorities that will make a tangible difference to the outcomes of residents. By breaking the cycle of disadvantage, the ambition is to improve health outcomes and grow the local economy.

‘Opportunity Bucks: Succeeding for All' is a partnership strategy that will focus on delivering initiatives and strategies to improve living standards and opportunity across the county. The initial focus of the programme is those 10 wards identified in the table below (and in figure 2). These wards experience the poorest outcomes in terms of educational attainment, skill levels, income and health.

A key theme of the Opportunity Bucks programme is education and skills, ensuring that everyone in Buckinghamshire has the opportunity to achieve a good standard of attainment and skills.

Our Education Strategy will significantly contribute to realising the key priorities of the Opportunity Bucks strategy by:

• continually working towards improving outcomes for children and young people, ensuring they have the best start and work towards achieving their potential
• working with educational professionals to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers through key initiatives such as the Buckinghamshire Challenge project

The strategy will sit alongside other key strategies that support our broader ambitions for children and young people in Buckinghamshire:

• SEND Education Sufficiency Strategy
• SEND and Inclusion Strategy
• Skills Strategy (currently being updated)
• Early Help Partnership Strategy

How the Education Strategy sits alongside these other key strategies is as shown below (figure 3).

The strategy will also reinforce the ambitions set out in the government’s SEND and Alternative Education green paper (March 2022).

A specific reference to the green paper can be found with reference to the strategy’s focus on inclusion (Priority 4).