I WAs pleased to read last week that Ofsted’s Regional Director Bradley Simmons has been encouraged by the work taking place in our schools to improve standards and educational outcomes.

His praise will be welcomed by everyone involved in education in our town. Although Mr Simmons will be keen to attribute the progress to his very critical public letter last November, it is important to note that measures to address the issues raised in his letter were already in place.

For example, two months previously (September 2016) my Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and School Attainment, Coun Fionuala Foley, secured £600,000 in funding over the next three years from cabinet to set up the Swindon Challenge Board.

The Challenge Board brings together all key stakeholders in education including the Regional Schools’ Commissioner, headteachers, the teaching schools, governors, local businesses and senior council leaders with the aim of improving educational outcomes in all our schools. Ofsted also have an observer to the board.

We had our latest meeting of the Challenge Board on Tuesday and I was extremely encouraged by the commitment and passion from education leaders to improve our educational outcomes. Their work is already bearing fruit.

Phonics and writing champions have been busy sharing good practice across our primary schools, while The Teaching School has run a number of courses on the effective teaching of phonics, writing and reading.

The results for these headline indicators this year are very encouraging and, while the data has still to be validated, we believe our results will be at least in line with the national average, which is fantastic.

As Mr Simmons acknowledged in his letter last week, progress will take time, especially in our secondary schools but we have helped facilitate strong partnerships with outstanding Academy Trusts which will bring about improvements in Key Stage 4.

The good work going on within our schools was reflected in our Swindon Education Excellence Awards last week where we celebrated the efforts of outstanding teachers and schools. I am grateful to one of our major local employers, Zurich Municipal for sponsoring these awards.

More than 40 excellence awards and 10 Healthy Schools Awards were handed out. We said goodbye to some stalwart headteachers who are retiring this summer and we recognised the contribution of a number of teachers whose excellence in the classroom saw them nominated by their individual schools. I must also mention Wroughton Junior School Choir who gave an uplifting performance to get the awards ceremony underway.

The event was a fitting end to the academic year and showed to me that education is on the up in Swindon.