'Really good year' for Guernsey education, sport and culture

Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said the parliamentary experience for ESC in 2023 had been "very, very difficult"

It has been "a really good year" for Education, Sport and Culture (ESC), according to the president of the Guernsey committee.

Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen said "there have been many improvements across education... brilliant sporting events like the Island Games and an increase in footfall in museums".

Politically the committee suffered a number of defeats in the States.

She said "bringing policy to the States" had been "challenging".

Defeats for the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture included being forced into a U-turn on the trial closure of Herm School, having to withdraw its reforms to the Education Law and failing to secure funding for its post-16 campus at Les Ozouets.

Impacts of pandemic

Mrs Dudley-Owen said the parliamentary experience for ESC had been "very, very difficult".

Exam results in 2023 have been criticised by Deputy Heidi Soulsby, with new figures showing six out of 10 maths GCSE students at La Mare De Carteret High School failed to achieve a grade C.

Mrs Dudley-Owen challenged that criticism, saying: "We don't measure children's success just on the basis of their GCSE results.

"We need to be looking at the rounded child that comes out of education."

She said people looking at local education performance needed to be mindful of the impacts of the Covid pandemic.

"Teaching was reduced significantly for various cohorts of children," she said.

"Absolutely we need to make sure our maths and literacy levels are better and better and we have seen the recovery in literacy, and maths will be our next area of focus.

"But to focus in narrowly on GCSE rates and success is doing our children a disservice, because we do have areas in States schools where children coming in we should be looking at their attainment when they leave.

"Not all children will pass their GCSEs, and so we need to celebrate their attainment and for that we have attainment 8 - but we need broader measures of success in our community, like children's resilience and their fortitude."

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