13 January 2006
The revelation this week that more than 1 million pupils are being taught in poorly performing schools has underlined the need for robust local authority involvement, according to town hall leaders.
The National Audit Office delivered a sobering judgement on the state of education in England when its January 11 report concluded that 1,557 schools were performing poorly.
Alison King, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, agreed that school performance still had a 'little way to go'.
'It all points to the need for schools to have access to constant support and advice,' she told Public Finance. 'Schools need to have somewhere they can go for assistance and we at the LGA believe that should be the local authority.'
But the report prompted an angry reaction from the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, which placed the blame for the NAO's findings at councils' doors.
'The reasons for decline are highly complex and often outside the school's control,' NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said. 'The real focus should be on questioning why action is not taken at local level to intervene before schools reach this position.'
The NAO urged local authorities to do more to prevent schools from slipping into failing categories, and to make better use of their statutory powers to enforce changes in schools that were reluctant to accept help.
But there was also some good news for councils. Schools were found to be performing most strongly in the Northeast of England, which auditors suggested might be because their local authorities had been rated as better than average by Ofsted and the Audit Commission.
Elsewhere, the NAO was particularly critical of the time taken for schools to improve, given the range of government support available.
The report's author, Angela Hands, said that one fifth of schools deemed to be struggling by Ofsted take more than two years to recover, while a few take over four.
Schools minister Jacqui Smith promised no let-up in the drive to improve schools performance, reiterating the threat of closure for those schools that languish in special measures.
'New inspection arrangements will ensure that coasting is no longer an option', she said.
PFjan2006
