09 February 2007
More schools are failing their inspections, so standards are falling – right?
Well, maybe not. Ofsted has announced that record numbers of primary schools have failed to meet minimum teaching standards.
The overall picture is no better. The total number of schools failing to measure up has increased from 208 as of August 31, 2006 to 243 on December 31, 2006.
Despite this, those close to the process, including schools minister Jim Knight, insist that standards are continuing to rise.
Knight argues that inspections are simply tougher. Average marks are no longer good enough. 'We have raised the bar, so that schools which previously would have avoided attention now find themselves in special measures,' says Knight. 'We make no apology for this tough stance against failing or coasting schools.'
Ofsted endorses this interpretation. 'Ofsted has been clear, since a new inspection framework was introduced in September 2005, that we have raised the bar of expected performance for schools, because what was considered good ten years ago is not considered good any longer,' says Carolyne Culver, head of news at Ofsted.
'Our expectations as taxpayers and consumers are always rising, and so too are expectations of public services, including education. Parents want good schools for their children and schools should aspire to be good or better.'
But there is widespread anger in the teaching profession that this year's performance is being compared with that of previous years, although both the minimum standards and methodology for judging performance have changed.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, told Public Finance: 'They are inspecting against different criteria. How can you then say whether there is decline or progress year-to-year? It's not a fear of inspection or accountability. It's about whether you are actually collecting data.'
The NASUWT does, though, support the principle of a different approach by the regulator. Keates says: 'Whether they have changed to the right methodology is a different matter. There is less use of a snapshot view of what is happening in a classroom and concluding this is how a school has performed.'
She argues that Ofsted's inspectors are now operating inconsistently and using different approaches, especially in how they interpret performance data. 'This,' says Keates, 'is not developmental or supportive. It's sending someone out to a school, walking away and leaving the school to sort out the mess.'
A similar view is taken by the National Union of Teachers. General secretary Steve Sinnott says: 'Ofsted's open admission that it has raised the bar of schools' performance means an arbitrary moving of the goalposts. The current inspection arrangements are in urgent need of fundamental review. Accusations of blame and failure are not the best ways of achieving school improvement.'
The National Association of Head Teachers does not dissent. Jeff Holman, assistant secretary for education management, says: 'The results tell us that the Ofsted system has become much more demanding. Schools regarded in previous years as perfectly satisfactory are now deemed not to be so.'
What worries the NAHT particularly is, it claims, that many in Ofsted's inspection team are not giving due weight to schools 'value-added' performance – paying insufficient regard to the environment in which a school operates.
Holman explains: 'One of the main problems we are finding – not in all inspections, but in a significant number, particularly those in challenging circumstances with difficult social backgrounds – is the exam and Key Stage results.
'Where that is below average, some inspectors are saying that the school is failing, whereas this may be a school with very difficult circumstances and doing good things.'
Holman suggests that this failure to recognise the importance of value-added performance might be the main factor causing the increase in failing schools.
Even where schools have been able to persuade inspectors to look beyond exam and Key Stage results, 'it often takes a huge amount of presentations and information [by a school] before inspectors will move to a more rounded view of what a school is doing'.
This analysis is rejected by the chair of the Commons education and skills select committee, Barry Sheerman. He argues that there is enough publication of underlying data to detect any maverick approaches by inspectors. And while he recognises that schools are being judged more harshly than in previous years, he believes this is justified.
'Some schools are coasting and not doing well in value added,' he told Public Finance. 'It's right to keep raising the bar to stimulate schools and keep the coasting schools engaged.'
Too many apparently good schools actually do not perform very well when their more wealthy catchment areas are taken into account, suggests Sheerman.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, also has sympathy with the use of tougher criteria.
'The government has staked a lot on achieving improved primary school results, especially in English and maths,' Smithers told Public Finance. 'The inspection regime is constantly being modified, but it is reasonable to look closely at the performance of schools.'
The problem, he believes, is that Ofsted's figures do not support the notion that continual improvement is being achieved. 'School performance seems to have reached a plateau,' he says.
'I suspect this doesn't mean we need another strategy, or different inspections, but that we need to look at the years immediately before primary education and get to work there.'
Smithers believes that much of what can be done to improve primary schools has now been done and that the residual barrier to poor school performance – especially among working-class boys – lies with poor development and inadequate verbal skills prior to starting school.
Differences in the performance in high and low income homes begins before school, he argues, leaving schools with too big a challenge to then put right.
'The government has achieved a lot, but there is more to do,' he says. 'It is clearly not enough. There has to be a step-change [pre-school] to produce that. That requires good foundations in nursery education.'
The special measures statistics
Number of schools in special measures, August and December 2006
Primary — 137 at August 31 , 171 at December 31
Secondary — 54 at August 31, 48 at December 31
Special — 6 at August 31, 10 at December 31
Pupil referral units — 11 at August 31, 14 at December 31
Number of schools given 'Notice to Improve' (schools not in special measures and regarded as having capacity to improve)
Primary — 205 at August 31 , 246 at December 31
Secondary — 93 at August 31, 105 at December 31
Special — 3 at August 31, 4 at December 31
Pupil referral units — 11 at August 31, 12 at December 31
PFfeb2007
