This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/dec/13/disadvantage-no-excuse-for-poor-school-performance-ofsted-chief

The article has changed 11 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
Disadvantage no excuse for poor performance of schools - Ofsted chief Private faith schools are resisting British values, says Ofsted chief
(about 5 hours later)
The chief inspector of schools in England has blamed “disadvantage one-upmanship” for holding back a core group of schools. Private faith schools run by religious conservatives are “deliberately resisting” British values and equalities law, according to the chief inspector of schools in England, who appealed for school inspectors to be given new powers to seize evidence during visits.
Amanda Spielman said 130 schools had failed to record a good inspection since 2005 despite the efforts of successive governments and policymakers. Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, listed a string of disturbing policies and literature used by private faith schools, detailed in the school inspectorate’s annual report published on Wednesday.
Delivering Ofsted’s first annual report since becoming head of the education watchdog earlier this year, Spielman said there were common factors stopping the schools improving, including high turnover of staff, unstable leadership and high levels of deprivation and special needs among pupils. “We have found texts that encourage domestic violence and the subjugation of women. We have found schools in which there is a flat refusal to acknowledge the existence of people who are different, so for example lesbian, gay and bisexual people.
She said, however, that deprivation alone could not be used as an excuse for the failure to improve schools. “We also find well-meaning school leaders and governors who naively turn to religious institutions of a particularly conservative bent for advice about religious practice, not realising when this advice does not reflect mainstream thinking,” Spielman said at the report’s launch.
“There is no doubt that the leadership challenge facing some schools is great. But progress is possible and we should all be wary of using the makeup of a school community as an excuse for under-performance,” Spielman said on Wednesday. The chief inspector – who took over running the watchdog from Sir Michael Wilshaw at the start of the year – said the discoveries made for uncomfortable reading, denying it amounted to criticism of faith schools in general.
“I do find myself frustrated with with the culture of ‘disadvantage one-upmanship’ that has emerged in some places. Fixation on all the things holding schools back can distract us all from working on the things that take them forward. “When I see books in schools entitled Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell; children being educated in dank, squalid, conditions; children being taught solely religious texts at the expense of learning basic English and mathematics, I cannot let it be ignored,” said Spielman, who argued that inspectors should be able to remove such texts from school libraries.
“Schools with all ranges of children can and do succeed.” The Ofsted report detailed its recent inspections of private faith schools, with 26% rated inadequate and 22% as requiring improvement – Ofsted’s two lowest categories.
Of the 140 small Muslim private schools inspected by Ofsted in the year, 28% were graded as inadequate, along with 38% of Jewish private schools and 18% of Christian schools.
Spielman had praise for the bulk of state schools, noting that 90% of primaries and nearly 80% of secondaries were rated as good or outstanding.
“If this speech generates any headlines, I doubt they will be ‘English education is good’,” Spielman said.
But the report also focused on a group of schools that Spielman said remained “intractable” to improvement, including a group of nearly 130 that had failed to achieve a good rating in inspections this year or at any time since 2005.
Ofsted said a further 118 schools inspected last year had failed to be rated as good or better since 2005. The figures also do not include several hundred struggling schools whose ratings have been scrapped since being taken over by new management as academies. The inspectorate apologised for misidentifying 11 schools as in the group since 2005, when their first rating below “good” came in 2006.
Spielman said there were common factors stopping the schools improving, including high turnover of staff, unstable leadership and high levels of deprivation and special needs among pupils.
She said, however, that deprivation alone could not be used as an excuse by headteachers for failure to improve schools.
“I do find myself frustrated with the culture of ‘disadvantage one-upmanship’ that has emerged in some places,” Spielman told the audience.
“Indeed, listening to these conversations, I am sometimes reminded of the Monty Python sketch about the four Yorkshiremen.”
Of the 130 schools repeatedly rated as inadequate or requiring improvement, clusters were found in the Midlands, including nine in Northamptonshire and eight in Birmingham, the largest local authority in England.Of the 130 schools repeatedly rated as inadequate or requiring improvement, clusters were found in the Midlands, including nine in Northamptonshire and eight in Birmingham, the largest local authority in England.
The total of 80 primary and 50 secondary schools have been inspected four times since 2005. Ofsted said many had higher than average proportions of pupils with special needs or white British pupils from low-income backgrounds. Around 80% had high proportions of pupils from deprived areas.The total of 80 primary and 50 secondary schools have been inspected four times since 2005. Ofsted said many had higher than average proportions of pupils with special needs or white British pupils from low-income backgrounds. Around 80% had high proportions of pupils from deprived areas.
The schools represent a small fraction of the more than 21,000 state schools in England, and the report showed a record number of state schools in England were rated as good or outstanding, including 90% of primary schools and 79% of secondary schools. Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, praised Spielman’s positive tone in recognising that the vast majority of schools performed well.
Speaking to an invited audience of school leaders, Spielman said: “Whole cohorts of children have passed through these schools without ever receiving a good education.” “It is no coincidence that the very small number of schools that have struggled over many years serve the most disadvantaged communities, despite the tireless efforts of teachers and school leaders to improve outcomes,” Whiteman said.
Many heads had managed to succeed with schools and pupils in unpromising surroundings. “It doesn’t make sense that we have communities that can never have good schools,” she said.
Spielman told head teachers not to wallow in self-pity: “It seems that school leaders are constantly comparing notes” over how many deprived or difficult pupils they teach.
“I am sometimes reminded of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen sketch,” she said.
Spielman also accused a small group of private faith schools of “deliberately flouting British values and equalities law”.
Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, said the real problem was that pupils had been failed by the government’s policies.
“The government have missed their teacher recruitment target,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “One in three of our Sure Start centres have closed. Many teachers have lost up to £5,000 of their real-terms wage over this period.
“But it’s not just about money but the workload, the pace of change, the difficulty with restrictions and being able to give every child those opportunities. The chief of Ofsted has raised these issues.”
Justine Greening, the education secretary, told the same programme it was not possible to “buy our way out of this problem”.
She said the government had a national policy that it expected to work in different communities.
“What I want to try and do with the social mobility action plan is set out an architecture. This is a complex problem, but I am trying to slim it down to key areas that we all need to focus on. Not just government, but also businesses and communities,” she said.
“We have to recognise that while teachers and schools are central to this we can’t rely on the school system alone to transform equality of opportunity.”
Sir Kevan Collins, the head of the Educational Endowment Foundation, said it was unacceptable that so many schools had been allowed to stagnate.“The chief inspector is right to highlight capacity in the system as a barrier for changing this,” he said.
The school standards minister Nick Gibb said standards were rising in primary and secondary schools but the government knew more needed to be done to tackle consistent under-performance.
“We are targeting the areas that need the most support through our ‘opportunity areas’ and by investing £280m over the next two years to target resources at the schools most in need to improve school performance and deliver more good school places,” he said.
“Having excellent teachers in our most challenging schools is also key to school improvement, which is why we’re investing £75m in teachers’ professional development and announced a further £42m for training in the budget.”