Philip Nye | Schools Week

Ofsted raises safeguarding concerns at six independent faith schools in Tower Hamlets

Six independent Muslim faith schools have also been hit with “serious concerns” from Ofsted over the safeguarding of their pupils, after a wave of inspections carried out at the request of the Department for Education (DfE). Inspection reports for the schools in Tower Hamlets have been published alongside that of a maintained school, Sir John […]

Wilshaw: School was right to send 150 pupils home over uniform breaches

A school that sent home more than 150 pupils in one day for breaches of its uniform policy has been defended by the head of Ofsted. Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said that criticism of the move as “petty” were unjust, and that the principal had been giving the pupils a lesson in “how to […]

Tower Hamlets head ‘surprised’ ahead of Ofsted findings on safeguarding

The headteacher of a Church of England school expected to enter special measures for inadequately safeguarding its pupils from extremism has spoken of his surprise at the outcome. Sir John Cass School in Tower Hamlets, east London, was the subject of a no-notice inspection by Ofsted – part of a wave of such inspections carried […]

Interventions in failing schools cost £382m a year – and ‘make little difference’, says public spending watchdog

More than half of underperforming maintained schools did not improve after ‘formal intervention’, such as a change of governance or turning the school into an academy, says the National Audit Office (NAO). They did better where there was no formal intervention, despite the cost of overseeing school improvement reaching £382m a year, the public spending […]

DfE calls for evidence as it prepares to draw up new teaching assistant standards

A call for evidence has been launched today by the Department for Education (DfE) to support the development of a new set of professional standards for teaching assistants. As reported earlier this month, the DfE said the new standards would help in the assessment of teaching assistants’ performance, and help steer their professional development. The […]

Questions raised over Ofsted quality after cut-and-paste sacking

Ofsted’s quality assurance leaves schools unable to know whether the inspection team that “walks through the school gates will be good or not”, says the head of the Association of Teachers & Lecturers (ATL). Dr Mary Bousted’s comments follow Schools Week’s lead story last week detailing how an inspector with contractor Tribal had been dismissed […]

New investigation into Ofsted ‘tipping-off’ claims at Norfolk schools

Ofsted has today announced that a new investigation will be carried out into allegations that three schools received prior notice of their inspection dates. The inspectorate said the development followed “the emergence … of a number of new emails” that were not available during an earlier investigation led by an Ofsted director, which found no […]

Tougher GCSE rules lead to drop in results

The headline GCSE pass rate has fallen by almost five percentage points this year, new figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show. The provisional statistics, released this morning [see National Tables, table 1a], show that 55.9 per cent of state school pupils at the end of key stage four achieved the benchmark measures of […]

Ofsted busts ‘myths’ on book-marking and lesson plans

Use the red pen as much or as little as you like. That seems to be the message from guidance that Ofsted has put out today, clarifying their position on a recent area of concern. The clarification was one of a number of points in ‘myth-busting’ guidance from inspectorate – designed to prevent “unnecessary” workloads. The […]