News

Ofsted annual report: RI schools fail to improve at record levels

The proportion of schools that recovered from a ‘requires improvement’ grade this year was the lowest on record, Ofsted has revealed.

In its annual report, Ofsted said a lower proportion of schools previously judged to ‘require improvement’ improved at their inspection this year than in any other year.

In 2016-17, 33 per cent of primary schools and 58 per cent of secondary schools failed to improve from a ‘requires improvement’ or ‘satisfactory’ rating.

A higher proportion of schools also declined from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘inadequate’ this year.

 

More on Ofsted’s annual report…

65 inadequate schools STILL not converted after 17 months

More challenging KS2 SATs are leaving poorer pupils behind

Religious schools increasingly ‘flouting’ British values

130 schools not rated ‘good’ for over a decade

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8 Comments

  1. Pete Crockett

    Surely a regulator that is clearly not, by its regulation, securing improvement is at the point where it should question its own modus operandi? Ofsted needs to rethink its own contribution to this state of affairs. We need to come up with something better than a punitive “done to” system of accountability. Ofsted is a major factor in the teacher recruitment/retention crisis and is often seen by longer serving teachers as lacking the political independence of the old HMI. The Ofsted system is failing but so much easier to lay all the blame on front line practitioners. It is a time for partnership and support – we cannot afford ever more teachers leaving the profession. Perhaps if school improvement is so easy we could set up a pilot that deploys an Ofsted inspector to say five of these struggling school leadership teams to measure how effectively their expertise assists these schools to improve. I tend to equate Ofsted to my own football watching – from the sidelines I can see everything my team does wrong and the alternative options they should have taken. Put me on that pitch to do it and I would not have the skills to remotely match those I critique. I tend to feel many Ofsted inspectors are the educational equivalents of my football watching.

    • Mark Watson

      I know it’s tiresome to bring facts and accuracy into the equation, but Ofsted inspects schools it doesn’t regulate them. (It does regulate early years and children’s social care services, but that’s separate to what is being discussed here).
      And if you want to expand your football analogy – Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger (plus Alex Ferguson back in the day) do not have the football skills to match the players on their teams. Are you saying that because of that they have no place to critique those players?

      • Pete Crockett

        What is a more tiresome fact is seeing many good professionals leave teaching worn down by oppressive accountability of which Ofsted is most certainly a part.

        As for the Ofsted regulation/inspection comment you make Ofsted’s own website states the following:

        “…We inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people, and services providing education and skills for learners of all needs.”

        Their website and their descriptor – not mine.

        • Mark Watson

          It’s almost as though you couldn’t wait to read what I said before diving in.
          Yes, Ofsted do regulate services that care for children but this does not include regulating schools. It inspects schools.
          I know this simply repeats what I said above, but it didn’t seem to register before.

    • Mark Watson

      And yet you’ve agreed that you don’t know how long those 37 schools have been academies, and therefore whether the academy trusts have had time to turn the schools around.
      You also don’t know whether more schools proportionally get out of being RI by becoming academies or by staying with the local authority.
      You therefore don’t know which is “the best route to improvement”.