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More schools in London are failing Ofsted inspections
Dominic Hayes, Education Correspondent4 Jun 2008
More London schools are failing their inspections as Ofsted gets tough on poor results.
Figures from the education watchdog show that the number of schools in the capital performing so badly they face the threat of closure if they do not improve went up from 25 to 29 in the first four months of the year.
Nationally, the number of schools in this "special measures" category rose from 245 to 254.
Today's figures come after chief schools inspector Christine Gilbert angered ministers by claiming the drive to raise standards had "stalled".
Headteachers said Ofsted was focusing too narrowly on exam results when deciding to fail a school.
Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, accused Ofsted of failing to help schools that were struggling, saying its claim to be an agent of school improvement could not be true if more schools were failing.
"Most schools in special measures are in tough areas where there is a degree of lawlessness and anarchy out there on the streets," he said.
"Schools are having to deal with that before they can get to the job of education. We have to think differently about it and that's the debate I would like to have."
Ofsted said of the 2,465 inspections carried out nationwide during the spring term, 50 resulted in schools being placed in special measures, giving a failure rate of 1.8 per cent. This compared with a failure rate of two per cent last autumn.
Most of London's failing schools were primaries. Southwark has four in special measures and Bexley has three as well as a failing comprehensive, Welling School. Ofsted said Welling had deteriorated even further since its last inspection, when the school was given a formal warning to improve.
The watchdog said: "Inspectors do not agree with the school's judgment that it is now effective. There are severe weaknesses in the quality of teaching and learning which do not enable students to make up for previous underachievement."
Ofsted warned that three of Southwark's failing primaries were making inadequate progress towards recovery.
Lisa Rajan, executive member for children's services and education for Southwark, said: "We recognise that the standard of a small number of schools still isn't satisfactory and we are working hard to turn this around as quickly as possible.
"We have a number of strategies in place to support these schools and address the issues highlighted, including using experienced headteachers to work outside of their schools to provide effective leadership and management.
"We are confident these schools will come out of special measures in accordance with the targets set."
Reader views (3)
When children arrive at school hungry and from a background of disorder and ill-discipline, there is not much the primary or secondary school can do in five hours each day to overcome this background and meet the children's' basic needs, particularly when the school's targets are defined by remote bureaucrats and irrelevant to the needs of the children.
Kids need to be fed well, to feel secure and wanted and to gain the sense that what they do at school is important for them.
Kids will do well in school when all of their physical and emotional needs are met by good parenting and if that is lacking, the schools are generally doomed to fail.
If schools are forced to take over the parenting role, in full or in part, there needs to be much more support for schools from the State. Condemning schools for failing to meet targets will not do a thing to assist children suffering grossly inadequate parenting.
Blaming poorly qualified teachers is a cop-out: a university education does not make an inadequate person into a good teacher. Frequently, it just makes them boring. Teaching is a vocation which requires qualities and attributes that cannot be gained from university courses.
Schools need successful strategies and generous resources to make children become 'secure and autonomous learners', not constant testing that tells them that they are inadequate failures.
The Mayor of London is dead right - children need the joyful arts rather than negative judgements.
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK, 05/06/2008 09:50
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Pimlico is a dreadful school full of awful children.The teachers used to call through to parents in the mornings who either slammed down the phone or had provided a dead phone line-that's how much interest they had in their kids.In the year my son was there and before it was put on special measures my son witnessed a glassing, a stabbing, students having sex in the bathroom.He was also punched at school in class in front of a teacher who did nothing.I should have sued them all but more productively I sent him to an international boarding school in France at a laughably low fee where he got an education.I have heard employers saying they would never consider or take anyone graduating from Pimlico School-quite rightly as most of the A level students can't write or add up....
- Anna Moreno, luxembourg, 05/06/2008 07:50
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I don't think anybody should be surprised I went to school over there from N Ireland and from an average pupil in Londonderry I was considered bright in London I could not believe my eyes at the standard of education it was appalling, and that was twenty years ago.
- Michael Campbell, Londonderry N. Ireland, 04/06/2008 19:30
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