• Latest news
  • RSS feeds
• Find recent news
• Ofsted News
• Media Centre

Press release: Ofsted is a significant ingredient in the cocktail of improvement

External evaluation is here to stay, says Chief Inspector in his Annual Report

The Office for Standards in Education today publishes the Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools 2004/05. For the first time ever the report includes a section dedicated to the long term impact that Ofsted inspections have had, as well as the usual annual analysis of quality and standards in schools, early years settings and colleges.

From its inception the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has been driven by an ambition to achieve improvement through inspection; its core function is described as 'better education and care through effective inspection and regulation'.

Her Majesty's Chief Inspectors of Schools, David Bell, said:

"Over the past 13 years, Ofsted has had a demonstrable influence on policy development, in promoting public awareness and assurance about education and childcare, and in securing improvement at the level of individual institutions and for individual children. Of course, there are other key factors that contribute to the drive for improvement, but a significant ingredient in the cocktail of improvement is the work of Ofsted."

This year's Annual Report again presents an encouraging picture, highlighting many strong features of both childcare and education, including:

• much good quality childcare, with an increasing number of places and diversity of provision

• a large majority of effective and improving primary, secondary and special schools, with which pupils and their parents are generally very satisfied

• schools that respond well to a range of initiatives, such as the development of 'extended schools', particularly for primary age pupils, and the opportunity to offer increased curriculum flexibility in secondary schools

• many well led colleges, with marked improvements in most colleges that were previously not providing well for their students

• effective teacher training, which has improved in recent years and is preparing new teachers well for the future.

The report also presents data to show that fewer schools were in special measures at the end of 2004/05 compared with the end of the previous year - 1% of schools compared with 1.5% in 2003/04.

Mr Bell said:

"I am cautiously optimistic about the capacity of our schools and colleges to improve further, but the challenge of dealing with some persistent weaknesses in our education system - such as the underachievement of many of our most vulnerable young people, and the variation in standards achieved from one school to another - should not be underestimated."

In his Annual Report commentary, Mr Bell says that Ofsted's inspection frameworks have made a significant contribution to education and care by outlining the key features of effective provision, setting quality standards and establishing a basis for schools to undertake their own internal quality assurance.

Successive frameworks have focused increasingly on leadership and management (2003) and self-evaluation (2005). The 2003 framework acknowledged unequivocally the key role of the head teacher and senior management in driving a school forward. Effective head teachers know their schools and know where their priorities should lie.

The new inspection framework, which came into force last month, emphasises school self-evaluation. Only five years ago, self-evaluation was weak in just over one fifth of schools, a proportion that has now fallen to less than one in 10.

However, Mr Bell said:

"External evaluation is here to stay because it provides essential independent scrutiny. It is the means by which parents, taxpayers and policy makers can be reassured that schools are doing well - and action is being taken if they are not - and money is being spent wisely. Self-evaluation is not a substitute for school inspection, but the two processes should be complementary. Schools can use an inspection to validate their own evaluation; and inspectors can now place greater reliance on the evidence that a school produces about its effectiveness and how it has moved forward since it was last inspected."

Ofsted constantly keeps its inspection frameworks under review - raising the bar where necessary to reflect society's expectation that standards of care and education should improve. The designation of a school as failing to provide an acceptable standard of education for its pupils may be challenging for head teachers, teachers and governors but, as Mr Bell argues: "The children and young people who are getting a raw deal deserve better. Bringing these weaknesses out into the open is the first step on the road to recovery."

Mr Bell also voiced his determination to tackle schools that have not used inspections to help bring about improvement:

"Fortunately, poor schools comprise only a small proportion of the education sector. But there are schools that, while not in a state of crisis, are providing nothing better than mediocrity. While on the surface all might appear to be well in these schools, if we dig deeper we find that achievement could be better in some subjects or for some groups of pupils. Our new, more frequent, school inspections should go some way to tackling this issue because we will be visiting schools to assess their progress twice as often as in the past, and we will return to underperforming schools sooner rather than later."

This year's Annual Report is being published as close as possible to the end of the academic year 2004/05, to give the findings increased relevance and enable them to be more helpful in the public debate about education. It does not include a list of particularly successful schools and colleges, as have previous annual reports. The list of successful schools and colleges for 2004/05 will be published later in the year.

Summarising the launch of his report today Mr Bell added:

"I hope this annual report is useful to schools, colleges, childcare providers and those who, like me, are concerned that our children and young people have the best possible education and care. Improvement is Ofsted's business. We constantly seek to improve what we do as inspectors and how we do it. The new inspection arrangements will continue the evolution of high quality, responsive inspection that has been so much the hallmark of Ofsted's work."

Share this

Google Plus One