By Gavin Mackintosh-
A number of schools in the Uk are stuck’ in a cycle of low performance and need better and more tailored support to improve, a new Ofsted report has found.
Ofsted defines stuck schools as those that have not been judged good or better since September 2006, and have had at least 4 full inspections during that time. According to Ofsted, there are 415 schools that fall into that definition serve 210,000 pupils but have potentially left 2 whole cohorts of children without a good education.
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Stuck schools complain about challenges they face. High amongst thes challenges is isolation, meaning they find it difficult to recruit and keep good teachers. They also have poor parental motivation, meaning children are not encouraged to learn or even attend school at all. Add to that the fact they also have unstable pupil populations in which the year groups are constantly disrupted, and the scale of their challenges become clearer.
Ofsted’s announcement comes a day after the Uk School’s minister announced a huge budget of £14bn to help schools over three years to create teaching hubs that support struggling schools by improving school to school support and hiring and retaining the best teachers to achieve the desired goal.
Other stuck schools with all of these issues were able to ‘unstick’ themselves by focusing on a few core areas: high academic standards, getting behaviour right and improving governance.
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Stuck schools are typically in deprived areas, where there might have been a decline in traditional industry and a lack of cultural opportunities. They are often in towns or small cities with a neighbouring major city that is more attractive to teachers, and has more jobs and opportunities.
Ofsted highlights three areas with the highest proportion of stuck schools are Derby, Southend-on-Sea and Darlington.
Ofsted’s research found that some stuck schools had a deep and embedded school culture, resistant to change, with staff not believing that it was possible to overcome the factors that stood in the way of children receiving a great education. Other schools were chaotic and continually changing. One school for instance, had been under the leadership of 14 different headteachers in 10 years.
INITIATIVES
Stuck schools have been inundated with improvement initiatives from central and local government over the years, few of which have proved successful. By contrast, schools that have improved have been able to identify their specific needs and get support tailored to those needs. It’s clear that identifying what has gone wrong is vital to then getting it right.
Ofsted’s research found that some stuck schools had a deep and embedded school culture, resistant to change, with staff not believing that it was possible to overcome the factors that stood in the way of children receiving a great education. Other schools were chaotic and continually changing. For example, one school had been under the leadership of 14 different headteachers in 10 years.
Ofsted is well placed to help these stuck schools diagnose the issues through its new inspection framework, and so to help the school and its partners to get on with improving the school. But we also need to increase the depth of diagnosis we give these schools.
We are recommending that the government funds Ofsted to trial a longer, deeper inspection approach with some of these schools, with the aim not of passing judgement but of enabling support to improve. We have made good progress with the Department for Education already.
HM Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman said:
”Stuck schools are facing a range of societal problems such as cultural isolation, a jobs market skewed towards big cities and low expectations from parents. However, we have shown that schools in these places can still be good or better by holding teachers to high standards, tackling bad behaviour and getting the right leadership in place.
Our inspectors have found that the majority of schools in challenging areas are providing children with a good education that sets them up to succeed in later life. What the remaining stuck schools need is tailored, specific and pragmatic advice that suits their circumstances – not a carousel of consultants. They are asking Ofsted to do more to help, and we agree”.
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