By Gavin Mackintosh And Milly Heath-
Ofsted won its appeal against a decision by the High Court to quash a negative report it published into the Durand Academy in south London.
The Court of Appeal ruled today that a judge was “wrong to conclude that Ofsted’s complaints procedures were unfair in serious weakness/special measures cases, and that it was wrong to quash the inspection report”.
The overruled judge had “erred in focusing solely on the complaints procedures, rather than the overall fairness of the process of inspection, evaluation and reporting”, according to the Court of Appeal. Representatives of the school told the Eye Of Media last week that Ofsted had its biggest embarrassment coming, temporarily putting Ofsted’s professional credibility into question. Ofsted is the arm of the British government that inspects the academic standard of schools, rating them as special measures,inadequate, needing improvement, good, and outstanding.
Its final judgement and report provides a measure of a school’s standard to its leadership, but not all schools agree with its final ruling. Most schools accept it ruling as final and take steps to either improve it or maintain its standards. In this case, Durand Academy disputed Ofsted’s finding, leading to this dramatic challenge. The Durand Academy Trust in Stockwell, south London received £17m from the government to set up the school for weekly boarders in 2014. That funding was withdrawn in 2017.
A spokesman for Durand Academy Trust said today that the legal costs it incurred stood at an estimated £700,000, including a bill of at least £200,000 for Ofsted’s costs in bringing the appeal, and a similar bill for its own costs during the appeal. The figure included around £300,000 incurred by Durand for the original court case in which it fought the report. The inspection which took place in 2016, states that the south London school, now called Van Gogh Primary, was inadequate on eight out of nine subheadings.
They include effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, pupil behaviour and welfare, and outcomes for pupils.Inspectors from Ofsted were unimpressed with their findings, but the school which feared the damage to its reputation disagreed. Ofsted hailed the ruling as an endorsement of its “fair and rigorous” complaints process. A statement from Ofsted stated:
“All judgements of inadequate are subject to additional scrutiny and an extended quality assurance process before being finalised. Schools are engaged in this process and have the opportunity to challenge the inspection findings.
“We are very pleased that today’s judgement has confirmed that these procedures are fair and reasonable for schools, and that the Judge was wrong to quash the report.” The latest ruling further questions the competence of some judges in passing rulings that are later proven to be flawed and full of errors. Cases as important as this should be considered carefully and professionally, but too often judges pass faulty judgements.
The first Court case concluded last August.The verdict in favour of Durand’s was celebrated by representatives of the school.
Ofsted disputed the ruling at the time stating: its processes are “fair and reasonable”, and the Court of Appeal today agreed with the watchdog. According to the ruling:
“The short answer to the issue of law and principle is that, looked at overall, Ofsted’s procedure for evaluation and reporting is a fair and reasonable one for schools which are provisionally judged to have serious weaknesses or to require special measures because, although such schools cannot challenge substantive judgements through the CP once the report has been finalised, additional safeguards have been provided for them at the stage prior to finalisation of the report”.
Durand Academy ceased to exist earlier this year after being rebrokered to new sponsor the Dunraven Educational Trust and rebranding as Van Gogh Primary school. The school came under criticism over the high earnings of £400,000+ earnings of its former headteacher, Sir Greg Martin. Martin was paid an annual fee by the commercial leisure facilities on the school site on top of his headteacher’s salary. This pay was excessive, leading many to consider mr. Martin to be corrupt. The school shortly after placed a challenge in February, 2017, unhappy about the outcome. launched the legal challenge.
An injunction was also secured that prevented Ofsted from publishing the disputed report, although a report had accidentally been published which had to be withdrawn. The ruling vindicated Ofsted’s credibility, which would have been heavily tarnished had it gone against them.