Improving standards in Schools

Yesterday the Conservatives announced how we’ll improve standards in schools by giving Ofsted greater powers and more money – so we can make sure that every child in this country is getting a world class education.
This will mean:
  • Longer inspections to be sure of the full breadth of a school’s activity.
     
  • No-notice inspections to ensure inspections truly reflect the day to day experience in schools.
     
  • £10 million additional funding to back Ofsted.
     
  • End of outstanding exemption – meaning all schools will be checked.

Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
I bet Mrs Harrison is pleased she's no longer Chair of Governors of a school. It was bad enough when you could see it coming and they didn't stop long or look too deeply. As the Education Secretary's (former)PPS she presumably can claim some small credit for this tightening up of standards?
Chris Whiteside said…
I've spent enough time as a school governor myself to know that Ofsted inspections are not easy for any school.

But every political party with working brain cells has always known that some body like OFSTED is necessary whether that body is called OFSTED or "HM Inspectorate of schools" or something else.

A more thorough inspection regime can only work in favour of the students - who the schools are supposed to be there to help and those teachers who want to see their schools deliver the very beset for the students will welcome it.

Scrapping OSTED entirely as Labour propose would be a disaster for education.







Gary Bullivant said…
Both Labour and the Lib Dems want to replace Ofsted with different bodies working to different rules, apparently. It's consistent with a progressive mindset and it recognises that some sort of inspection regime is necessary.

Anyway, the point may be made tonight that Mrs Harrison's record as a Chair of School Governors is not something to be overly proud of if we use only Ofsted reports as the measure. Locals well remember the valiant work to defend the school from closure but also the effort she made to get the Wellbank development approved, which has led to the swimming pool closure but nothing much else. So there's now a school but no sight of the predicted additional children.



Gary Bullivant said…
Unfortunately, for me anyway, my question was filtered out by the representatives of the Conservative Party at Prayer who were controlling the agenda. Same for the WCM and GDF questions. Interesting meeting though, particularly with the Mayor and the Barrow Brexit candidate present and in close support.
Chris Whiteside said…
Oh, come on Gary, the expression "Conservative party at prayer" for the Church of England was out of date when it was last in common use, which was about the time you and I were at school.

I presume you are using that expression as a joke and are not seriously suggesting that the Church people who organised the hustings were deliberately biased towards Trudy or the Conservative party.

I've been trying to make sense of Labour's proposals for a replacement for OFSTED. They seem pretty vacuous to me, to be honest.

If you have a job which needs doing, as everyone seems to admit that school inspection does, then nine times out of ten the best way to do that is to take the body you have, build on the strengths of that body and take specific action to correct the weaknesses.

Tearing the whole thing down and starting again risks finding all too often that you've lost the strengths but replicated the weaknesses.

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