NEWS


Ofsted backs down over key September inspection changes


By Pete Henshaw


Ofsted has backed away from its plans for no-notice inspections as well as the proposed three strikes and you’re out approach for the new “requires improvement” category. From September, the current


notice period of two days is to be scrapped, with schools to instead receive a telephone call on the afternoon before inspectors arrive. While, the chief inspector Sir


Michael Wilshaw had proposed to introduce no-notice inspections for all schools, he has backed down after an outcry from headteachers during the consultation period. However, an Ofsted statement


said: “Under the new arrangements, schools will receive almost


no notice of an inspection with inspectors calling headteachers the afternoon before an inspection takes place. “Ofsted proposed conducting


school inspections without any notice but listened to headteachers’ concerns about this during the consultation. Calling the working day before an inspection will enable headteachers to make any necessary logistical arrangements including notifying parents and governors of the inspections.” The new approach is part


of a package of changes to the inspection framework that have been confirmed after a public consultation which saw more than 5,000 responses. The changes, which will come into effect from September this year,


Northern Ireland has 10 schools in special measures


The number of Northern Ireland secondary schools under special measures now stands at 10, after two more failed inspections. Dunluce School in Bushmills


and Blackwater Integrated College in Downpatrick are the latest to be criticised. The pair are now involved in


the Department of Education’s “formal


intervention”


improvement programme. Inspectors heavily criticised


the schools for their quality of education provision, labelling both “inadequate”. Formal intervention was


designed to allow schools to address areas for improvement identified at inspection. The inspection team that


visited Dunluce says it has concerns about underachievement in exams. Fewer than half of its pupils are earning five “good” GCSEs. Less than a quarter attain five GCSEs including English and maths at grade C and above. At Blackwater, meanwhile,


inspectors say there are significant areas for improvement in standards, governance, leadership and management including financial planning, and in self- evaluation for improvement.


They also say they have


concerns about “unsatisfactory” arrangements for safeguarding young people. While the percentage of


Blackwater pupils achieving grades A* to C in five or more subjects is increasing, it remains well below the Northern Ireland average for similar schools. The school is also in


“considerable deficit”, resulting from its formation, which impacts significantly on the financial planning to deliver the curriculum and support pupils with additional learning needs. While formal intervention will


give the schools time to transform their fortunes, some have failed to exit the process successfully. Of the other secondary schools


in formal intervention, the North’s education minister John O’Dowd has already approved the closure of Dunmurry High outside Belfast. There are also plans to close


down the all girls’ St Gemma’s High School in the city. Ballee Community High


School in Ballymena is also facing closure if area plans published by the North Eastern Education and Library Board are approved.


Support for RE’s curriculum place


Campaigners fighting to ensure the place of religious education in our schools have said that six in 10 young people see the subject as beneficial. A study has shown that 63 per


cent of 18 to 24-year-olds believe RE lessons are important for secondary students. The YouGov research involved


more than 1,800 people aged 18 and over and found that, overall, 53 per cent of the respondents, who were from England and Wales, believe RE should remain compulsory. RE has been on the curriculum


since 1944 and the survey comes as cross-party MPs this week attended the first meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on RE, which is to be chaired by Stephen Lloyd MP.


The survey found that only nine


per cent said they thought it was “harmful” for pupils to study RE and only 13 per cent thought it should not be taught in schools at all.


Campaigners are waiting for


details of proposed changes to the national curriculum, expected to be announced by the Department for Education shortly. It is feared that RE could fall victim to the government’s stated aims of creating a simpler, less prescriptive curriculum. John Keast, chair of the


Religious Education Council for England and Wales, said: “Our ambition is to promote widespread understanding of how academically rigorous and personally inspiring good RE can be and how it equips young people to appreciate a range of religious and non-religious beliefs in our world. It’s positive to see such a strong belief in the importance of the subject among the public.” He added: “As part of the our


on-going commitment to ensure RE teaching keeps up with proposed changes to the national curriculum, we are working on a revised subject framework for RE.”


also include Ofsted’s plans to scrap the “satisfactory” rating and replace it with “requires improvement”. Initial proposals said that schools


judged to be in this category for three inspections running would be automatically placed in special measures. However, Ofsted has also changed its position on this, saying that special measures would now be “likely” but not automatic. The statement added: “This means (the school) will be placed in ‘special measures’ unless there are exceptional circumstances. Ofsted will therefore expect schools to improve to ‘good’ within four years.” Ofsted has said it will take a


similar approach to “requires improvement” schools as it does with those judged inadequate,


including monitoring progress and re-inspecting sooner – within two years. Brian Lightman, general


secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “What is important is that this will not be a category which automatically triggers intervention, but rather schools will have monitoring visits with another full inspection in two years. While demanding, this is a less punitive and more supportive approach than Ofsted originally proposed.” Writing in SecEd this week (see


page 12), Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, added: “Most importantly, requires improvement will not make a school eligible for intervention and, therefore,


forced academisation. That’s big. These are important changes to a set of proposals that threatened to tip large numbers of schools over the brink into failure without any corresponding support.” Elsewhere, Ofsted has stressed


that “inspectors’ evaluation of the progress made by pupils and learners will be central to their judgement on whether a school is providing a good education”. It added: “This means if pupils


are making good progress, a school can be found good or better even where attainment is below average.” Sir Michael has also repeated


comments he made recently that inspectors will not be looking for one style of teaching, but instead will look for “what works”. The Ofsted statement said: “Inspectors


will continue to focus on the quality of teaching but Ofsted will be clear that it does not expect to see a particular teaching methodology.” It has also been confirmed that


from September, only schools with “outstanding” teaching will be able to be judged “outstanding” overall. The statement added: “It does


not mean that every lesson seen during an inspection needs to be outstanding. It does, however, mean that over time teaching is enabling almost all pupils to make rapid and sustained progress.” A full summary of the


consultation responses has been published by Ofsted at www.ofsted. gov.uk/news/ofsted-announces- changes-inspections-of-schools- further-education-and-skills-and- initial-teacher-edu-0


Strikes halted as talks agreed over five-term proposal


Industrial action over plans to implement a five-term year in Nottingham has been suspended after “constructive” talks between teachers and Nottingham City Council. The Acas-led discussions


between the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and council officials have resulted in an agreement to hold a further meeting with all trade unions to “look at alternative models of terms and holidays”. The council has agreed that


its executive will consider the outcome of these discussions. The NUT has already held


three days of strike action and had been planning more walk-outs. The plans would see


maintained schools in the city split their academic years into five terms of equal lengths with two-week breaks in-between and a four-week summer holiday. The change is planned for September 2013 for both secondary and primary – but it would not affect the city’s academies. However, a ballot of NUT


members in the city saw 90 per cent back strike action and three day-long walkouts took place in March and April.


The council launched a


consultation with trade unions over the proposals in January but the NUT said that the authority had already made its decision. Tensions rose further after


a letter from the council to the union threatened teachers that do not fall in line with the changes with the sack. A joint statement from the


NUT and Nottingham City Council, issued after the Acas talks, said: “The NUT has agreed to suspend any further industrial action while discussions are ongoing. Collective agreement on a way forward is still being pursued by all parties.” Christine Blower, NUT


general secretary, added: “I am pleased that the NUT has reached agreement which provides for all options to be considered, to form part of constructive negotiations which will now involve all unions representing school staff.” Cllr David Mellen, portfolio


holder for children’s services with the city council, said: “I am pleased that progress has been made in our aim to best meet the needs of our city’s children in the way our terms and holidays are arranged.”


Children misuse apostrophe’s, but love exclamation marks!!


Innovative use of language, expert grasp of technology and enthusiasm for unusual words – these are the key characteristics today’s youngsters display in their creative writing. That was the verdict of a team


of lexicographers from Oxford University Press who analysed nearly 75,000 short stories chil- dren sent into a competition run by Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans. The results of the 500 Words


4


challenge showed that young peo- ple are very inventive in their sto- rytelling and language use. It also emerged that children often refer to technology in their writing and that celebrity culture is a major influence. Well-known people like


Chris Evans, Jacqueline Wilson, Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi and Justin Bieber featured in many of the youngsters’ 500-word stories. It was clear too that American


vocabulary and spelling is creep- ing into children’s work more and more – especially those written by 10 to 13-year-olds – arguably due to the popularity of US novels such as Twilight and The Hunger Games, the study said. The most popular examples of


this were words including cupcake, garbage truck, trash can, candy, sidewalk and soda. Contrary to concerns about the increasing use of text-speak, the


budding young writers only includ- ed it in their stories when it was appropriate. Furthermore, children were


excellent at spelling the more unu- sual words, such as pterodactyl, while there was some confusion over more common words (does and didn’t) and the construction of tenses (waked up). Also, misuse of the apostrophe


appeared to be a common prob- lem, while one of the most popular


forms of punctuation was the excla- mation mark – used nearly 352,000 times. The six finalists in the competi-


tion, all aged 13 and under, heard their stories broadcast on Chris Evans’s breakfast show by celebri- ties like Will Young, Catherine Tate, Helen Skelton and Richard Wilson. The winner of the 10 to 13 cat-


egory of the competition was Isobel Harwood, a 12-year-old pupil at New Mills School in Derbyshire,


whose story, Defining Moments, was about a girl befriending a boy who does not fit in with the norm. The young writer won Chris


Evans’s height in books (6ft 2in) as reward for her endeavours and 500 books for her school library. She said: “I was a bit surprised when I heard my name being read out and I’m still a bit shell-shocked. It was the first time I’d written a story like that – and I only entered it an hour before the deadline. I’m glad I did.”


SecEd • June 14 2012


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