24th December 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Schools Inspectors Ofsted have released their annual report, which shows that the regional disparities in England are like “two nations”. Although the report showed general improvement in schools across the country, it also showed that 250,000 students are attending schools judged to be inadequate. Additionally, 1.5 million children are being taught in schools which require improvement. Ofsted head Michael Wilshaw raised concerns that the differences in students’ performance across the country was stark, with London schools improving rapidly whilst Doncaster, Norfolk and Suffolk fell way behind.
The report showed that the area children are born in is the biggest factor determining the quality of their education. The key issue highlighted is the fact that the distribution of highly rated teachers and school leaders across the country is very uneven, with highly rated teachers generally working in the south of the country. Ofsted’s report suggested that there needed to be a fairer distribution of the highest rated teachers, and that incentives needed to be found to move excellent teachers to the areas of greatest need. The reported concluded that addressing regional differences was the only that England could compete on an international scale.
Ofsted have produced a list of factors which need to be assessed, and highlighted in particular the poor behaviour and classroom control issues in the lowest performing areas. They suggested introducing Ofsted spot checks, which would be conducted without notice and evaluate teachers’ ability to manage pupil behaviour. They have also announced plans to introduce external tests to be taken at age seven, in order for Ofsted to collect more reliable data for comparison. Michael Wilshaw concluded by saying that teachers’ assessments were worrying inconsistent, and that external checks would be a more reliable measure.