Reaction to Ofsted Annual Report

Reacting to yesterday’s publication of Ofsted Annual Report, Councillor Dave Harling, Executive Member for Education, said:”We are disappointed with the overly negative tone of the report. I believe it is unfair that it highlights what schools have failed to achieve rather than looking at what schools have actually managed to do in terms of improving standards.

“The fact is that in this borough, 80 per cent of our schools are judged good or better.

“We are also ranked in the top half of all local authorities in the country. I think we are bearing unfair criticism because of our geographical location in the best performing region.  Ranking local authorities this way misses a lot of the complexities of what is actually happening on the ground.

“There are lots of positive results in the report about our borough but they are ignored. For example, our children in receipt of Free School Meals perform far better than the national average.

“That does not mean we are complacent. We know which areas need improvement and we are working hard with all our schools to make sure our children and our young people receive the best education possible.

“The Council has worked in partnership with schools to implement a number of initiatives and innovations including setting up a borough wide school improvement board where schools support each other to drive improvement.”