House of Commons - Education and Employment

Select Committee on Education and Employment Sixth Report

SIXTH REPORT

The Education and Employment Committee has agreed to the following Report:—

STANDARDS AND QUALITY IN EDUCATION: THE ANNUAL REPORT OF HER MAJESTY'S CHIEF INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS 1998-99

1. In our major Report last year on the work of OFSTED, we stated our intention to hold regular annual meetings with Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools (HMCI) not only on his Annual Report, but on the work of OFSTED itself.[1] The Education Sub-committee took evidence on Wednesday 15 March 2000 concerning HMCI's Annual Report for 1998-99, which had been published on 8 February 2000. Another evidence session, on the work of OFSTED, will take place later this year. Interested parties were invited by the Education Sub-committee to comment on the Annual Report. Several of the papers we received are published as Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence with this Report.[2]

2. Our previous oral evidence sessions with Mr Chris Woodhead, HMCI since September 1994, have been as follows:

Date	Inquiry	Published as
26 April 1995	Annual Report of HMCI, 1993-94	HC 388
22 May 1996	The Work of OFSTED (General Scrutiny Session)	HC 414
4 December 1996	The status, recruitment and training of teachers/ The Nursery Education Voucher Scheme	HC 25
11 February 1998	Annual Report of HMCI, 1996-97	HC 551-i
10 February 1999	The Work of OFSTED	HC 62-i
3 November 1999	Annual Report of HMCI, 1997-98	HC 884

3. OFSTED's Annual Report runs to more than 400 paragraphs (in addition to a five page Commentary by HMCI) and is based on more than 9,000 visits and inspections carried out during 1998-99. Only a small number of issues were covered in the oral evidence given by Mr Chris Woodhead and his colleagues Mr Mike Tomlinson and Mr David Taylor (both Directors of Inspection) on Wednesday 15 March 2000. Some of these are discussed in the paragraphs below.

Teaching quality

4. In his Commentary on the Annual Report, Mr Woodhead wrote that the quality of teaching has improved, in all subjects and in all year groups.[3] A summary of OFSTED's judgements on teaching quality from 1994-95 to 1998-99 is set out below.

Percentage of lessons judged
unsatisfactory/poor, satisfactory and good/very good

1992/93 - 1998/99

	1992-93	1993-94	1994-95	1995-96	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99
Secondary Schools
Very good / good	31.3	#	44.0	46.2	51.6	55.4	57.2
Satisfactory	46.5	# 82.0	38.2	37.2	36.0	35.8	35.4
Unsatisfactory / poor	21.1	18.0	17.8	16.6	12.6	8.8	7.6
Primary Schools
Very good/ good	25.0	#	42.0	43.3	49.0	54.4	57.6
Satisfactory	45.6	# 75.7	40.4	41.0	39.6	38.3	36.9
Unsatisfactory / poor	29.6	24.3	17.6	18.3	11.4	7.3	5.9
Special Schools*
Very good /good	not given	40	not given	40	50	59	63.5
Satisfactory	not given	30	not given	40	37	33	30
Unsatisfactory / poor	not given	30	not given	20	13	8	6.5

Source: HMCI annual reports
Data for primary schools are averages of judgements for nursery, reception and Years 1-6.
Data for secondary schools are averages of judgements for Years 7-11.
Figures may not sum to 100 due to rounding

# Figures for very good/good and satisfactory are not dis-aggregated in this annual report.
* All special schools (SLD, MLD, & EBD)

5. We welcome the positive tone of the 1998-99 Annual Report. In his oral evidence, Mr Woodhead described himself as optimistic but not utopian on the further improvements to be made, including the positive effects of the national literacy and numeracy strategies in the primary sector.[4] Mr Woodhead told us that the three essential issues that had to be addressed in order to ensure that good teachers continue to teach were:

remuneration: good teachers should receive the highest possible financial reward
bureaucracy: paperwork should be cut further and external intervention in schools should be minimised
morale: will increase as a consequence of greater esteem based on rising standards.[5]

Mr Woodhead also told us that in his view, based on inspection evidence and his own visits to schools, teaching morale had improved, and the key factor was the leadership provided by the headteacher in the particular school.[6]

Teacher recruitment

6. According to Mr Woodhead, the crisis in teacher supply that some commentators had predicted did not come about in the year under review (1998-99).[7] In oral evidence, he told us that maths, physics and foreign languages were difficult subjects in which to recruit, and that inspection evidence showed that recruiting teachers was difficult in certain areas, notably the inner cities, including London.[8]

Class sizes

7. Mr Woodhead acknowledged that further efforts in teacher recruitment would be required if class sizes were to be further reduced.[9] OFSTED welcomed the Government's investment in reducing class sizes at Key Stage 1 (five to seven year olds), where inspection reports indicated a strong correlation between class size and pupil attainment.[10] Mr Woodhead told us that there was no clear correlation after Key Stage 1: "it does not automatically follow that a reduction in class size leads to higher standards of achievement because the quality of teaching remains of paramount importance".[11] Mr Woodhead did not believe that class size was the key factor with regard to discipline.[12] OFSTED had not carried out an empirical study into the extent to which the investment in reducing Key Stage 1 class sizes represents value for money.[13] We expect that OFSTED will consider carrying out such a study in due course.

Supply teachers

8. According to the Annual Report, "one-quarter of lessons taught by supply teachers are unsatisfactory: the quality of teaching by supply teachers is weaker than for all other groups of teachers including newly qualified and trainee teachers".[14] Schools can ensure that the short-term supply teacher is given the necessary induction and support, including lesson plans to make the best possible contribution.[15] For supply teachers covering for longer absences such as maternity leave, schools and local authorities could work with private sector supply teacher agencies to keep the teachers up to date with curriculum development.[16] Mr Woodhead suggested that more could be done by way of quality control of supply teachers.[17] Mr Tomlinson told us that in the best managed schools supply teachers were kept in touch by joining the school staff for training sessions.[18] The quality of supply teachers is a matter of serious concern. We recommend that OFSTED should bring forward proposals for monitoring the quality and classroom readiness of supply teachers, in order to identify areas where improvement is needed. The next step would be to put in place a strategy to help supply teachers with weaknesses to improve their performance.

Pupil and staff mobility

9. Mr Woodhead told us that OFSTED was making progress in ensuring that inspectors understood the impact of pupil mobility in making their judgements.[19] He acknowledged that the issue of staff mobility was important,[20] although OFSTED had no evidence to suggest a link between staff mobility and low levels of achievement in schools.[21] We recommend that OFSTED should study ways in which the impact of staff mobility on pupil attainment may be monitored and evaluated.

Cultural diversity

10. In his Report of the Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Mr Justice Macpherson recommended that OFSTED inspections should include examination of the implementation of strategies to prevent and address racism, including keeping records of racist incidents and publishing the self-defined ethnic identity of excluded pupils.[22] Mr Tomlinson assured us that further training to take on board Mr Justice Macpherson's comments would be mandatory for all OFSTED inspectors.[23] Mr Woodhead told us that he was certain that OFSTED inspectors would be qualified to assess whether children were being given a proper exposure to the totality of the curriculum, although personally he would not agree that the History National Curriculum Order needed to be revamped in any significant way.[24]

English and Information Technology

11. The Annual Report states that achievement in writing remains significantly lower than in reading or speaking or listening.[25] Mr Woodhead suggested that the time may be right for OFSTED to take a look at the expertise, knowledge and understanding of primary school teachers with regard to literacy in general and writing in particular.[26] Mr Taylor told us that the level of subject knowledge in English was a particular problem in teacher training.[27] Mr Woodhead told us that it would be a "difficult" and "political" judgement to decide whether entry requirements for the teaching profession should be raised: "it is common sense that we want teachers who are really confident, intellectually secure, enthusiastic, able and who have the highest possible standards".[28] One area where many teachers need to develop confidence is information technology both as a National Curriculum subject[29] and in its use as a support for teaching across the curriculum.[30] We feel strongly that teachers in all subjects should be given every assistance to improve their information and communications technology skills, and that this assistance should be made equally available for part-time teachers as for full-time teachers.

Failing schools

12. In his Commentary, Mr Woodhead wrote that "too many schools are failing their second inspection".[31] The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) pointed out that the nature of inspections had changed over the period and it was not until September 1998 that the summary report of an inspection contained gradings seeking to compare a school's performance with that of similar schools.[32]

Transition from primary to secondary school

13. Mr Woodhead's Commentary called for the transition from primary to secondary schools to be improved.[33] The National Union of Teachers (NUT) suggested that the relevant teaching staff in primary and secondary schools could liaise with each other to improve transfer of information about pupils' needs and attainments when they moved from Year 6 to Year 7.[34] OFSTED has no evidence that children who have been to middle schools produce better results by the age of 13.[35]

Funding

14. Mr Woodhead noted in his Commentary that "many headteachers" had expressed concern that additional funding from the DfEE was being used to fund local and national initiatives and did not always meet the priorities identified by individual schools. He argued that the general principle ought to be that extra funding should be used to "attract and remunerate successful teachers, buy more books and mend leaking roofs".[36] Mr Woodhead also argued that funding of primary and secondary schools varied too much according to where the school was situated. He proposed that there should instead be a "transparent and educationally defensible mechanism for the equitable devolution of funds from central government to LEAs, and from LEAs to schools".[37] Both the NAHT and the Secondary Heads Association (SHA) supported the points made by Chief Inspector on the need for a transparent equitable mechanism for the allocation of LEA and school funding.[38]

15. Mr Woodhead told us that "there are too many anomalies to allow the situation to continue". [39] He thought that, in devising a long term national funding formula, a balance should be struck between earmarking funds for important national priorities and allowing successful schools the greatest possible freedom in using additional resources from the Government.[40] We urge the Government to develop urgently a sound alternative to the current formula based funding mechanism.

Appraisal

16. In his Commentary, Mr Woodhead wrote that "it is rare for appraisal to be linked to the monitoring of a teacher's classroom performance ... A great deal of work will, therefore, be needed if the Government's drive to introduce performance management is to have any real impact".[41] Mr Taylor told us that two in five schools were not fully compliant with the Government guidelines on appraisal and performance management.[42]

Local education authorities

17. Mr Woodhead's Commentary posed a rhetorical question: why is so much time and energy spent in expensive initiatives that distract teachers and headteachers from their real responsibilities?[43] We asked for examples of "unhelpful" practices by local education authorities.[44] In later written evidence, Mr Woodhead cited examples from two local authorities.[45]

18. Mr Woodhead told us that some of the inspections of local education authorities had revealed "a devastating waste of taxpayers' money and an abysmal failure to support teachers in schools in very, very difficult circumstances".[46] The Local Government Association did not accept that HMCI's model of good practice in this area was necessarily correct.[47]

Bullying

19. Schools generally have appropriate policies on racist behaviour and bullying, but "too many incidents involving name calling or taunting go unchallenged, even when they occur in lessons".[48] Some research has indicated that, while a majority of schools reported instances of homophobic bullying, most teachers found the ban on promoting homosexuality in section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 inhibiting in dealing with this kind of bullying.[49] Mr Woodhead confirmed that no headteachers had raised section 28 with him,[50] although he had not sought headteachers' views on this issue.[51] There is other evidence on the widespread extent of bullying in schools,[52] which not only has a devastating impact on individual pupils, but can also inhibit the entire learning process by contributing to a climate of fear in the worst-affected schools. We are concerned at the relatively low priority given in the HMCI's Annual Report to the issue of bullying, and we recommend that a detailed study of the impact of bullying on pupil attainment should be included in the next Annual Report.

Swimming

20. We were told that OFSTED's specialist adviser on physical education was preparing a report which would include detailed evidence from inspections about pupil attainment at Key Stage 2 on swimming.[53] We look forward to seeing the improved collection of data on pupil attainment in swimming, which we consider to be a key life skill.

Evidence base

21. We re-iterate the firmly held view, expressed in our Report last year on the Work of OFSTED, that it is of the highest importance that HM Chief Inspector's advice to Ministers, and his Commentary on education in print, in public lectures and elsewhere, can be backed up the inspection evidence gathered by OFSTED.[54] Annex 1 to the Annual Report sets out the number of Section 10 inspections and HMI inspections carried out during 1998-99.[55] According to the NAHT, there were a number of generalised statements in the Annual Report which were less helpful than those which were more sharply focussed. NAHT argued that without some indication as to the proportion of schools involved in each case, it was difficult to assess the extent of the problems referred to in the Report.[56] We asked Mr Woodhead to supply us with evidence to support his comments that "from about the age of four and a half most pupils are able to concentrate for the full thirty minutes of the whole class text and word level work [in the literacy hour]"[57] and "the time allocated to teach music and art is occasionally insufficient to cover the full programmes of study".[58] His response is at pages 16 to 17 of the Minutes of Evidence. In our view, it is essential for the improvement of educational standards that the supporting evidence for statements made in the HMCI's Annual Report should be clearly identified.

Conclusion

22. The Education Sub-committee plans to take evidence from Mr Woodhead later in the year, which will provide a further opportunity to explore some of the methodological issues concerning OFSTED's work.

1 Fourth Report from the Education and Employment Committee, Session 1998-99, The Work of OFSTED, HC 62-I, para 204. Back

2 See page xvi. Back

3 Annual Report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools 1998-99, HC 157, page 18. Back

4 Q. 1. Back

5 Q. 17. Back

6 Q. 18. Back

7 HMCI Annual Report 1998-99, HC 157, Commentary, page 19. Back

8 Q. 2. Back

9 Q. 6. Back

10 Q. 7. Back