Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
Mr David Normington, Mr Peter Wanless, Mr David Bell,
examined.
Q20 Chairman: Are all schools getting
a fair distribution of resources in your view?
Mr Normington: I would not dream
of saying that at the moment. We are trying to make it fairer.
A lot of the difficulties we got into last year were because a
new formula was introduced which tried to distribute the money
more fairly according to need and that change caused a lot of
the problems that we got into. I would not dream of saying every
school is getting its fair share.
Q21 Mr Williams: Mr Normington, I must
say I find this Report intensely depressing. If I read it correctly
it means you are allocating resources according to criteria which
is misleading, schools are being closed or threatened with closure
that turn out to have better than average performance and careers
are being destroyed all on the basis of a fallacious set of statistics.
If we take paragraph 1.15—remember you signed up to this
Report—"performance tables of academic achievement
are of only limited use in assessing a school's performance .
. ." Earlier in that paragraph it makes the point, "information
in these tables is only of limited value in comparing the performance
of different schools and different types of schools. This is because
they take no account of factors external to a school, some of
which can have a significant influence". And it then goes
on to list them. As far as I gather you did not dissent from that
paragraph in the Report, is that correct?
Mr Normington: We signed up to
the Report, yes.
Q22 Mr Williams: You signed up to it,
yes. Are you not almost ashamed to be sitting there defending
a bunch of statistics that have been virtually discarded in one
paragraph? Can we take it a stage further then, let us go and
look—
Mr Normington: For the record,
I am not ashamed to be sitting here because I would like to explain
what we are trying to do to improve the situation, and I will
in a minute.
Q23 Mr Williams: If we look at page 21,
"Ofsted assessments of schools were more closely related
to the unadjusted academic achievements of pupils than to academic
achievement adjusted for the influence of external factors".
That is very serious, is it not?
Mr Normington: May I answer this,
the first thing to say is that we have been trying over a number
of years as a result of decisions taken by the Government in 1998
to improve the quality of information which is available to parents
in the performance tables.
Q24 Mr Williams: I understand that. With
respect, you signed up to this, which indicated the inadequacy
of the situation as it is represented in this Report. I know what
changes you have undertaken, they are limited. In says in paragraph
2.26, "Decisions to place a school in special measures might
also be influenced more by the unadjusted academic achievements
of pupils rather than achievement adjusted for the influence of
external schools."
Mr Normington: Let me say two
things, the comment about the limited value of previous information
is a comment on the history of this and where it came from and
that is why we introduced a broader range of measures of school
performance, the data for which underlies this Report. It is a
big improvement since 1998 and it does add some very important
information to how a school is performing. Secondly, we do not
judge failing schools on just one measure, we judge them on a
whole range of measures, one of which is an Ofsted inspection
of the school, which includes sampling the teaching in that school.
Schools are not closed down on the basis of raw data.
Q25 Mr Williams: Ofsted is a waste of
the money you are spending on it. Look at the next sentence, "Of
the 72 schools that were in special measures at some stage during
2001-02, 78% were ranked more highly at Key Stage 3, and 65% were
ranked more highly at GCSE level, after measures of academic achievement
had been adjusted". They were put under special measures.
What happened? I reckon on the basis of this Report you are subject
to possible legal action for what you have done to the careers
of some teachers and some heads.
Mr Normington: The decision on
whether a school goes into special measures is taken by Ofsted,
perhaps I can get Mr Bell to explain the basis on which that decision
is taken.
Mr Bell: It is a very important
point to make that any judgment that a registered inspector makes
about special measures is not simply on one measure alone. Our
guidance is very clear, it actually lists a range of factors that
inspectors have to consider. Obviously the standards achieved
by the pupils is one factor, so is the progress made by the pupils,
so is the quality of teaching, so is the quality of leadership
and management, so is the quality of governance. I know because
I have to effectively sign off all decisions that go into special
measures. They do not go into special measures because of one
single factor.
Q26 Mr Williams: No one is saying it
is one single factor.
Mr Bell: The degree of adjustment
you were describing suggested it was because of the academic achievement
alone that schools were put into special measures.
Q27 Mr Williams: I said it is because
of internal factors only. Can you turn to page 19 and look at
the question that might lead to the allocation of resources. Look
at figure 8 on page 19, at Key Stage 3 this ranks educational
authorities, and Islington is ranked 133rd in the country but
when it is adjusted for external factors it becomes 9th. If you
look at the GCSE ranking Islington is the 138th on academic achievement
and 51st on external factors; Lambeth is 114th and it becomes
16th; Southwark 139th and it becomes 31st yet your Department
has been making the allocation of resources on the basis of a
record prepared by your department, has it not?
Mr Normington: We do not allocate
money mainly on the performance of an area, the allocation of
money are mainly made on a range of factors in that area, including
social need, including the cost of employing teachers and a number
of other factors.
Q28 Mr Williams: In that case why do
you not have Education Action Zones?
Mr Normington: Education Action
Zones focus activity on and some money on areas of—
Q29 Mr Williams: There we are.
Mr Normington: The focus is on
areas of deprivation and underperformance.
Q30 Mr Williams: Measured by which criteria?
Mr Normington: You are only looking
here at one measure, which is the measure of how much a school
or an area adds value to pupils between 11 to 14 and 14 to 16.
That is not enough in terms of a judgment you should make about
a school or an area. You should also make a judgment about the
absolute performance that is being achieved. A school can add
a lot of value but can still achieve very poor results. You have
to look at both sets of measures. Some schools add a lot more
value than others.
Q31 Mr Williams: In that case if you
look at selective schools in fact interestingly although they
have the best academic results overall that is because they are
selecting the best to begin with. In terms of additional, which
you just said we have to take into account, what it says here
is that post Key Stage 3 and GCSE these schools are of particular
benefit to pupils who have a relatively low level of prior academic
achievement. The prime achievers have already been taken, they
are doing well at the intermediate level but the fact of the matter
is our whole concept of an achievement hierarchy in schools and
in areas in the country is absolute nonsense on the basis of this
Report. On the basis of the information here schools are being
damned, teachers are being damned and local education authorities
are getting resources allocated.
Mr Normington: I do not accept
that. I do not accept that.
Q32 Mr Steinberg: I want to carry on
where Mr Williams left off, perhaps not as vigorous because he
is a better performer, I want to make the same point, this Report
substantiates what many of us have been saying for 15 years while
your Department, your predecessors have totally ignored us and
said that we were talking a load of rubbish. How much influence
did Mr Woodhead have on the system that there is in place today?
Mr Normington: May I just answer
a little of that. Clearly I work for the Government that is in
power at the time and they decide what the content of the material
should be. This Government in 1998 decided that it should do this
kind of analysis so that it was possible to have a more rounded
view of what a school achieved. I have been a great proponent
of improving the quality of the data between 1998 and 2003. I
personally put a lot of effort into making sure that is better
data. I think we have a much more rounded picture but you should
never take one measure of performance.
Q33 Mr Steinberg: When did league tables
come into existence?
Mr Normington: Sometime in the
earlier 90s.
Q34 Mr Steinberg: I think it was in 1988.
Mr Normington: I do not know precisely.
Q35 Mr Steinberg: Labour opposition at
the time was vehemently opposed to it but they soon change their
mind when they got into power in 1997. Do you think I was right
to ask for Woodhead's resignation in 1997?
Mr Normington: I am not going
to the comment on that.
Q36 Mr Steinberg: I think you should.
You have not answered the question, what was the influence of
Woodhead to the whole of Ofsted, was he a hindrance or a help
as far as education standards have been concerned?
Mr Normington: In terms of performance
tables the decision about performance tables is taken by the Government
not by the Chief Inspector.
Q37 Mr Steinberg: I might disagree with
you on that.
Mr Normington: We do all of the
data collection and we do all of the publication.
Q38 Mr Steinberg: I believe that Ofsted
and HMIs are the ones that made the recommendations to Government
who are laymen and we look to experts such as Mr Bell to be able
to give us the right data and the right information. I want to
know, was Woodhead a hindrance or a help in terms of where we
are today?
Mr Bell: I do not comment on my
predecessors, every chief inspector does the job they see sit
fit. Although we provide advice to the Department on a whole range
of issue we do not provide advice on the content of performance
table because as Mr Normington said that is a matter for ministers
advised by officials.
Q39 Mr Steinberg: If I remember rightly,
my recollection that was Woodhead believed there was no such thing
as external factors and he destroyed some teachers because of
that, schools that were in deprivation areas, where teachers had
the most bloody appalling task to do, Woodhead said that had nothing
to do with the results that kids were actually achieving. You
still have not changed much since those days all that you do is
depend upon raw scores to do your league tables? Mr Normington
you said we sometime compare similar schools, what is a similar
school? How do compare a similar schools, how do you compare what
is a similar school and what is not a similar, every school is
unique?
Mr Normington: The performance
tables that we now publish have five different measures which
try to put raw scores, the absolute results of GCSEs in context
and which also for the first time, because we have produced this
information, enable us to look at the performance over time of
the value-added by pupils from 11 to 14 and 14 to 16. That is
a big step in the direction of enabling us to take a more rounded
view of schools.
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