Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
Mr David Normington, Mr Peter Wanless, Mr David Bell,
examined.
Q40 Mr Steinberg: Are you saying that
you do not depend on raw scores for your league tables?
Mr Normington: That is a fact.
We take into account a number of things, the main one in the latest
data available is the attainment of pupils at 11, which is very
much related to a whole range of factors.
Q41 Mr Steinberg: Will you both put on
record that you believe that external factors outside of school
control has a huge affect on the performance of children and pupils
in secondary schools and in primary schools for that matter?
Mr Bell: If I can just point out
that when the first Ofsted inspection handbook to guide inspectors
was published in 1993 it actually said, "Many factors affect
the capability of pupils and some of these are beyond the school's
control". It is a central part of the task of inspectors
to come to a difficult judgment of whether the standards that
are achieved are as can be reasonably expected. That was said
ten years ago to the inspectors and has always guided the work
of inspectors in coming to an overall judgment.
Q42 Mr Steinberg: I am sure you do not
believe that.
Mr Bell: I do believe it actually.
Q43 Mr Steinberg: You would want to go
round to a lot of schools in the country and ask the teachers
whether they believe that or not.
Mr Bell: If you look at the Chief
Inspector's Annual Report we list outstanding schools from the
schools we inspected over the previous year and they come from
every socioeconomic background in the country and they do not
just take account of raw performance. Inspectors are making judgments,
week in and week out that take account of the circumstances of
the school and come to that important judgment, are the standards
that are being been achieved as best as might be expected taking
account of all of the factors? That has been the principle of
Ofsted inspections from the beginning and it remains the principle
today.
Q44 Mr Steinberg: I do not mean this
with any disrespect to you but I can remember when Mr Bolton was
the Chief Inspector of Schools and when he came as Chief Inspector
he told a totally different story to when he was not Chief inspector
and he was called back to the Education Committee, you can work
out what I mean by that. Can I change the subject altogether go
to the very last paragraph in the main Report that is 3.44, page
34. I want to be little bit parochial now, I found in constituency
terms this was probably about the most important paragraph in
the whole of the Report as far as I was concerned. The state of
school accommodation and the resulting effect that it has on standards
and performance. I have a school in my constituency called Johnston
School. It is the best school in Durham county in terms of results
and it is probably one of the best in the country in terms of
results, I am sure that Mr Bell has heard of it, I will be amazed
if he has not. Because the now ex headteacher is very now the
General Secretary of SHA. It was a good school before he went
there and long after he left, so I am not saying he was responsible.
This school has been a split site school for 30 years. It was
a policy when comprehensive education came in in the 60s and Durham
County Council moved to comprehensive education and created a
split site school from an old grammar school, it was on two different
sites. For over 30 years hardly anything has been spent on that
school because it has always been the policy that we will improve
the school, or we will replace this school, or we will spend a
lot of capital expenditure on this school and this has never happened.
We are at a state now where the school is literally dropping down.
If you look at paragraph 3.44 it says, "Head teachers responding
to our survey rated the importance of the influence of a school's
accommodation and facilities on academic achievement as more than
8 out of 10". They regarded it as very, very important. My
great worry is that this school will begin to deteriorate in standards,
as well as anything else, it might be difficult to recruit, it
might be difficult to get children to learn and work in such an
environment. What did the Government come along with? They have
come along with a policy which says that you can basically have
capital expenditure in private finance initiatives, which I do
not disagree with, but it is based upon areas of deprivation.
This school is not in an area of deprivation, far from it, and
this means that school which is probably number one in Durham
County Council's priority list now will go right to the very bottom
of the list and take 15 years to get to the top, do you think
there should be mechanisms for schools such as this to be allowed
have capital expenditure so that excellent schools do not deteriorate,
but if this does not happen it will deteriorate?
Mr Normington: Yes, I do actually.
There are three things: one is that we are spending £3.6
billion a year on the school estate and it will be £5 billion
by 2005-06, that is an awful lot of money, and that gives us the
possibility of not just doing repairs but doing major refurbishments.
Secondly, we are looking for each local authority to have a plan
where it prioritises its—
Q45 Mr Steinberg: You are telling me
something that I already know.
Mr Normington: The local authority
has to balance deprivation but also need and condition. Clearly
if a school is in a bad condition it has to take that into account
and you will expect that school to be further up the list than
schools which are in better condition, although we are trying
to focus our capital refurbishment on areas of deprivation because
there is some evidence that improves standards we are also trying
to make sure that schools which are in poor condition are improved
as well. I would be very disappointed if that school if is as
you described it would have to wait 15 years to have money spent
on it.
Q46 Mr Steinberg: It is possible they
will able to do a stand-alone private initiative for that particular
school but there will be a shortfall in the actual capital expenditure,
the difference between what they can raise and have a deal with
the private sector and the actual money that will need to replace
school. I want a guarantee or some sort or assurance that shortfall
can be Government-funded and will be Government-funded. I think
Mr Bell has a responsibility here as the Chief Inspector of schools
to say, in certain areas we have excellent schools which are performing
very well indeed but could deteriorate very badly and unless the
Government comes up with some money for these schools then I can
see these school deteriorating, I think you have a responsibility
to say that. Are you prepared to do that?
Mr Bell: We do that in two ways,
one we do it at the level of the individual school. We often comment
if the accommodation impeding pupils' education then schools will
be able to use that report to help them make a stronger case.
We also do it on a national level because in my Annual Report
I always comment on the quality of accommodation. For example
this last year I commented on some of the concerns still that
remain about specialist accommodation in secondary schools, so
that is a very important part of the inspection process because
the quality of the education environment is very important, and
we do say that.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr Nick
Gibb.
Mr Gibb: I totally disagree with the
earlier comment of Mr Steinberg about results, they do need to
be published and we should be publishing as much information as
possible about schools.
Mr Steinberg: With due respect I did
not say that.
Q47 Mr Gibb: If you look the Key Stage
2 results and take similar schools, one might have 85% in English
and yet 67% in maths and the school down the road could have 67%
in English and 85% in maths, and you know there is something wrong
in each of those schools, one is in the maths teaching and one
is with the English teaching simply from the raw data. Can I ask
something about secondary schools from the Report, the last time
I asked you about international comparison you cited the PISA
survey. You said that Britain was fourth in the OECD in science,
seventh in English and eighth in maths, how reliable as a method
do you regard the PISA survey?
Mr Normington: I think it is a
properly conducted survey done with the statistical standards
which are set down by the OECD and then the Office of National
Statistics here ensures there is a sample and that the tests that
are taken are properly conducted and they represent a fair sample
of what this country's education system is like. I do not know
precisely what happens in other countries but the OECD are very
rigorous in trying to my apply those standards. I think we can
have a fair assurance about the accuracy of those figures.
Q48 Mr Gibb: That is very alarming. Have
you read the National Institute of Economics' analysis of the
PISA survey?
Mr Normington: I do not think
I have.
Q49 Mr Gibb: Do you not think you should?
Mr Normington: I will if you think
I should.
Q50 Mr Gibb: I do think you should read
it because that report says that survey is totally unreliable
because it measures a 15 years olds life skills, it does not measure
pupils' knowledge of the school curriculum.
Mr Normington: That does not invalidate
the results. I am quite clear that it is measuring the ability
of pupils to apply their reading skills, their literacy skills,
their maths skills and their science skills. It is measuring the
ability to apply their skills. I do not think it pretends to be
anything more than that.
Q51 Mr Gibb: It is more of an IQ test,
it is not a measure of knowledge of the school curriculum.
Mr Normington: It is a measure
of whether pupils can use the knowledge they have and apply it,
as I understand it.
Q52 Mr Gibb: It is a common sense test,
an IQ test. Can I bring in the TIMSS survey, the trends in maths
and science subjects where Britain came twentieth out of forty-one
developing countries, behind countries like Hungary, Czech Republic
and Malaysia. How do you reconcile the TIMSS survey that has been
going on for many, many years with the optimistic results in the
PISA which were within a very short time scale of each other?
Mr Normington: I am not an expert
in the measures, one view is that the TIMSS measure is measuring
something else.
Q53 Mr Gibb: What is it measuring?
Mr Normington: It is more likely
to be measuring knowledge rather than the application of that
knowledge.
Q54 Mr Gibb: Where we performed twentieth
out of forty-one.
Mr Normington: What I get told
all of the time from employers is that we have young people who
cannot apply their knowledge in real life, it is therefore a valuable
measure of that.
Q55 Mr Gibb: The frequent complaint of
employers is that graduates from schools do not have the basic
schooling in maths and literacy, not that they cannot apply some
of highfalutin theories.
Mr Normington: I hear that too.
This is not highfalutin theories, this is measuring the ability
to apply knowledge.
Q56 Mr Gibb: The PISA survey is not consistent
with other international surveys?
Mr Normington: That does not mean
to say it is invalid, it actually puts Britain up the league tables
for a change rather than down and I think that is something that
we should celebrate.
Q57 Mr Gibb: How can we be down in one
survey and up in another?
Mr Normington: I do not set these
tests. I do not set this standard. The OECD is a highly respected
organisation, it probably does the best comparative studies of
education in the world and therefore I have no basis on which
to say that it is not a valid study.
Q58 Mr Gibb: I am very alarmed by that
because that does show a degree of complacency if you do think
that Britain is fourth in science in the world? What is there
to worry about in our education system? Most people think education
is one of the most pressing concerns and how can that be consistent
with coming fourth in a survey?
Mr Normington: There are lots
of things in that survey which show we have much more to do. It
shows we have one of the biggest gaps in the world between the
highest achievers and the lowest achievers relating to social
class, and that is something that we certainly have to tackle
in Britain. I am not complacent at all.
Q59 Mr Gibb: Can I ask you about the
level of adult literacy in Britain as determined by the OECD?
Mr Normington: The OECD study
of adults which was published a few weeks ago showed that we were
well down the league table for the literacy and numeracy of 25
year olds and above and that the position got worse for 25 to
34 year old compared with the older age groups and over time we
had slipped down. That is a commentary on the education system
10 years ago, not a commentary on the education system now. That
is what we are trying to do, that is why we are trying to improve
the quality of the schools now so that we do not reinforce that
problem which we have in the adult population.
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