Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
MS CHRISTINE
GILBERT, MR
DORIAN BRADLEY,
MR ROBERT
GREEN, MS
VANESSA HOWLISON
AND MS
MIRIAM ROSEN
13 DECEMBER 2006
Q80 Mr Chaytor: The second thing
is that, in respect of your judgment on academies, it says in
the report that nine of the new academies have been inspected
under the new arrangements and the progress they are making, while
uneven, is broadly positive. My question is this. Is that judgment
a sufficient basis to justify a doubling of the number of new
academies?
Ms Gilbert: I cannot remember
if the point is made in the report, I certainly made it in response
to questions about academies, that is a very, very low number
of academies to be making general points about development. What
we are looking at is not whether something is an academy or not;
it is the provision within it. That point in the report about
"generally positive" is because these were all schools
that were in great difficulties, and so they have made—some
of them have made—positive progress, and we wanted to acknowledge
that. However, it is far too few for us to be making a general
point about academies on.
Q81 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask one other,
short question? In terms of your assessment of sixth-form colleges
you said, "[...]seven out of ten are good or better in terms
of overall effectiveness". What is better than "good"?
Surely the only other category is "outstanding", so
why does it not say that "seven out of ten are good or outstanding"?
Ms Gilbert: It could have done,
I think!
Q82 Chairman: Going back to a couple
of earlier questions, in terms of the underperforming schools,
what is the correlation between the number of schools that are
really underperforming and anything else out there? You mention
leadership. Are most of these schools in the leafy suburbs? Where
are they?
Ms Gilbert: Miriam may want to
give a broader picture but, as I said earlier, I have read reports
of every school placed in special measures since October. By about
the third week, I asked Miriam to send me some good ones because
I was getting such a depressing feel of what was going on. I think
that there is not a single one where you would think that leadership
and management was effective in any way. There may have been some
where somebody new had come in, but inspectors were not seeing
the positive feel that they got about the head reinforced in classrooms
or in practice, and so on. So I think that leadership and management
are really important; but I also think that the quality of teaching
is absolutely vital. Those two things combined give you a really
good focus on the progress that each child is making within the
school. Is the child making sufficient progress? Are children
generally in that school making sufficient progress? I think that
those would be my key things—and Miriam is nodding.
Q83 Chairman: I want to drill down
a bit further in that. The whole academy programme is based on
trying to turn schools round in the poorest parts of our inner
cities and inner towns. Surely there is a relationship between
underperforming schools and poverty? Or does it have nothing to
do with it? You are telling me that there is no relation between
how poor that school is, where it sits, how deprived that community
is on a range of measures. You are telling me that there is no
link between these really underperforming schools and poverty?
Ms Gilbert: I would not say that
there was no link. What I would say—and I did say this very
strongly when I was in Tower Hamlets—is that poverty and
disadvantage are absolutely no excuse for failure. When I moved
from Harrow to Tower Hamlets, I could see immediately that the
children in Tower Hamlets were no less bright than the children
in Harrow. We had more money in Tower Hamlets per child, and it
was what we did with that money to make more of a difference than
we were making that was absolutely key. You have to make people
believe in themselves and believe that they can achieve and do
better, and they will. So I think that it is very much not saying,
"We're disadvantaged, therefore we can't do X, Y and Z";
it is looking at what you can do and using the resources more
effectively to effect change.
Q84 Chairman: So if you took those
children from the other Harrow school they would do just as well,
would they?
Ms Gilbert: I think that it is
a number of factors. One of the big differences is that, when
I was a head in Harrow and when I was a director, parents were
very active and very key. I used to run a Monday evening surgery
and open the school on Monday evenings for parents, and there
used to be a stream of people on Monday evenings. I do not think
that would have happened in Tower Hamlets. It did not mean that
the parents were not any more committed to the development of
their child; they were just less confident about tackling the
school about issues. If homework was not set in a Harrow school,
not only would I as a head have had a number of complaints, either
in person or by letter, but probably as director I was receiving
complaints too. Nobody ever complained to me in Tower Hamlets
about the homework not being set. So it is trying to get the sorts
of things that—Harrow is not entirely middle class -more
middle class parents do for their children. We need to be using
some of the resources to get that sort of intervention.
Q85 Chairman: You say poverty is
not an excuse, but there is a correlation between underperforming
schools and the degree of poverty and parental support.
Ms Gilbert: I am not sure if the
evidence that I looked at recently, in terms of London schools,
is saying that in terms of the judgment of inspectors on some
of the schools. So in some of our urban schools, with good leadership
and management—it is quite a small survey, so I probably
need to be a bit careful—it was suggesting that leadership
and management in some of the inner city schools were stronger
than elsewhere, and actually the provision and the grades that
they were getting from Ofsted were better. There could be a link
between disadvantage and attainment, unless we put in the interventions
that we should be putting in to make sure that progress is better.
Q86 Paul Holmes: You have recovered
the position slightly with what you have just said, but first
of all you were giving very good examples from your own experience
of working in Harrow and in a different capacity in Tower Hamlets
of how there is a huge difference between the social background,
parental support, and all the rest of it, that did make a big
difference between the two areas. Then, in response to the Chairman's
question, you said, "No, that's not really significant"—the
social deprivation and so forth. It seemed incomprehensible to
me that you could say that. If it was all down to leadership,
quality of management and how we spend the resources, then Tower
Hamlets, after your leadership, would be getting exactly the same
results as Harrow, presumably—if it was just down to leadership.
Ms Gilbert: I would stress that
I was chief executive for the last five years. There was another
director of education; it certainly was not me. I think that the
director of education would not say that it was him either; it
is the schools that make the real difference. However, the results
in some cases were not far off some off the Harrow schools.
Q87 Paul Holmes: Across the board
at Tower Hamlets, do the results match Harrow, after these years
of excellent leadership?
Ms Gilbert: No, they do not, but
look how the gap has narrowed over those years. I did not mean
to say—and I hope I did not convey—that disadvantage
is not an issue; but you cannot say, "This is a disadvantaged
school. They're only getting so-and-so results because they are
disadvantaged". That is my issue with value-added. It is
a very important lever in improving a school but no child can
go to an interview and say, "Look at my value-added schools";
they have to go to an interview with real GCSE results.
Q88 Paul Holmes: David was saying
earlier that in the report on sixth-form colleges you were saying
that 70% of them are "good" or "outstanding".
What is the percentage of schools that are "good" or
"outstanding"?
Ms Gilbert: It is about 59% or
something. In the report we were saying that.
Q89 Paul Holmes: So why the difference?
Is that because all the good and outstanding leavers go into sixth-form
colleges, or is it because sixth-form colleges by their very nature
are taking pupils who are academically able, well-motivated, and
working at a higher level than an average school across the country?
Ms Gilbert: Yes, and sometimes
you can have a school graded one way and the sixth-form provision
is better. We have been looking at reasons for that. It is to
do with the sorts of reasons that you have identified, and it
is to do with subject knowledge, smaller groups, the focus, and
so on. So we think it is to do with some of those things.
Q90 Mr Pelling: A fundamental in
the annual report was your inspiring comments that "competence
in literacy and numeracy continue to be fundamental in all learning".
What has Her Majesty's Inspectorate seen in the inspections it
has made as being the most important element or elements to ensure
that that priority is given? Is it possible for schools within
the competing demands of the curriculum to be able to deliver
in this area?
Ms Gilbert: I think that it is
very rare for a school, for a primary school anyway, not to see
literacy and numeracy as central to their work, and I think that
it is a focus for them. In terms of secondary schools, it is increasingly
identified—but I need to be careful because I may be saying
these things without the evidence of Ofsted reports to back me
up. Certainly from what I have seen in terms of primary school
Ofsted reports, literacy and numeracy are central to those. However,
a number of studies have been done on this, and a number of studies
of the national strategies might be helpful here. Perhaps, Mr
Chairman, I could ask Miriam to pick up some of the key points
in those. That might be helpful.
Ms Rosen: We have certainly found
that the Primary National Strategy has been helpful in helping
teachers to focus within the primary sector. One of the things
that our last report, which is slightly out of date now—it
was December 2005—pointed out was that sometimes children
who are not making the progress they should are left too late.
There is a lot of catch-up work done towards the top end of the
primary school, Years 5 and 6, when we are recommending that it
should be done earlier. That was one of the main messages that
came out of the December 2005 report, therefore. We also reported
on the Secondary National Strategies at the same time. There we
said, yes, there were signs of improvement, but there were particular
problems for schools taking in large numbers of children at 11
who had not yet reached Level 4 in English, because they do not
have access to the whole of the curriculum. We also said that
we did not think there was sufficient focus on literacy and numeracy
across the curriculum.
Q91 Jeff Ennis: Chief Inspector,
can I tell you that last Friday I went to the retirement party
of the former head in the school where I used to teach for 18
years, Hillsborough Primary School. Stuart Bell is retiring early
at 57 years old, having been head teacher for 16 years. The school
has had a very good Ofsted report recently. The most telling comment
he made in his retirement speech to the assembled audience was
the fact that, when he was appointed as the head teacher 16 years
ago, 30-odd people applied for the post. This time, with a good
inspection, et cetera, there were five people who applied to be
head at Hillsborough Primary School, and one of those dropped
out. I wonder if you feel that the imposition of Ofsted over the
last ten years or so has impacted on the number of teachers who
are now willing to put themselves forward as head teachers. If
it has not, what have been the factors which have resulted in
our seeing a drastic reduction in the number of senior teachers
putting themselves forward to be head teachers?
Ms Gilbert: One of the unions
raised this with me, that Ofsted had been a factor here. There
are a number of factors, which I think are being addressed by
looking at salary and so on. The National College of School Leadership
is doing some really interesting work in this area, encouraging
people to become heads and so on, and identifying people to become
heads. I think that it is a number of factors, really. We just
need to try and address them. We need to give people confidence
that it is not just them: that they are part of a leadership team
in a school, and make them feel that the job is worthwhile and
worth doing, which I think it is doing.
Q92 Jeff Ennis: What would the other
factors be then, Christine, apart from salary? You have mentioned
the fact that it could be Ofsted. Are there any other factors
that have a bigger influence on the lack of head teachers coming
forward?
Ms Gilbert: I think that the demands
in terms of accountability put some people off. I think that people
feel it is a lot of additional time; that they are happy to be
a deputy but do not want the additional time, the additional responsibility
and so on. That is why I think that the thrust taken by some of
the major unions on shared leadership is right. I would not previously
have promoted that sort of approach because actually there is
one head, but nevertheless these days one head does not do the
job that is needed to be done in the school. I think that there
are the expectations on schools. I think that it is harder to
be a head today than it was when I was a head. I think that the
expectations of parents, government, Ofsted—all of those
people, for instance, are harder than they used to be. What the
NCSL is doing is very imaginative in some ways, therefore, in
encouraging some people to come into headship. I also think that
some people who would never anticipate being a head, given an
experience of it, start to realise that they like doing it; that
it is a job that they could do, and they should be given confidence
in doing it. So I think that also we need to find more experiences
like that.
Q93 Jeff Ennis: Do you think that
the new inspection framework will assist in future head teacher
recruitment, so that we do see more deputy heads wanting to become
head teachers as a direct consequence of the short, sharp inspection,
shall we say?
Ms Gilbert: As Miriam said earlier,
schools are telling us that it is less stressful. They are stressed
from when they get the phone call but they are only stressed for
three days, rather than ten weeks or whatever it was, and it is
forgotten afterwards. I mean the feeling of stress is forgotten,
not the inspection report. I think that is a factor, therefore,
but there will always be an element of some stress and adrenaline
with external scrutiny.
Q94 Jeff Ennis: But you would hope,
say over the next four or five years, with the new inspection
framework, we would see more people wanting to become head teachers
again?
Ms Gilbert: I do not know enough
to know, at a general level, how much that has played as a factor
against some of the other things that are a factor.
Q95 Chairman: Miriam does. She is
shaking her head.
Ms Rosen: What I was thinking
was that we have been told that the new inspection framework is
less stressful overall, but there is more intensive focus on the
senior leadership team. The self-evaluation means that the inspectors
have to hold quite a focused dialogue with the head teacher and
with other senior leaders about what their priorities are, why,
what they are doing about their identified weaknesses, and so
on. So I do not know if we are going to see a link or not. I think
that there is a huge range of factors which contribute to workforce
issues like this, not talking from my experience as an inspector
but from the 18 years I spent teaching. Whether there were lots
of teachers around or not seemed to be very closely linked to
the economy, because I can remember trying to recruit science
teachers when we would get one applicant for an ordinary post,
and trying to recruit them when we would get 100 applicants. It
did seem to be linked to the availability of other jobs as well.
Q96 Chairman: The economy was not
very good 16 years ago.
Ms Rosen: I am talking about longer
ago than that!
Q97 Jeff Ennis: One final question.
What more can be done by Ofsted, or local authorities, or the
DfES to support head teachers and members of the schools' senior
management team?
Ms Gilbert: We can support them
do their job more effectively by making our recommendations as
clearly focused as we can. I do not think that we have a broader
role in supporting them than that. In schools that are in special
measures and so on, I think that we have a more focused role.
Again, however, it is not just general support; it is very much
focused on the development of the school and so on. We engage
with partners—the NCSL and so on—in dialogue with
them about what we might do. We would support the seminars, conferences,
and so on; but I would not want to pretend that we saw ourselves
as having a very direct supportive role for head teachers.
Q98 Jeff Ennis: So it is not your
role, effectively.
Ms Gilbert: Absolutely.
Q99 Fiona Mactaggart: I want to ask
about subjects and curriculum and whether the new inspection arrangements
adequately deal with subjects outside English, Maths and Science
particularly. We have had evidence from the Royal Society of Chemistry
and the National Association of Advisers and Inspectors in Design
and Technology, expressing concern that the present arrangements
for subject inspection do not give an accurate picture about subject
teaching around the country. What is your view of this?
Ms Gilbert: As you may know, we
are picking up a look at subjects through the thematic reviews
that we are doing, which complements the school inspection programme.
We will look, over a three-year period, to get some sense of what
is going on in some of the subject areas. The same criticism has
been raised with me but, in dialogue with colleagues, it is hard
to see the impact of some of the annual work on subjects. So I
would hope that thematic work would give us an opportunity to
have a closer focus on what is going on in particular areas, be
it a subject or an issue or a theme, and to think very hard about
the impact of that work on making a difference in what is going
on on the ground.
Ms Rosen: Every year, we have
a sample of schools that we look at for each subject. Over a three-year
period we write a report on that subject. We all say something
in the annual report in between times. We feel that this enables
us to pick up on particular issues, on strengths and weaknesses,
on trends that are happening, and for us to focus in on particular
things that we are interested in. It will not be a statistically
significant sample, because to be statistically significant you
need a huge sample. We are not going to be writing state-of-the-nation
reports but, even so, we will be able to write authoritative reports
on the basis of these inspections, which tell us about issues
in that subject and trends in it.
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