Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


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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