Defence CommitteeWritten evidence from Ofsted

Background

1. This submission is Ofsted’s response to the Committee’s call for written evidence on educating the children of service personnel. Ofsted monitors Service Children’s Education (SCE), by invitation on a school by school basis, against the Framework for school inspection, published in September 2012 and amended in January 2013.

2. The submission draws upon published findings from the report, Children in Service families, published in May 2011. It also references evidence from HMCI’s Annual report 201112 and an internal analysis of a small sample of Ofsted inspection reports, from SCE schools, published between July 2012 and March 2013. However, Ofsted’s evidence does not cover, in detail, all of the issues raised by the Committee.

3. According to the report, Department for Education research report DfE-RR011: the educational performance of children of Service personnel, DfE, 2010: www.education.gov.uk/publications/RSG/AllPublications/Page1/DFE-RR011, there are 938 maintained primary schools and 423 maintained secondary schools with Service children on roll. These schools are inspected as part of Ofsted’s routine programme of inspections.

4. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI), Sir Michael Wilshaw, is determined that every child should have the opportunity to go to a good school. As part of the drive for further improvement, the “satisfactory” grade was removed from the school inspection framework last autumn and replaced by a “requires improvement” judgement.

5. Other important changes have been made to strengthen the inspection of maintained schools and academies. Since autumn 2012, inspectors have evaluated and reported on how additional funding provided through the pupil premium1 is being spent and its impact on raising standards. Ofsted’s report, The pupil premium, published in September 2012, did not comment on outcomes for the children from service families at that time. However, from February 2013, inspectors will report specifically on the performance in English and mathematics of pupils supported through the pupil premium compared to all other pupils in the school. Inspectors will highlight any differences between the average point scores for English and mathematics2 and whether gaps are narrowing for the following pupils:

pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and all other pupils (FSM and non-FSM pupils);

children who are looked after and all other pupils (CLA and non-CLA); and

children of service families and all other pupils.

6. Inspectors will also scrutinise the school’s own assessment data and evaluate the progress made by those pupils who are eligible for the Year 7 catch-up premium.

7. The new inspection framework, places greater emphasis on the performance management of teachers and how effective school leaders and managers are in ensuring that teaching helps all pupils to achieve as well as they can. Weaknesses in teaching and learning and leadership and management are inherent features of schools judged to be “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. For the first time since Ofsted has inspected SCE schools, inspectors judged the standard of education in an SCE school as inadequate, in December 2012, placing the school in a category of concern. In this school, standards in reading and writing were much lower than they should be because too much teaching was inadequate.

8. Inspectors evaluate the effectiveness of governance in schools when judging leadership and management during every Section 5 inspection. This is also the case in SCE inspections. Although no separately graded judgement for governance is made, inspectors comment explicitly on the effectiveness of governance within the report. Effective governance is an intrinsic part of good leadership. HMCI is of the view that radical changes need to be made so that governance arrangements are fit for purpose in all schools.

The difficulties facing Service families in achieving the same standard of education for their children as they would if they were civilians in the UK or overseas

9. Although Service children achieve generally in line with their peers by the end of each key stage, for many of them, their learning slows, or recedes, because of continual moves. Often they need additional support to help them to catch up. Ofsted’s evidence suggests some children do not achieve the grades they might have achieved if they had not been geographically mobile. When Service families’ children attend many different schools, continuity and progression in learning is hard to achieve. There is more to be done to improve the quality of education these children experience.

10. Ofsted’s evidence shows that children who face regular moves of home and school can suffer high levels of anxiety and stress. This problem is often exacerbated because the transfer of records between schools is not always properly coordinated and important information is delayed, or does not arrive at all. As a result, some children miss large parts of their curriculum entitlement and the additional support they need to help them to catch up. Local authorities have different systems for school admissions. Delays in admissions departments processing requests for school places, or finding a school that meets a child’s needs create further difficulties for these families.

11. Service families’ children may be susceptible to social and emotional disturbance while a parent or other family member is on active deployment. Children’s behaviour may be very different before and after deployment. These are all times when anxiety levels run high and emotional stability is affected. Without accurate systems to track the movements of these children, there is a lack of continuity of support and provision for them as they move between schools. This is heightened in areas where small numbers of Service children are educated in mainstream schools and where there is less understanding of their needs.

The provision of education for all Service children from pre-school to age 19, including those with special needs

12. Pre-school provision was outside of the planned scope of the Ofsted survey in 2011. Ofsted’s inspections of SCE schools in the UK and overseas, suggest variable quality in pre-school provision. Our inspection evidence shows that few children in the Early Years Foundation Stages 1 and 2 stay in the same school for more than three years. Therefore, these children face the same challenges as older children, when they are required to make frequent changes in the schools they attend.

13. Parents interviewed in the survey told us it was very difficult to get their children into schools of their choice in the UK. Not all local authorities follow the School Admissions Code consistently. Some schools are over-subscribed. Some families do not always know their next location until the last minute. This means that some parents have to place siblings in different schools, even when their children are at the same stage in their education. Although the landscape is varied, some local authorities do sterling work, often led by educational psychologists, recognising that Service families’ children may need fluctuating levels of support during moves or deployment. This is evidenced by the attention they give to identifying these children as a priority group, and putting tailored, timely support in place so children benefit and cope more effectively with their circumstances.

14. Provision for 14–19 year-olds was a key concern raised through evidence from the survey. SCE schools in Germany and Cyprus were not able to fully meet the needs of all of the 14–19-year-olds. Staying on rates in school sixth forms were too low. Young people were not always able to follow courses of their choice due to the limited range of options available to them. As a result, some young people dropped out of full-time education or training; their destinations were not specifically monitored and there was weak accountability for their outcomes.

15. Ofsted recognises the efforts made by the MoD to resolve the difficulties in providing education and services in the current, very challenging, military context. Nevertheless, there is scope to further raise awareness of the needs of Service families and children in the range of settings in which they are learning. The government has introduced additional funding (the pupil premium) to help to meet these children’s needs more effectively, but the true impact of social and emotional disturbance on these children and young people is not fully understood by all. Local authorities are not always sufficiently prompt in assessing children’s needs through school admissions to ensure the help needed is in place at an early stage.

The transfer of information about pupils between schools, in particular pupils with Special Educational Needs

16. The survey report highlights the good practice found by inspectors and contains, for example, information on effective pastoral systems in a number of schools. Nevertheless, weaknesses in systems mean that some children’s records may be given to the family as a child leaves the school. In the survey, parents and schools told us that, during family moves, these records may get misplaced and never get to the next school. Some headteachers prefer to send records directly but many families do not know which school their child will be going to.

17. Moving in Years 10 and 11 can be particularly disruptive to young people. Some move to schools and have to follow a different examination syllabus. Consequently, they do not always do as well as they could. For older children, there are anxieties about following the course of their choice and completing qualifications, as well as the issue of not having any sustained friendships. For these reasons, many parents opt to send their children to boarding schools for their secondary education.

18. Ofsted evidence shows that moves cause disruption and stress to families. Parents worry about their children being put into the right ability group or accessing an appropriate course. For children with special needs, the continuity of provision for their needs may be broken and their progress slows. These children are particularly susceptible to anxiety in this context.

The effectiveness of the various financial support schemes for all Service families

19. Since April 2011, Service families’ children are eligible (through schools) for pupil premium funding, provided by the government, to ensure additional resources are available. The focus of this is to mitigate the impact of high mobility and/or the active deployment of a family member. Ofsted has strengthened its approach to reviewing the effectiveness of pupil premium spending through the revised framework for the inspection of maintained schools. Early evidence suggests schools are not as effective as they should be in targeting this funding or analysing the impact of spending on children and young people’s learning.

20. Where local authorities and schools recognise the importance of an early assessment and early interventions to meet the identified needs of Service families’ children, they have a better chance of catching up with their peers and achieving well. Some local authorities “top up” the pupil premium funding with additional resources for these children. For example, in Buckinghamshire, Service families’ children are included as one of their vulnerable groups. Multi-agency commissioning and additional resources, led by the Buckinghamshire Educational Psychology Service, are available to support them. Similarly, in North Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Hampshire, local authorities are very aware of the needs of Service families’ children and provide additional resources for the schools they attend.

The adequacy of oversight and monitoring of Service Children’s Education

21. Ofsted monitors SCE by invitation, on a school by school basis, using the maintained school inspection framework. Survey findings from the 2011 report provide some insight into how the MoD and SCE monitored their own provision but since then the landscape has changed. Partnership working in Germany and Cyprus, under the umbrella of Pupil and Family Services, an arm of SCE, was strong at that time. Links to health services and behaviour support was found to be more disparate.

22. In the current round of SCE school inspections, inspectors note some declining school rolls and school mergers, as a result of re-organisation within SCE and as troops are drawn down from overseas. The number of pupils joining or leaving school at different times of the school year is often very high. For example, in one school in the current Year 4 class, over 50% of pupils have joined the school since Year 3. Positive relationships are reflected in the way many schools work with agencies, such as the Army Welfare Unit, to help support children’s individual needs.

23. Service Children’s Education has made the improvement of education, in the case of the school judged inadequate this year, to be highest priority. This is reflected in the secondment of two members of its staff into the school, immediately after the inspection, and in the speed of the action taken to appoint a new headteacher. Nevertheless, weaknesses were identified in the SCE statement of action and the school improvement plan. In line with other schools in a similar category, this school will receive regular monitoring visits from one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) until its next inspection.

February 2013