Margaret Hodge
Adjournment Debate on Rossgate School
House of Commons
The Minister for Children (Margaret Hodge) : I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) on securing the debate. In his speech he demonstrated his close personal interest in the issue and his concern to represent the interests of his constituents.
All of us in the education team value and recognise the importance of the contribution that teachers make to raising standards and thereby improving the achievements of all our children. I hope that my hon. Friend accepts that the focus of everything that we do must be to ensure better outcomes for our children—that that must be our starting point. We must consider the job that Ofsted does in that context.
Ofsted has a critical job to do in inspecting, reporting and providing expert advice, underpinned by the evidence of its inspections. High standards are expected of Ofsted, as they are of teachers in our schools. I am therefore always concerned when teachers or others feel that the inspection system has let them down.
My hon. Friend expressed concerns about the inspection process at Rossgate school and about Mr. Pratt's subsequent decision to resign. As regulator of the contracted-out school inspection system, Ofsted is responsible for assuring the quality of inspections, and for investigating complaints when they arise. As part of that quality assurance process Her Majesty's inspectorate visits a sample of inspections and reviews reports and inspection evidence. In fact, Rossgate's inspection was subject to such a monitoring visit.
While the outcomes of those visits are confidential, I thought that it would be helpful to share with my hon. Friend, as the lead inspector has enabled me to do, the fact that the inspection met Ofsted's requirements. A quality assurance process has therefore been put in place through Ofsted itself. It is also worth putting this into perspective, and I hope that my hon. Friend accepts that Ofsted monitors how its customers view its processes. Nine out of 10 schools are satisfied with the quality of their inspection report. There is also a pretty thorough complaints procedure, with which I am sure my hon. Friend is familiar.
In the 2002–03 school year, the last year for which we have figures, Ofsted dealt with only 48 formal complaints about school inspections. Nearly 4,000 inspections were conducted, so that is about 5 per cent, which seems indicative of a relatively high satisfaction rate in a pretty contentious area where people are being held to account for their performance in their professional job.
Ofsted has, I understand, received eight letters of complaint about the inspection of Rossgate School. Of those, five came from parents, one from a former teacher at the school, one from a learning assistant at the school and one from a governor at another school. The letters have been referred to the inspection contractor for investigation, in line with Ofsted's procedures. However, no formal complaint has been received by Ofsted about the inspection at this stage, and no letter of any kind has been received from Mr. Pratt. My hon. Friend may want to consider pursuing that legitimate role, perhaps with others in his constituency.
There is however, no formal appeals mechanism against inspection judgments, nor are there any plans to introduce one. I hope that my hon. Friend understands the reasons why. Such a system could have a detrimental effect on the process, encouraging challenges that would divert time and energy away from the priority of developing and implementing post-inspection action plans. The Education and Employment Committee considered this issue in its detailed examination of the work of Ofsted in 1999, and decided that it would be wrong to reopen those inspection conclusions on anything other than questions of fact.
I turn now to the specific inspection findings at Rossgate school. First, there is no such thing as a light-touch inspection. There may be some misunderstanding and my hon. Friend may wish to talk to Ofsted in a general way about these issues. The inspections take place under the new framework of inspection that was established last year.
Secondly, my hon. Friend understands that the school was not compared with like schools. My understanding, which I can confirm in writing as well if that would help him, was that it was compared with similar schools. That is based on a whole range of data, including prior attainment, so it is possible to look at the school's value-added measure.
Rossgate school, as we have heard, was found to have serious weaknesses. Such a judgment is not taken lightly. It is arrived at, as a corporate decision, following comprehensive examination of evidence gathered both before and during the inspection, from a variety of sources, including discussions with the head teacher, staff, pupils and governors. My hon. Friend talked about this being a surprise to everyone, so let me share with him the briefing that I have received.
In April 2001, concerns were expressed about the school development plan and the strategic direction of the school. In November 2002, issues were raised about the target-setting process. The assessment data were not used successfully. Governors' knowledge and understanding was also identified as an area of concern. In September 2003, the local education authority raised concerns about the quality of teaching at the school. Concerns have been raised about the very high level of staff turnover in recent years at the school. That was evidenced by the fact that my hon. Friend talked about two newly qualified teachers being there.
A programme of support had been put in place by the local education authority, although I understand that the head at the time was reluctant to accept that. It is worth sharing the LEA's view that there was complacency at the school and that it was coasting. This was not an in-out inspection that came out of nowhere. From what my hon. Friend said, it struck me that that was his perception. However, that is not confirmed by the reports that I have read or by the evidence that was around at the time.
Let us look at the positive side, however, because the inspectors did find some strengths at the school. They praised the head for the pastoral care that he gave pupils and staff, to which my hon. Friend drew attention. They found that final-year pupils attained high standards in science, and that pupils had made good progress in ICT. They also praised special educational needs provision, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and personal social and health education.
There were, however, some important weaknesses. Significant among them were the standards achieved in the core subjects of English, maths and science during much of the pupils' time at the school. The standards reached by pupils at the end of year six compared favourably with those at other schools, but they were achieved only after considerable effort by teachers and pupils in the pupils' final year. Years five and six apart, the inspectors thought that the quality of the teaching was, overall, unsatisfactory.
The inspectors also found that teachers' aspirations for their pupils were too low and that their behaviour management was sometimes unsatisfactory. Standards at the end of key stage 1, as measured against national standards, were found to have fallen since the last inspection. It is worth quoting the report to highlight some of those points:
"Teachers do not have high enough expectations of what pupils should do and do not manage behaviour well enough in some classes so that pupils can learn. Too many worksheets are used . . .
Basic skills are not taught well enough and pupils are not given enough opportunities to practise and consolidate the things they have learnt in English, mathematics, science and other subjects."
The inspectors also criticised the school's leadership and management. They felt that the school lacked a clear vision for the future and that there were significant weaknesses in its planning and monitoring.
Mr. McWalter : I am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but if she looks at page 10 of the report, she will see that the average results for year two in all the subjects that she mentioned went up, not down.
Margaret Hodge : The new framework—I hope that my hon. Friend will accept this, too—is intended to challenge schools to improve and achieve high standards rather than to coast. If he looks more generally at the report by Her Majesty's inspectorate, he will see that more schools are being found not to provide a satisfactory education for their pupils. I hope that he accepts that we should take up that challenge to the system in our desire to raise standards.
The inspectors talked about complacency at the school, saying:
"the headteacher and senior staff are complacent about standards achieved . . . and do not try hard enough to raise pupils' achievement as they move through the school."
We are particularly keen to tackle that issue within the inspection framework.
My hon. Friend suggested that the inspection's findings came as a surprise, but I should emphasise that I am advised that that is not the case. Hertfordshire LEA not only supports the findings as an accurate reflection of the school's performance but had identified the issues raised as concerns and communicated them to Mr. Pratt on many occasions. Indeed, it had put in place a programme of support for the school before the inspection.
The framework has been revised twice since 1998—once in 2000 and again in 2003. On both occasions, we tried to realign our understanding of what is and is not acceptable in the context of rising educational standards. Again, I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that.
My hon. Friend might find it useful to have a general discussion with Ofsted about the way in which it approaches inspections. If he has concerns about the school's inspection, he should pursue the formal complaints procedure to assure himself that everything was done in the proper and appropriate manner and that any decisions were properly taken.
To conclude, decisive progress in educational standards occurs where every child matters, and inspection is, above all else, about helping schools to improve children's education.
