Ofsted blasts council for social mobility failings

Bradford Metropolitan District Council has been told by inspectors that their work to narrow the attainment and attendance gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers was “too slow”.

The watchdog's letter to the council follows a visit in June. The letter criticises the local authority's school improvement service for failing to improve standards across all age groups.

“Too few pupils make good progress from their very low starting points,” the letter said.

Attendance rates across schools were found to be below average, while unauthorised absence rates were well above average.

The city’s boys were found to perform particularly poorly in their A-levels, compared with their peers England-wide. And although inspectors noted that the proportion of 16- to 19-year-olds classified as Neet (not in education, training and employment) had fallen in recent years, “the proportion remains above that found nationally”.

Inspectors concluded that “too many pupils in Bradford attend schools that are not ‘good’”.

Primary schools were found to be particularly weak, with the proportion of those “requiring improvement” double the national average. One in 10 secondary schools in Bradford are also rated as “inadequate”.

Ofsted has called on the council to improve the way it challenges poorly performing schools and its commissioning of school improvement support. The inspectorate also wants to see the council make better use of the area’s good head teachers to support weak schools.

However, inspectors did say there was “cause for optimism” regarding the council’s latest strategy to improve its support for schools. This has resulted in new rigour and challenge and a greater emphasis on school-to-school support.

Michael Jameson, Bradford’s strategic director of children’s services, said: “We have placed schools at the heart of our strategy. It empowers school staff to deliver the results, as they have the expertise and they are best placed to transform the lives of young people.

“We are strengthening the partnerships between schools so they can drive each other forward and we are giving schools the tools they need to improve results more rapidly. We all accept urgent improvement is needed and our strategy is designed to enable schools to deliver it.”

In recent years the rise of academy chains and an increase in outsourcing of education support has meant the role of councils in school improvement services has diminished.

This has prompted calls from within the education sector for Ofsted to relax its inspections of council school improvement services.

Last year seven out of 11 school improvement services inspected were found to be performing poorly.