Ofsted slams standard of Stoke schools

Following an inspection of school improvement in January, Ofsted has written to the council warning it that its work to improve standards “was still not good enough”.

School performance in the city is among the worst in the country, inspectors found. In terms of the proportion of primary schools to receive Ofsted judgments of "good" or "outstanding", Stoke is one of the 10 worst areas in England.

It is also in the bottom 20 per cent in England in terms of the proportion of good or outstanding secondary schools.

Ofsted’s director for the West Midlands, Lorna Fitzjohn, said: “This means that over 5,500 secondary school children in Stoke-on-Trent are attending a school that is not yet good enough.”

Key problems include the council setting “unrealistic” targets for improvement that were missed and “varying quality” of school governance.

The council was also weak at ensuring additional funding was targeted at pupils and schools in the greatest need of support. This was as a result of the council’s poor analysis of pupil performance data.

Among the most worrying conclusions was that children were underperforming across all ages, including at early years foundation stage.

But despite the concerns, inspectors welcomed the development of school peer support programmes, which was helping improve school leadership.

Fitzjohn added: “Some green shoots are evident, though there is still a significant way to go before children in Stoke-on-Trent are getting a standard of education which they deserve.”

Most of the city’s 16 secondary schools are academies, with just three run directly by the council. Among its 45 primary schools 26 are academies.

Stoke council executive director for people Tony Oakman said: “We take on board the findings and rigorous assessment of the authority. The report identifies areas of work that we are already committed to addressing, and shows areas of good practice and strong performance.

"We’d like to reassure parents and carers that we are working very closely with schools to ensure we have robust mechanisms in place that will lead to continuous and sustained improvements.
 
“We know that attainment has been low historically, and this is a challenge. Not enough children are starting education at a high enough level.”

He added that it was “disappointing” that additional data, showing that attainment for children at age seven in the city “is in the top quarter of all schools nationally”, was not included in the report.