‘Ofsted’s focus on better teaching is a good move’

This is the view of representatives from two of south Warwickshire’s schools which have achieved the ‘outstanding’ status from the Government schools watchdog.

The Emscote Infants School headteacher and Kenilworth School vice-chairman of governors were speaking this week in reaction to the news that Ofsted has gone back to downgrade schools which achieved the outstanding status before changes to the grading system came into force.

Under the new system, schools must achieve the outstanding grade in the ‘teaching and learning’ element of inspections in order to gain the status of outstanding overall.

School in south Warwickshire with the status are Southam College, graded in January 2011, Kenilworth School (March 2013), Coten End Primary in Warwick (December 2011), Emscote Infants in Warwick (April 2013) and Sydenham Primary (January 2011).

Both Emscote and Kenilworth schools were graded under the new system, which came into force last September, and so have not been subject to follow-up inspections, which have seen more than 100 schools across the country downgraded from outstanding to ‘good’ or ‘satisfactory’.

Emscote’s headteacher Debi Cossins said: “The new system has more focus on teaching, which I think is a good thing. Teachers have to be accountable and teaching has to have the highest priority.

“If you have not got outstanding teaching then the school should not be seen as outstanding.”

Kenilworth’s headteacher Hayden Abbott is currently on holiday, but the school’s vice-chairman of governors Liz Walters said: “Most people would find it hard to argue against requiring that teaching and learning is outstanding if a school is to receive the top grade from Ofsted.

“Kenilworth School was given ‘outstanding’ status in every area of its activity - a plaudit given to only 13 per cent of state secondary schools across the UK.”

The Courier made efforts to contact the other outstanding schools in the area but the schools holidays has made it difficult to speak to representatives.

Ofsted figures show that 70 per cent of schools in England were rated as outstanding in August last year - about 4,400. Of those, one in four does not have the top ranking for teaching and learning.