THE quality of teaching and learning in England’s state education system has risen “steadily and emphatically” over the past 10 years, the chief inspector of schools said this week.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, inspectors were dissatisfied with roughly a third of the lessons they saw. But now about 95 per cent of teaching in schools is satisfactory or better, David Bell told a Keele University seminar.
The national literacy and numeracy strategies had been largely responsible for raising standards, he said. The huge programme of inspections during the 1990s had also had a significant influence.
Inspectors had identified major weaknesses in schools, such as gaps in teachers’ knowledge and inadequate lesson planning. “And by and large, something was done about it,” said Mr Bell, who was giving the latest in the series of TESKeele lectures. “In only 1 per cent of secondary schools today are there real concerns about teachers’ knowledge of their subject.”
However, Mr Bell said he was not complacent. “Around 68 per cent of teaching is good or better, and only around 4 per cent is unsatisfactory or poor. But what about the 28 per cent that is satisfactory? And what is a satisfactory lesson? Fair? Adequate? Moderately effective? Is this an acceptable aspiration for teaching?”
