Ministers are pushing ahead with plans to create powers to allow them to intervene in schools that have had two consecutive less than “good” Ofsted judgements, despite concerns raised by the inspectorate.
The Department for Education has consulted on plans to create new powers for the secretary of state to issue academy orders to schools that are rated less than “good” in two consecutive Ofsted inspections.
A consultation response report published today reveals that Ofsted has raised concerns about the plans, and highlighted that some schools with consecutive “requires improvement” judgements may be improving and under strong leadership.
Ofsted has told the government that it believes intervention in these cases could be “unnecessary and possibly damaging”.
Ofsted is also concerned that schools with one “requires improvement” judgement may implement short-term fixes to avoid a second one, rather than focusing on sustainable improvement.
Ofsted concerns over DfE ‘coasting’ schools interventions
Concerns were also raised by other respondents to the consultation that creating a new route to turn “coasting schools” into academies could impact on headteacher recruitment.
The DfE said today that it is set to push ahead with the plans and expects the new powers to come into force on 1 September.
It said the aim of the measure is to ensure swift intervention where schools are not making necessary improvements, and to tackle entrenched underperformance.
In its consultation response, the government said the intervention criteria will include the Ofsted judgements of a predecessor school, despite many respondents being against this.
However, the DfE has also said that schools that are deemed to be “causing concern” will not face an automatic academy order or a termination warning notice, and that each school will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
The government plan is that schools will only be considered for intervention if their most recent inspection was after May 2021 - apart from those with longstanding underperformance, which have had five consecutive “requires improvement” judgements.
The DfE said that some respondents to its consultation believed that two consecutive below “good” judgements was not the correct measure to trigger government intervention, as some schools need more time to be turned around than others.
The consultation response report, published today also reveals concerns that recruitment, in particular of headteachers, will be impacted by the move.
Some in the sector said that decisions to intervene in schools should only be taken “after consideration of evidence relating to a school’s specific context”.
The consultation asked “to what extent do you agree with the principle of intervening in schools which are rated ‘requires improvement’ (RI) by Ofsted and were rated less than ‘good’ at their previous inspection?”
Some 14 per cent of respondents strongly agreed and another 31 per cent agreed, while 16 per cent disagreed and another 24 per cent strongly disagreed.
In its response to the consultation, the DfE said that all schools that meet the criteria for schools “causing concern” will be assessed on an individual basis by a DfE regional director and their advisory board, with governing bodies able to make representations and provide evidence.
The government has today, Thursday 30 June, laid the regulations in Parliament to enable the DfE to use these intervention powers from 1 September.
The DfE has said the government’s 55 designated Education Investment Areas, where education standards are currently among the weakest, have been prioritised as the focus of new intervention powers “to help rapidly improve underperforming schools”.
Currently only schools with the Ofsted rating “inadequate” are eligible for this type of intervention, but 900 schools across the country with consecutive Ofsted ratings below “good” will soon become eligible.
