The government is labelling schools as underperforming when their Ofsted grade improves under a policy criticised as “absurd” by education leaders.
The approach has inadvertently created a “perverse incentive” for “inadequate”-rated schools to stay in the failing category, a multi-academy trust (MAT) leader has warned.
The concerns relate to controversial powers brought in by the Department for Education last year allowing it to intervene, issue academy orders or rebroker schools that receive two consecutive Ofsted ratings of less than “good”.
The “coasting schools” policy was aimed at ensuring swift intervention where schools are not improving, and to tackle entrenched underperformance.
But it is leading to schools being labelled as “coasting” after being upgraded by Ofsted.
Five trusts have been issued with termination warning notices threatening the rebrokering of a school that moved from “inadequate” to “requires improvement”, Tes has established.
A MAT chief executive officer, who asked to remain anonymous, said the “strange” policy had led to the DfE questioning his trust’s ability to improve a school as a result of it being upgraded to “requires improvement”.
He said: “The department thought we had the capacity to improve the school when it was judged as a 4 - an ‘inadequate’ judgement.
“We have now demonstrated that we have been able to improve the school, but the department is considering sending us a letter warning us that they could intervene because it has now met their coasting school threshold.”
The trust has had a “back and forth with the department” about this, he said.
The CEO added: “It is strange for the department to believe we had the capacity to improve the school when it was judged ‘inadequate’ but to now question this capacity on the back of the school improving out of this category.”
DfE intervention of ‘inadequate’ schools
Being lifted out of “inadequate” was “very important” for a school, its teachers and the community, but the DfE’s threshold for intervention “undermines this”, he said.
After a school is graded as “inadequate”, it can receive up to five monitoring inspections over the next two-and-a-half years.
At the end of a monitoring inspection, inspectors will consider whether the school has made sufficient progress and no longer requires a category of concern. Where this is the case, the monitoring inspection will be deemed to be a graded inspection.
But an “inadequate” school undergoing a short inspection by Ofsted might be better off keeping its rating rather than aiming for an upgrade that would trigger a “coasting schools” label, according to the MAT leader.
The policy has “created a perverse incentive that means it would actually be better for a school and a trust for it to remain judged as ‘inadequate’ for longer and wait to have its Section 5 inspection when it is confident it can reach ‘good’,” he said.
‘Illustration of absurdity’
Tom Middlehurst, inspection specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “This is an illustration of the absurdity of a system that is so convoluted that it trips itself up.
“It cannot possibly be sensible to effectively penalise a trust over the inspection of an improving school because it triggers the coasting schools’ definition, even though it is on an upward trajectory. We warned at the outset of this policy that it was heavy-handed and counterproductive, and this is a case in point.”
Termination warning notices can be issued when the department is not satisfied with the trust’s plans for addressing the areas for improvement identified by Ofsted.
Guidance published by the department says it would not normally issue warning notices for schools moving from “inadequate” to “requires improvement” where the most recent grade came from the school’s first inspection on joining a trust.
In this instance, the guidance says, DfE regional directors would write to the trust confirming that the academy meets its definition of a coasting school, “but will normally also notify the trust that no further action will be taken at present in view of the improvement”.
Each of the five DfE warning notices for schools moving up to “requires improvement” involved trusts that had been in place for two inspections.
School improvement ‘takes time’
The latest concern over the DfE’s coasting schools policy follows major controversy over its introduction.
Consultation documents revealed that Ofsted had raised concern about using its judgements to trigger intervention in this way, suggesting it could lead to trusts implementing short-term fixes rather than focusing on sustainable improvement.
Speaking about the implementation of the policy, Steve Rollett, deputy chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: “Sustainable school improvement can take time, particularly when trusts take on schools with significant challenges.
“It is important that regulators reflect this in the decisions they make and they support trusts where it is clear improvements are having a positive impact.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Decisions about whether to issue termination warning notices are taken on a case-by-case basis, in line with the general policy set out in the Schools Causing Concern guidance and taking account of the individual circumstances of academies and trusts.
“Where a termination warning notice is issued, the trust is given time to demonstrate its capacity to secure the necessary improvements.”
