Almost a quarter of independent schools inspected by Ofsted last year failed to meet government standards.
The inspectorate has revealed that 23 per cent of “non-association” independent schools failed to meet some aspect of the independent school standards.
The most common areas of failure were quality of leadership and management, education, and the health, welfare and safety of pupils.
The Department for Education issues warning notices to schools when these standards are not being met.
Ofsted found 65 non-association independent schools to be inadequate in the past 12 months.
All of these schools were also found not to be meeting the independent school standards for leadership and management.
Ofsted further revealed today that 10 per cent of independent schools received ineffective safeguarding judgements in the 12 months leading up to August this year. However, this was 5 per cent down on the previous year’s figure.
The independent school standards cover eight separate areas. Ofsted’s figures show that 23 per cent of non-association independent schools failed to meet some aspect of these standards.
Twenty-two per cent of schools inspected failed to meet the standards for leadership and management; 14 per cent did not meet the standard for quality of education; and 13 per cent failed to meet the standard on the health, welfare and safety of pupils.
At the end of August, 14 per cent of non-association independent schools were rated outstanding; 55 per cent were good; 18 per cent required improvement; and 13 per cent were inadequate.
The Ofsted figures also show that faith schools performed less well than non-faith schools.
Three-quarters of non-faith schools were judged good or outstanding compared with just over half of faith schools.
Nearly a quarter of all faith schools were judged inadequate at their most recent standards inspection. This includes 34 per cent of Jewish schools, 24 per cent of Muslim schools and 14 per cent of Christian schools inspected.
There are more than 2,300 independent schools in England. Of these, Ofsted inspects 1,076 non-association independent schools.
Independent schools, which are members of associations, are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) or the School Inspection Service (SIS).
Ofsted has recently raised concerns that it needs more power to oversee the work of these inspectorates.
