Free school - "requires improvement"

[strictlyfan2013]

Another high profile free school has not performed very well in it's first Ofsted report - www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/24/greenwich-free-school-ofsted-inspection

Interestingly, the inspectors disagreed with the school's opinion that all pupils were making "outstanding" progress. I know Ofsted reports should be taken with a pinch of salt most of the time but still, I wouldn't be that impressed if I was a parent of a pupil at this school.

It's local to me, we looked round it, I really didn't like it. No curriculum time for art, music or drama.

According to data collected by Watchsted – a site that tracks Ofsted inspection results – nine free schools have now been graded as "requires improvement" while four have been graded "inadequate," the lowest rating. Seven have been rated as "outstanding" and 22 as "good", out of 42 in total.

That means that 21% of free schools have been graded as requiring improvement and 9.5% as inadequate. Around 30% of the 2,300 secondary schools in England inspected by Ofsted since the start of 2012 have been rated as "requires improvement", and 10% have been rated inadequate.

So despite them being trumpeted as the saviours of English education, they're not really doing any better than the bog standard state schools in the Ofsted stakes.

But surely the point of a free school is that they produce a different offering to state schools, so an OFSTED inspection will be largely irrelevant

But noble giraffe statistically they are doing better though aren't they?

How so, sassy? 40% of state schools are less than good. 30% of free schools are less than good, but only 42 have been inspected so that 10% difference only represents 4 schools so isn't really significant.

And then you remember the ones that never opened, and the ones that were so appalling that they had to be closed and things are looking even shakier.

From that linked article; "Lower-ability students fall behind in some lessons because the teaching does not cater for their needs. In addition, disabled students and those with special educational needs are not achieving the standards they are capable of in English and mathematics."

Well, they won't if things are done Mr Gove's way.

I wouldn't place too much judgement on their Ofsted...
improvingteaching.co.uk/2014/04/25/the-ofsted-report-part-ii-whats-it-like-being-inspected-as-a-teacher-and-as-a-middle-leader/

Yes I think it gives a very rough guide but it is all very flawed as this blog explains - the person who wrote it works at GFS.

It does not matter what curriculum a school follows (national curriculum or devised by the school) if the children do not make sufficient progress, then there are problems. A free school is not so different that children are not expected to make good progress in Maths, English and Science for example. The free school does not have sufficiently rigorous evaluation techniques in place to know whether children are making outstanding progress or not, as appears to be the case. This leads me to wonder if inaccurate and excessively inflated assessments are a marketing tool because judging yourself as Outstanding promotes the school to parents as one where children achieve highly. It is almost fraudulent. At best it is unprofessional and lacking rigour. But, hey, that's free schools for you! Ofsted should judge them exactly as all other schools are judged irrespective of any "differences".

You've summed it up well Milly.

Just looked at the Oftsed report for the Free school that opened in Bedford in 2012 ....much the same requires improvement. We looked around the school and I wasn't impressed and its interesting because I asked questions about employment of teachers ...where the teachers were coming from....given that my daughter had commented that a TA from her old school was teaching a class ....Ofsted have commented that the standard of teaching needs to be improved and allot of the work is not up to standard with work not being corrected properly and not enough children progressing ..... glad my gut feeling was to not give it consideration ...although I cant see how a new school can really perform in its first few years ....or how it can attract quality teachers ....