Contact: Richard Mitchell, Telephone: 023 92 441471 Email: [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report is intended to set the scene for much of the future work of the Panel. It sets out the current arrangements for Ofsted inspections of schools and the work undertaken by the Local Authority (LA) to categorise, challenge and support schools. Some of the work of the Panel will be about schools that are judged by Ofsted to be inadequate or to need a notice to improve, and those judged by the Authority to have weaknesses. This paper sets out how those judgements are made and how the LA responds.

2 Recommendation

2.1 That the Panel note the report.

3 Background

3.1 Schools, Colleges, Education Centres and Children's Centres are the core of the education system. In addition to having the central role in delivering education, they have responsibility for their own improvement, and for making the best use of the challenge and support available to them.

3.2 Hampshire County Council's objective is to ensure that no educational provision is identified as being inadequate and that all children and young people in every community are included in educational provision that is of such high quality that it meets their needs. Area Directors (Education and Inclusion) are accountable for the achievement of this objective and they discharge this accountability through the District Managers (Education and Inclusion) who work directly with School Improvement Partners (SIPs), subject consultants and inspectors and others, and through the Inclusion Managers.

3.3 SIPs are the first layer in a framework of sharper challenge and better support for schools. They support and challenge the school's process of self-evaluation, in order to help the school arrive at an accurate judgement of how well it is serving its pupils, and to identify accurately what it needs to do to improve and to evaluate the impact of its actions.

3.4 This judgement is then validated by Ofsted within an inspection system which provides inspections every three years that are more focussed on the capacity of the school to improve since the last inspection.

4 The role of Hampshire as the Local Authority (LA)

4.1 The LA is responsible for enabling schools to respond to the challenge provided by SIPs and Ofsted. The LA leads the system locally by setting up a vision for children's services and identifying the top priorities and targets that need to be achieved in order to fulfil this vision. Where challenge from SIPs or Ofsted indicates that schools need additional support in order to deliver against these priorities and targets, the LA will design, commission and broker a suitable package of challenge and support and monitor its success.

4.2 The LA expects that none of its schools will be identified as at risk and will intervene before any of them fail, by:

· Providing sufficient training and support for governing bodies so that they can be effective in appointing headteachers and managing their performance

· Deploying a SIP to every primary, special and secondary school and to the centre manager in each Education Centre

· Directing the work of these SIPs so that, through accurate analysis of data and challenge to the school's leaders, they hold the school to account for the outcomes for all children and enable the school to identify those actions that will lead to improvement

· Providing speedy extra support and challenge to all vulnerable schools and monitoring the impact of this support and the improvement of each school closely

· Being prepared to use its statutory powers to enforce changes in vulnerable schools that will not cooperate in accepting support, or where the programme of support is having insufficient impact because the school has a lack of capacity to improve.

4.3 Once a year, a wide range of data and other information about each school is brought together with the school's own evaluation of its work, and the effectiveness of the school is evaluated against a set of agreed criteria through a discussion involving the school's leaders and the SIP.

4.4 Answers are sought to the following questions:

· How well do learners achieve?

· How good are the overall personal development and well-being of all learners?

· How effective are teaching and learning?

· How well do the curriculum and other activities meet the range of needs and interests of all learners?

· How well are learners guided and supported?

· How effective are leadership and management in raising achievement and supporting all learners?

4.5 The outcomes of this discussion are reported to the Local Authority and to the governing body and an overall judgement made about the school's effectiveness.

4.6 In `outstanding' schools there will be few areas for improvement and some practice that needs to be shared with other schools. In `good' schools there will some aspects of practice that need improvement. In `satisfactory' schools there will be aspects of practice that may be inconsistent and need attention. In `inadequate' schools there will be concerns about the capacity of the senior leaders of the school to address the weaknesses that are apparent and that result in low levels of achievement and concerns about the personal development of pupils. 17% of Hampshire schools were judged to be outstanding in 2007; 53% good; 23% satisfactory and 7% inadequate.

4.7 In schools categorised as `satisfactory' or `inadequate', the LA expects rapid improvement in those areas identified as weaknesses, particularly to ensure that all children and young people make appropriate progress in achievement and in their personal development. All such schools are supported in one way or another from the limited resources jointly funded by the school and by the LA, and the improvement of all such schools is monitored and challenged regularly.

5 Schools causing concern

5.1 Schools may cause concern for many different reasons.

5.2 All of the schools categorised by the LA as `inadequate' are subject to intensive support, monitoring and challenge to improve. The Local Leadership Team for Education and Inclusion (Area Director for Education and Inclusion, District Managers for Education and Inclusion and Area Inclusion Manager) also makes decisions about which of the `satisfactory' schools cause sufficient concern to be dealt with in a similar way. In those schools that are causing most concern, where many additional resources are deployed to support the school but there is limited capacity in the school to manage these resources, and there is a need to keep these resources focused on the intended areas for improvement, support for the school are project managed, usually by a District Manager (Education and Inclusion). Other `satisfactory' schools are monitored and supported by SIPs reporting to a DM (E&I) and challenged and supported regularly by the DM (E&I). Further intervention may be triggered, after discussion with the AD (E&I), if the level of concern increases.

6 Schools identified by Ofsted as being in need of special measures or
requiring significant improvement

6.1 A school will be identified by Ofsted as being in Special Measures if:

i) the school is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education, and

ii) the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

There were 5 schools in Hampshire in special measures at the start of 2008.

6.2 A school will be identified by Ofsted as requiring Significant Improvement if it is:

a) failing to provide an acceptable standard of education but demonstrating the capacity to improve, or

b) not failing to provide an acceptable standard of education but performing significantly less well than it might in all circumstances be expected to perform.

Schools requiring Significant Improvement are issued with a "notice to improve".

There were 3 schools in Hampshire with a notice to improve at the start of 2008.

6.3 In both of these cases the governing body, in consultation with the LA, considers what actions to take as soon as they are told that Special Measures or Significant Improvement are required. There is no statutory requirement for the school to produce a specific action plan to respond to this judgement. However, the school is encouraged to develop its existing improvement plan to clearly set out the actions that will be taken to address the specific issues highlighted by the inspection and how these will be monitored.

6.4 Meanwhile, the DM (E&I) produces a LA statement of action within 10 working days of receiving the final inspection report. The aim of this plan is to turn the school around as quickly as possible. In preparing this statement, the DM will work closely with the headteacher, governors, the SIP, and the diocesan or other appointing authority. Parents will be informed of the outcome and will be kept up to date about the progress the school makes against the key issues.

6.5 A school requiring Significant Improvement will be visited, usually for one day by one inspector, 6-8 months after the inspection. A school requiring Special Measures will be visited for up to two days by an inspection team, 4-6 months after the inspection. At the beginning of a monitoring visit, the school is encouraged to provide any recent self-evaluation of its progress to the lead inspector.

6.6 At the end of a monitoring visit, the school will receive oral feedback on its progress since the inspection or the last monitoring visit. Each monitoring visit will come to an overall judgement of whether the school's progress is `inadequate', `satisfactory', `good' or `outstanding' and, if the school is in Special Measures, whether it should remain in this category. Any judgement that progress is `inadequate' is a clear indication that the school needs to take urgent steps to secure improvements, and this always prompts a review of the action being taken.

6.7 A school requiring Significant Improvement will be subject to a re-inspection approximately 12 months after the original inspection. If the school's progress remains inadequate, it may be made subject to Special Measures.

6.8 A school in Special Measures will continue to receive monitoring visits as long as it remains in the category. Typically, schools will receive two monitoring visits within the first 11-13 months of being judged to require Special Measures. When the school has improved sufficiently, Special Measures will be removed.

6.9 The Secretary of State may judge that the case has become urgent if there is judged to be inadequate progress at the second monitoring visit. If this is the case, then the LA will have to produce a revised action plan. The presumption at this point is that the school should be closed and, if necessary, replaced unless the LA is able to make a convincing case that a solution, which has not yet been implemented, would result in better outcomes for pupils. The Secretary of State will consider the quality of LA support in considering the case.

7 The Local Authority formal powers of intervention

7.1 A key role for the LA is the identification of, and effective early support for, poorly performing schools, well in advance of an adverse inspection of any school by Ofsted. Monitoring by SIPs, by Governor Services' monitoring of governors' paperwork, by Education Finance Services' monitoring of budgets, by the Auditors from County Treasurer's and many others provides indications that alert the LA to the necessity for Early Intervention.

7.2 The LA will already be targeting more support to those schools that need it most, and working with them to develop and sustain improvement. However, occasionally there are cases in which a school lacks the capacity to address a particular problem themselves and is resistant to LA support. There will be other cases in which the school is refusing to acknowledge such problems, even though judgements in this aspect are increasingly transparent. The LA will attempt to secure schools' voluntary co-operation before resorting to statutory interventions.

7.3 The leadership provided by the headteacher and senior management team of a school is crucial to the speed and success of its improvement. To demonstrate the capacity to improve, the school's leaders, managers and governors need to show evidence of: thorough self-evaluation; effective strategic planning; rigorous and robust monitoring of standards and quality of education; and action that has had a demonstrably beneficial impact.

7.4 The LA always considers a wide spectrum of options through which the leadership teams of schools causing concern can be supported and challenged whilst recognising that, ultimately, it may be necessary to remove the headteacher or other staff if they are incapable of making the changes the school needs. Before coming to such a decision, the LA will always consider whether the person has had sufficient time to make improvements, and will recognise that otherwise competent leaders may sometimes be overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their control. It may, therefore, be beneficial for the LA to commission an audit of the school's leadership and management, including at middle management level.

7.5 In such cases where the education that pupils receive will begin to suffer if action is not taken to address the issues facing the school, the powers that are described below allow us to address persistent and severe underperformance as well as unacceptably low levels of attainment once the school has been judged to require Significant Improvement or Special Measures or fails to comply with a valid warning notice.

8 Formal warning notices

8.1 These are used to remedy situations comparable in seriousness to a school requiring Special Measures or Significant Improvement. The LA uses Ofsted criteria in considering the issue of a formal warning.

8.2 The Education and Inspection Act 2006 gives the LA the power to issue a warning notice in any of the following circumstances:

· the standards of performance of pupils at the school are unacceptably low and are likely to remain so unless statutory intervention powers are invoked;

· there has been a serious breakdown in management or governance which is prejudicing, or likely to prejudice, pupils' standards of performance;

· the safety of pupils or staff of the school is threatened (whether by breakdown of discipline or otherwise).

8.3 Warning notices are only used where there is evidence to justify both LA concerns and the school's reluctance to address these concerns through a professional dialogue within a reasonable timeframe.

8.4 The school has 15 working days to comply with the warning notice but, if it does not, the LA may intervene after a reasonable notice period. If urgent intervention is required, this period could be as little as one working day after the end of the compliance period.

9 LA statutory intervention powers under the Education and Inspections Act 2006

9.1 The LA has a range of intervention powers which may be exercised by the authority or, in some cases, by the Secretary of State. The interventions are:

· to appoint additional governors to the school's governing body

· to suspend the school's right to a delegated budget

· to require the school to enter into arrangements within which the school will federate or be involved in other collaboration

· to replace the governing body with an interim executive board

· closure ordered by the LA through the school organisation powers.

9.2 In those few cases where these powers have been used, there has been an
improvement in the quality of education provided and in outcomes for children.

10 Consultation

10.1 This report is based on the text of the Standard Operating Procedures for working with Schools Causing Concern, which has been agreed with standing committees of headteachers.

11 Legal implications

11.1 None.

12 Financial implications

12.1 The operations and interventions described in this report depend upon the
resources available to the Education and Inclusion Branch.

13 Personnel implications

13.1 None.

14 Impact assessment

14.1 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None