Schools OFSTED RSS feed for the Schools OFSTED tag
found 12 stories.
News
Kat Keogh B'ham Mail 10 Feb 11
A School which was ordered to improve less than three years ago is celebrating after being praised for a “remarkable turnaround” in a glowing Ofsted report.
Barr Beacon Language College in Walsall, which was given a notice to improve by Ofsted in 2008, has now been rated as “good with outstanding features” by the Government watchdog…
News PR
Walsall Council 9 Dec 10
Services for children in Walsall have steadily improved over the last five years, national school watchdogs from Ofsted have announced.
Their findings are from a national “health check” of all local authorities carried out in July and published today (Thurs 9 Dec).
Their overall assessment is that Walsall children’s services performs adequately…
News
Helen Draycott Advertiser 2 Dec 10
A secondary school in Bloxwich which was put into special measures by Ofsted earlier this year has been told that it is improving following a recent visit by inspectors.
Sneyd Community School, on Vernon Way – which could close its school gates for the final time next year due – was given the ‘inadequate’ grading back in March after inspectors discovered that the number of students gaining five or more GCSE passes at grades A* to C, including English and maths, was well below national target levels…
News
Advertiser 19 Nov 10
Bookworms at a school in Walsall have had their love of reading recognised after being named one of the top 12 schools in the country by Ofsted.
Blue Coat C of E Infant School, in Hanch Place, is one of a dozen outstanding schools praised for its pupils’ reading abilities, according to the report by the school inspectors…
News
Advertiser 21 Oct 10
Rowley View Nursery School, on Dangerfield Road, Darlaston was rated ‘outstanding’ by the school inspectors following their two-day visit at the end of last month.
Reporting inspector David Carrington praised the teachers and teaching assistants who are ‘expert at meeting the needs of the young children’…
Comment
The Plastic Hippo 14 Sep 10
Any remaining shred of credibility regarding Ofsted as an impartial, independent and necessary regulatory body has finally been blown away by the chill winds of autumn. The latest words of wisdom to emerge from the inspectorate, laughingly described as “a wide ranging study”, suggests that a quarter of children with Special Educational Needs are not special at all, just the sufferers of poor teaching. You can guess what is coming next. Yup, massive cuts in school SEN budgets.
Ofsted, described by one teaching union as a bunch of “failed teachers and bureaucratic middle-managers”, have something of a track record of getting things hopelessly wrong. It described child protection at Haringey council as “good” even as the nations collective heart broke on hearing the full horror of the Baby Peter case. Ofsted were later caught trying to change the paperwork. Headteachers, governing bodies, teaching unions, MPs and parents have all criticised the dogmatic, bullying approach employed by the largest regulatory body in the country and its latest report finally exposes Ofsted for what it is. Rather than protecting the interests of children, it is a tool of black, government controlled, propaganda…
News
Chris Henwood B'ham Mail 5 Aug 10
A children’s centre in Walsall has become the first in the country to pick up top marks across the board from government inspectors.
Sure Start Palfrey Children’s Centre received the outstanding grade in every single area of an Ofsted inspection that took place on July 7 and 8. The top marks came for overall effectiveness, capacity for sustained improvement, quality of provision and leadership and management, among others…
News
Express & Star 25 Jun 10
Some schools are still failing to meet strict new rules on healthy dinners, an Ofsted report has found.
And parents from low income backgrounds are struggling to find the funds to pay for their children to eat school lunches, it says…
News
Express & Star 17 Jun 10
Around half of schools across the West Midlands visited by inspectors in the last six months are giving children nothing better than a “satisfactory” education, Ofsted figures reveal today.
Thirty-one schools inspected across the Black Country, Birmingham and Staffordshire between September 1 last year and March 31this year were rated as “inadequate” overall…
News
Adam Lumley TheYamYam 18 Apr 10
Around a third of pupils kicked out of the doomed Sneyd Community Secondary School will now attend schools outside the borough of Walsall. Families angry with the imposed closure of the Vernon Way school in Bloxwich, have decided to vote with their feet and place their children in schools not run by Walsall Council and Serco.
The closure of Sneyd is a result of a contractual obligation between the council and Serco to provide “vocational” training rather than an academic education for young people. The governing body has been replaced with an Interim Executive Board who will oversee the closure and the establishment of a University Technical College that will offer non-academic courses for young people aged between 14 and 19.
Sneyd was given a notice to improve in November 2008 and in spite of claims by Serco that “considerable” extra support and resources were given to the school, standards and achievement were allowed to decline. The school was placed in Special Measures following an inspection by Her Majesties Inspector of Schools in February 2010.
Neighbouring Frank F Harrison Engineering College was also judged to be “inadequate” in a damning Ofsted report after previously been judged as “good” in 2006 before Serco took over education in Walsall. Other secondary schools have made no improvement apart from Walsall Academy which is not run by Serco and is able to select the brighter children in the borough.
All Year 9 and Year 11 pupils at Sneyd will be forced to transfer to other schools in September and sixth form students will have to continue their A Level courses elsewhere. There will be no Year 7 intake as the school is allowed to wind down to closure in 2012.
The options available to families with children at Sneyd are limited. Only three other secondary schools, Brownhills, Blue Coat and Joseph Leckie have spaces to take the displaced pupils and all three are a considerable distance from the Sneyd catchment area. Walsall Council’s children’s and young people scrutiny panel were told that those families who needed support to identify a suitable place had been contacted. Avril Walton, Walsall Children’s Services – Serco assistant director, said pupils would be going to eight Walsall and four out of borough schools with most pupils going to Brownhills Community Technology College. Around a third of children had chosen to attend the four out of borough schools. She said that Walsall Children’s Services – Serco had agreed to consider funding the transport costs of Year 9 pupils transferring to new schools on 1 September 2010. Financial help will also be given towards new uniforms. She added;
“We are looking at each case and will work with receiving schools to explore travel options.”
The panel also said it was concerned about future provision for Year 12 students and Graham Talbot, Walsall Children’s Services – Serco interim managing director said letters had been sent out to all those affected.
“We are working with students individually and the resolution will be whatever works best for the young people concerned,” he said.
Members of the panel agreed that they wanted another update in June giving specific details about the progress on Sneyd’s closure.