Council accused of 'misleading' Ofsted statement

Last week the Hungerford edition of the Newbury Weekly News reported how Kintbury St Mary’s Church of England Primary School required improvement across the board.
In each headline category - quality of teaching, leadership and management, pupils’ behaviour and safety and pupils’ achievement - the verdict was the same.
Nevertheless in a press release, West Berkshire Council described the Ofsted report as “positive.”
Opposition education spokesman Alan Macro (Lib Dem, Theale) said: “The council’s press release gives the impression that all is satisfactory at the school when Ofsted say that improvement is needed in all categories.
“This is likely to mislead residents and parents with children at the school.”
He pointed out that the council had been criticised last year for describing as “positive” an Ofsted report which had branded a troubled school “inadequate.”
In that instance the council’s auditors upheld a complaint from a member of the public claiming that the council had misled the public by failing to comply with the Code of Practice on Local Authority Publicity by presenting an overly positive account of the findings of the inspection.
They added: “We have therefore recommended that the authority should take steps to remind officers and members of the requirements of the Code and introduce systems and processes which will ensure that future publications are fully compliant.”
Mr Macro said: “They obviously have not learnt from that criticism.”
A statement issued to parents by head teacher Tina Norton and school governors acknowledges: “This judgement means that our school is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate.
“Over the past two-and-a-half years since the last Ofsted visit we have been working towards becoming a ‘good’ school with the ultimate goal to achieve ‘outstanding.’ The process, however, has taken longer than hoped.”
The report also lists a number of strengths, including good teaching in the Early Years Foundation Stage and the fact that almost all pupils make progress in line with national expectations in English; that teachers create a positive climate for learning in most lessons and that pupils behave well and try hard when they are interested and engaged.
West Berkshire Council’s education portfolio holder Irene Neill (Con, Aldermaston) denied that the statement was misleading.
She added: “What he is not saying is that Ofsted has tough new criteria. This new category of ‘required improvements’ is the same as the old category, ‘satisfactory’.
“While I would be the first to agree that we would much prefer to see the school rated as good, there are many positive things in the report.
“I do not agree we were misleading.”