Schools ‘too obsessed by league tables’

SCHOOLS should stop putting league tables above giving children a rounded education, the new head of Ofsted has said.

Amanda Spielman warned too many head teachers are chasing ‘badges and stickers’ by only focusing on getting good results in exams. She said the watchdog will penalise schools which turn themselves into exam factories instead of delivering a broad curriculum.

Speaking at the Festival of Education at Wellington College in Berkshire, she cited what Ofsted said were ‘worrying examples’ of schools seeking to ‘game the system’, for example by entering students who speak English as a second language for exams in their own tongue.

‘It is putting the interests of schools ahead of the interests of the children in them. We should be ashamed that we have let such behaviour persist for so long,’ she said.