Ofsted set to halve outstanding grades
OVER THE course of the year some of the Jewish schools most highly rated by Ofsted will learn whether they retain their outstanding status.
The head of the inspectorate, Amanda Spielman, said this week she expected that only half of the 4,000-plus outstanding schools in England would keep the rank after reinspection.
Ten years ago the then Education Secretary Michael Gove exempted outstanding schools from full inspections.
But the waiver was dropped last year and now Ofsted has begun a post-lockdown programme of inspections.
Before the exemption, around one in ten English schools achieved the top grade, but the proportion has since grown to one in five.
Mrs Spielman told BBC Radio 4, “What we’re doing here is sort of rebasing that helps to really make sure that inspection judgments are well aligned with reality, that parents can trust judgments and have confidence.”
Ofsted introduced a new inspection framework two years ago, which was expected to make it harder for schools to be classified as outstanding.
Many outstanding schools have not been fully inspected for more than a decade. North Jewish Cheshire Jewish Day School, for instance, last received a full inspection in 2007, as did the Independent Jewish Day School in Hendon.
IJDS did receive a short interim assessment four years later when Ofsted reported that “performance has been sustained”.
Yavneh College in Hertfordshire was last inspected in 2011. Yavneh’s Primary School joined the outstanding club two years ago.
Hasmonean High School in Hendon and Mill Hill, which split into separate boys and girls schools two years ago, was last visited in 2012, as was Menorah Primary School in Golders Green. Ofsted last assessed King David High School, Liverpool in 2010.
Manchester’s King David Primary School, which was judged outstanding in 2016, was unusual in having received a short follow-up visit three years later when Ofsted confirmed its status.
But the position of three other Jewish schools which once enjoyed the accolade of “outstanding” shows that fortunes can change over time. For different reasons, Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School in Hackney, JFS in Kenton and Hertsmere Jewish Primary School in Radlett were all rated inadequate at their last inspections.
Two years ago, Ofsted downgraded Manchester’s King David High School from outstanding to inadequate largely because of equality issues to do with separate religious provision for its Yavneh girls’ and boy’s streams.
However, KDM fought back and mounted a successful legal challenge to overturn the demotion.
In the meantime, outstanding schools will not be surprised to find inspectors knocking at their door.
Spencer Lewis, executive headteacher of Yavneh’s schools, said, “As always, we are working hard to provide the very best education to our pupils who achieve extremely well in all areas academically, pastorally an communally. We do not focus on the possibility of inspection, only on the job in hand.”
We do not focus on inspection, only on the job in hand’