Most Steiner schools poor, says watchdog

THREE quarters of Steiner schools across England are not providing a decent education, Ofsted announced yesterday.

The watchdog this year launched a crackdown on the schools favoured by parents who prefer less rigid education.

They follow the philosophy of Austrianborn Rudolf Steiner, which emphasises child creativity and the importance of rearing free-spirited individuals.

However, following inspections of 26 Steiner schools – 22 private and four state-run – Ofsted found ‘serious issues’ in some. Although six were rated good, 13 were judged as ‘inadequate’ and seven were judged to ‘require improvement’.

In total, 77 per cent of Steiner schools have been judged to be less than good, compared with just 15 per cent of statefunded schools. Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, has written to Education Secretary Damian Hinds, saying: ‘The performance of Steiner schools overall remains poor, and there are areas of weakness that need to be addressed.’

In her letter, she highlighted concerns over safeguarding practices, provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and the quality of education and leadership. A third of Steiner schools inspected had ‘ineffective safeguarding’, and the issues were ‘serious’.

Examples included a failure to check whether staff or host families for boarding pupils were safe to work with children.

Mrs Spielman added: ‘These schools need to improve swiftly to ensure that the children attending them are safe.’

Fewer than a third of the inspected schools were judged to have good teaching, learning and assessment. The reason for many of the weaknesses was due to inadequate leadership, Mrs Spielman said, but she noted that several schools had started to tackle these problems.