Annual Report Focus
Across the board – in school effectiveness, achievement, personal development, teaching and leadership – inspectors found standards to be largely similar to those for 2006/07, with just a few differences. Most notable is a rise in the number of outstanding secondary schools (up to 17% from 13% last year).
However, this success is not being matched by enough schools, as 34% of secondary schools are satisfactory and a worrying 9% are found to be inadequate, a similar proportion to 2006/7. This demonstrates that an unacceptable gap remains between the performance of the best and weakest schools.
The report also notes an improvement in teaching and learning in secondary schools, with 58% of schools inspected good or outstanding, compared 
with 52% last year. Primary schools are more likely to be good, but there are fewer outstanding or inadequate than secondary schools.
Maintained nursery schools remain strong, with almost 40% outstanding in their overall effectiveness and none found inadequate. In special schools, the report credits the focus on meeting children’s needs as the reason for there being more outstanding teaching than in schools generally.
The effectiveness of pupil referral units is similar to those in all schools, although the proportion of outstanding units was lower. While the 7% of units with inadequate achievement is similar to the proportion for maintained schools, the report highlights this as a special concern due to the need for children with troubled histories to fill the gaps in their learning and make speedy progress.
In the independent sector, about three quarters of schools now meet at least 90% of government regulations and are better prepared for inspections. An overwhelming majority now meet the regulations for children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, but the report finds safeguarding arrangements remain an area for improvement in some schools.
The majority of headteachers were positive in their responses to questionnaires following inspection during 2007/8. The value of visits from inspectors was also apparent in satisfactory schools that received a monitoring visit, where many schools accepted a ‘satisfactory’ grade as not good enough, and worked hard to secure improvement. Headteachers in these schools found the monitoring visit a valuable opportunity to assess the schools improvement. Of these, 40% were found to have made good or outstanding progress by the inspectors making the monitoring visit.
The effectiveness of teaching and learning in schools inspected between September 2007 and July 2008 (percentage of schools).
The overall effectiveness of schools inspected between September 2007 and July 2008 (percentage of schools).
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Published: 1 December 2008.
