Today’s Education in the media blog looks at the Local Government Association’s misleading analysis of local authority maintained schools and another apprenticeship success story.
LGA Report
Today, Thursday 5 July, the Local Government Association (LGA) has published analysis that claims schools rated Inadequate by Ofsted are more likely to improve if they are local authority maintained, than if they become a sponsored academy. This has been covered exclusively by BBC Online.
The calculations the LGA have used are wholly misleading. It is inappropriate to make the kind of comparison the LGA is making as they are not truly comparing like with like – while they have looked at all schools that were inadequate in 2013, they have not considered the variation that an Inadequate rating means.
For example, a school could also be rated Inadequate for their leadership and management – which would make turning the school around more challenging than if the school had better leadership and management.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
These calculations are misleading and fail to take into account that every school will have individual challenges, some of which, such as poor leadership and management, are far greater and taken longer to turn around, than others.
"Placing schools back under local authority control would be a backwards step and would not necessarily deliver the improvements in education children deserve. The fact is, after generations of poor management, inadequate maintained schools have been turned around after becoming sponsored academies, with nearly 516,000 children studying in sponsored primary and secondary academies that are now rated good or outstanding, and were typically previously underperforming schools. Indeed, of inspected sponsored academies whose predecessors were inadequate, 65 per cent are now either Good or Outstanding.
Apprentice Engineer
Today, Thursday 5 July, we are pleased to see the Daily Mail report on the success of Dennis Pasipanodya – an engineering apprentice who gained a place on the Eurostar International Ltd apprenticeship scheme.
Dennis is now a final year apprentice, having already completed a level 3 BTECH qualification.
You can learn more about details on apprenticeships on getingofar.gov.uk.