Schools: Yorkshire and the Humber
(asked on 25th June 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that schools in Yorkshire and the Humber achieve the England average for the number of Ofsted schools ranked good.
Ofsted’s latest published data to 31 May 2019 shows that 80% of schools in Yorkshire and Humber have an Ofsted rating of good or better compared with the England average of 85%. This data can be accessed here:
For the academic year 2018-19 where schools may need additional support, the Department has offered up to three days’ funded support from a national leader of education (or equivalent) to schools below the floor or coasting standards based on its 2017-18 results. This centred on helping the existing leadership team to identify and access appropriate support, with an additional £16,000 for schools that have two consecutive requires improvement judgements to implement an action plan. As at April 2019, 139 schools in Yorkshire and Humber were engaging with this offer.
In addition, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has confirmed that from academic year 2019-20, the Department will make an offer of support to all requires improvement schools not already benefitting from the current offer, to ensure that their leadership teams can access the support they need to improve.
The published 'Schools Causing Concern' guidance sets out how local authorities and Regional Schools Commissioners (RSC's) work with schools to support improvements to educational performance and how they can use their intervention powers. This guidance can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-causing-concern--2.
Local authorities are responsible for the performance of maintained schools. RSCs acting on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, are responsible for taking action where academies and free schools are underperforming. RSCs work closely with academy trusts to ensure that strong processes are in place to maintain and improve educational performance, including using their intervention powers where there is an inadequate Ofsted judgement.