7 July 2015 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

Ofsted Update 82% of Schools now Good or Outstanding

As we come to the end of the school year I would like to summarise the current position on the quality of education in Kent schools as reflected in the most recent Ofsted inspection judgements.

Overall, the latest Ofsted data for Kent shows that 82% of schools are rated good or outstanding compared to 80% nationally. This includes 17% of schools judged to be outstanding and 65% judged to be good.  

This includes 83% of Secondary schools, 82% of Primary schools, 87% of Special schools and 90% of PRUs in Kent, judged to be good or outstanding. Also, 90% of Early Years settings are good or outstanding. 

In Kent, there are now 362 good and 96 outstanding schools, 85 schools requiring improvement (including 67 Primary schools and 14 Secondary schools) and 14 schools in a category, out of a total of 557 schools that have a current inspection result. There are now 38 more good and better schools than this time last year.

In July 2014, the percentage of good and outstanding schools was 75%, compared to 68% at the same time in 2013, 59% in 2012 and 55% in 2011.

In July 2014, there were 328 good and 92 outstanding schools, 110 schools requiring improvement (including 93 Primary schools and 11 Secondary schools) and 31 schools in a category. Four schools were judged inadequate in the past year and 17 schools were removed from special measures, some to a judgement of good or outstanding.

Of the 115 schools inspected so far this school year 72%% were judged to be good or outstanding, compared to 65% in 2013-14, which is a better rate of improvement.

The greatest improvement is in Primary Schools, where 75% of the 87 schools inspected since last September have been judged good or outstanding, compared to only 54% in 2013-14.  In the same period 22 Secondary schools have been inspected so far this year and only 54% were judged good or outstanding.

While the improvement rate overall in Primary Schools is 10%, there is marked variation, between districts, in the quality of Primary education. The 2014 figures are in brackets.

Currently, 83% of pupils in Kent attend a good or outstanding school compared to 75% in July 2014 and 70% in July 2013. This means approximately 15,420 more children and young people are receiving a better education since last July, including 12,700 Primary School pupils.  

The overall figure includes 81% of Primary school pupils (91,003), 85% of Secondary school pupils (83,551) and 94% of Special school pupils (3298) who now attend a good or outstanding school.  

There has been a very good improvement in the numbers attending a good or outstanding Pupil Referral Unit from 30% of pupils in 2012, 76% in 2013, 90% in 2014 and to 94% currently. The quality of PRUs has improved so that 90% are now good or outstanding.

Many 'satisfactory' or 'requires improvement' schools are well led and making good progress, so that we are confident of future good inspection outcomes. By this summer we have reached our target of at least 82% of schools to be good or outstanding. Over time, this is deliberately ambitious in order to continue to increase the rate of improvement in education in Kent.  We expect this positive trend to continue towards our ambitious target of at least 86% of Primary and Secondary schools to be judged good or outstanding in the next year or two, and 90% or better by 2018.

Key lessons from schools that achieve a good or better inspection outcome include: a strong focus on improving rates of progress for all groups of pupils; procedures for ensuring the consistency and continuous improvement of teaching; effective use of the pupil premium and other funding to ensure under-achieving pupils catch up quickly and gaps narrow; good use of assessment to feed back to pupils and help them to do better;  effective use of data to track pupils' progress and monitor teaching quality, which informs the school's procedures for targeting improvement activity; accurate evaluation of the school's strengths and weaknesses with clear actions to address under-performance; and clear evidence of improvement since the last inspection.  No school achieves consistency of practice and continuous improvement without highly effective leadership and governance.

As always, we encourage schools to learn from each others' inspection experiences and some of the best preparation for inspection is to talk to a school that has been inspected recently. 

Congratulations and very well done to all the schools that have improved and achieved a positive inspection outcome so far this school year.

Patrick Leeson
Corporate Director Education and Young People's Services