Half of underperforming schools 'coast'

05 December 2011

Half of underperforming schools just 'coast' and fail to improve, according to a report by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

The RSA looked at schools that were graded 'satisfactory' by Ofsted and found that the likelihood of attending a 'satisfactory' school was affected by where people lived, more affluent pupils tend to attend better schools and for disadvantaged pupils, the reverse is true, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were over-represented in 'satisfactory' (and 'inadequate') schools, and the stronger likelihood of attending a poorer quality school applied to working class pupils ('disadvantaged') as much as highly disadvantaged pupils.

The study found that schools were more likely to be graded 'satisfactory' or 'inadequate' if they had previously been judged 'satisfactory' – suggesting a lower capacity to improve among these 'longer term' satisfactory schools. Also, schools with high proportions of disadvantaged pupils were more likely to decline from 'outstanding' and 'good' grades than schools with advantaged pupil populations. And 'satisfactory' schools with disadvantaged pupil populations were significantly less likely to improve at the next inspection than those with advantaged populations.

The RSA found that at least 50 per cent of comprehensives in 17 local authorities, including Blackpool, Bradford, Hull, North East Lincolnshire and Peterborough, were rated as not being good enough.

The report's author, the RSA's director of education Professor Becky Francis, said: "It's really urgent that this issue be addressed. Given our findings that the strongest feature of satisfactory schools is the inconsistent quality of teaching, we need to find ways to incentivise the best teachers to join these schools. These schools need to be directly supported to improve, and to be held accountable for doing so."

The Department for Education issued this statement: "There are still far too many underperforming schools. We will not let mediocre performance continue unchecked and we are clear that there will be no hiding place for schools that are not making the progress they should. We're bringing in a tough new inspection regime from January targeted at the weakest performing schools and overhauling league tables."