Ofsted Reports - overall effectivenesses:

[guest666]

The Upper Schools also had to contend with years of underfunding from the time Bucks switched back from changing at 12 to 11. It was only when all over 16 funding stopped being within the control of the LEA that under 16 education in Bucks received a fair share of funding. This lack of financial resource further exacerbated the other problems highlighted.

[Rob Clark]

A very good point, and while central funding might be more evenly distributed these days, there remains a vast disparity in other types of funding between the GSs and Upper Schools – as an example, you only have to compare the length of time it took for DCGS to raise funds for a new block with how long it took Amersham School to do the same.

My DCs are getting towards the end of their time at school now, but I haven't seen any noticeable change in the comparative ease with which the GSs are able to raise funds versus the Upper Schools.

[Lillie]

"Requires improvement" was introduced by Ofsted to change its old "satisfactory" label as it was no longer seen that schools could scrape along being "satisfactory". Satisfactory was then deemed to mean unsatisfactory.

Ofsted now claim that 78% of schools are rated good or higher. It is very worrying that the majority of the Bucks secondary moderns are now in "requires improvement" or lower category. It cannot be argued that this is acceptable.

The Bucks grammars that have been inspected recently have been ranked "outstanding".

Of course, it depends if you give any credence to Ofsted rankings as well........

[kenyancowgirl]

I beg to differ. I think the Ofsted gradings are: outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate.

The thinking was that satisfactory sounded "ok" whereas "requires improvement" shows that there is work to be done. Inadequate is exactly that: needs work and fast.

[Guest55]

Only two Bucks GS have been inspected since September 2012 as far as I can see - one was good and the other outstanding. One inspected in the year before that had some inadequate teaching but still got outstanding; I do not think they would have been so generous in an Upper school.

A number of the Uppers have been inspected in the same time ...

The focus of Ofsted now is progress data above everything else; many of our Uppers match national averages but that apparently is not good enough! When the top 30% of the ability range is missing then I think to match national averages is pretty good.

[pippi]

On cue from the BFP:
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/educati ... _and_poor/
Presumably the report must be somewhere on the BCC website...

(Thanks G55 - here it is!
http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/about-your-co ... p-inquiry/)

Bizarrely enough they seem to be drawing on the CEM: "Toolkit of Strategies to Improve Learning":
http://www.cem.org/attachments/1toolkit ... l-r-2-.pdf
http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/
http://educationendowmentfoundation.org ... -grouping/
Of the strategies considered for the toolkit, "Ability Grouping" is about the only one that has a negative impact (though on the toolkit webpage they've just changed the name of that heading to "Setting and Streaming", which should help to avoid any confusion with their 11+ based "Ability Grouping"!!)...

[Guest55]

That report was out weeks ago pippi and is linked to Pupil Premium funding.