A Government report published on the 31st January 2017 revealed that a staggering 47% of 19,331 childcare establishments had suffered a downgrade from their previous inspection. A further 31were rated inadequate on their first inspection and 145 rated as requires improvement on their first inspection.
This, coupled with information released from the Disclosure and Barring Service which exposed figures showing the number of people barred from working with children experienced a 12% increase to almost 20 per day, instigated us to carry out an investigation to discover the reason why.
We studied a sample of 50 schools and 50 nurseries who had recently suffered a downgrade with the aim of identifying any common or recurring causes.
Legislation dictates that state schools judged to be inadequate (the lowest of the four ratings), can be subject to an academy order. A nursery judged to be inadequate can also lose its funding.
Schools
At a time when 500,000 children are in class sizes over 30, teachers are leaving the profession at a record rate, there are more children who do not have English as their first language, the financial pressures of cut backs and the curriculum constantly changed and extended, perhaps is not surprising that the teaching profession is under so much pressure and inspection reports are so poor.
Our study showed that 77% of schools analysed had similar contributing factors to their downgrade. The concerns often included the quality of teaching and the management of staff which attracted comparable comments from Ofsted as seen below.
- One school downgraded from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’ was advised to “Eliminate inconsistencies in teaching”.
- Another school was downgraded from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’ with Ofsted stating “Leaders have not ensured that the quality of teaching is consistently good”.
- “Due to a lack of rigour in monitoring, the quality of teaching is no longer good enough” was in the summary of findings for a school downgraded to ‘requires improvement’.
- A school which had previously been graded as ‘outstanding’ was inspected and downgraded to ‘inadequate’. This school was then placed in ‘special measures’ which can set in motion the process of being forced into academy status.
Why are there consistently similar comments for 77% of the schools we examined regarding the quality of teaching?
As we know, most teachers are of a very high calibre and provide an excellent and professional teaching service for children. However, we have regular experience of schools that tolerate poor teachers because they are afraid to address Employment Law situations or do not understand the process they should follow. There are also an alarming number of schools that endure poor performing staff who go sick and stay sick for extended periods of time, even until the point of their retirement putting additional pressure on colleagues. In these times of financial pressure, this should not and does not have to be tolerated.
It should be recognised that even people who may have performed well in the past, can later demonstrate a lack of capability with the passing of time or the introduction of new and challenging working practices. It is very important that school managers monitor performance regularly to identify underperformers promptly and then introduce improvement strategies. Should there be no improvement, it is then possible to deal with such situations using the capability procedure.
The summary of findings recorded for 4% of schools downgraded in our survey included a lack of knowledge and understanding of the Prevent Duty.
Teachers should ask their pupils who Hilary Clinton and Theresa May are – Ofsted noted about a school that was downgraded to ‘inadequate’, that students “were not able to identify the new female Prime Minister” and were “unaware” of the female candidate in the US presidential election.
Schools could certainly do more to protect their Ofsted status by accepting that there could be Capability issues and understanding how to deal with them correctly and promptly. When action is seen to be taken, staff morale is boosted.
Nurseries
Downgrading for a nursery can result in lower occupancy levels, loss of funding, reduced staffing levels and even closure.
Staff and managers are under tremendous pressure to understand and comply with ever changing Safeguarding and Child Protection procedures. With the lack of support and guidance provided to settings, managers struggle to achieve acceptable levels as borne out with the staggering report figures.
Our findings of the of 50 nurseries examined showed varied reasons for downgrading but the common concerns often included a lack of awareness of policies and procedures and inadequate staff training. A lack of knowledge on Safeguarding procedures on the part of managers was also suggested as a concern. Ofsted comments regarding downgraded settings include:
- A nursery downgraded to ‘inadequate’ was found to have DBS checks “missing for some staff” and the provider had “not informed Ofsted about changes in the Management Committee”.
- An additional nursery downgraded to ‘inadequate’ from ‘outstanding’ had a mobile phone policy which failed to meet Safeguarding standards, even though parents had agreed to the policy. Ofsted said the policy “puts children’s welfare at risk”.
- “Children’s welfare is put at significant risk by failure to ensure medication procedures are followed” at another nursery downgraded to ‘inadequate’.
- A nursery downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘require improvement’ did “not regularly review and evaluate the implementation of the Early Years Foundation Stage requirements”.
28% of our downgraded sample were documented as not fully understanding how to refer a member of staff or who to refer to and a further 27% did not understand the reasons for referring or what constituted as relevant conduct and satisfied the Harm Test. 4% of nurseries had not or could not demonstrate that they had correctly carried out required ID and DBS procedures and an additional 4% failed to comply with Declaration for Disqualification by Association regulations.
To protect your Ofsted status and funding, the starting point has to be to ensure you have comprehensive and updated policies and procedures, and contracts in place with regular staff training to ensure that they are implemented and understood.
Visit our website to compare what HR and Safeguarding measures you have in place with what we recommend.
If you are a School, Academy, Small Business, Care Home or Day Nursery, you will find many of the answers to your Safeguarding and HR questions on our newly formatted website.
www.emplawsolutions.co.uk