Birmingham Schools still found to be failing

October 17, 2014

Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has this week written to the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, alerting her to a lack of action at the five schools in Birmingham that were placed in special measures this summer. Over 20 community schools in the City were inspected over concerns that they were fostering a mono-vision.

In his latest report, Sir Michael warned that due to the time taken to appoint new trustees and school leaders ‘… very little action has been taken to address the serious concerns raised in the previous inspections’. He observed that Oftsed re-inspections had found that many staff remained concerned about leadership at their school and that ‘there has been very little change to the existing unbalanced curriculum’ being provided.

At Park View Academy inspectors found that little had been done to discourage segregation and encourage boys and girls to sit together in lessons and share opinions and ideas. At Golden Hillock School inspectors found that Religious Education GCSE students had to teach themselves for options other than Islam.

Chair of the Accord Coalition, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, said ‘Ofsted’s findings continue to offer great concern. However, it is vital that the schools should not be scapegoated and so allow systemic problems to continue to go unaddressed.

‘We urge the Secretary of State to recognise that the decision to remove the duty of Ofsted to inspect how schools promoted community cohesion was a mistake that allowed abuses to go unchecked until too late. The real worry is not just these five schools, but others where failings have so far gone undetected. A practical initiative would be for her to restore Ofsted’s responsibility to monitor the way community cohesion is approached in schools’.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Accord depends on your support

Please give.

Sign up

find us on Facebook

News history