Dismay as academies ‘snub’ schools performance review

The Secondary School Improvement Review Panel was launched by East Riding Council following the publication of provisional GCSE exam results last October, which showed a 3.5 per cent drop in the number of pupils achieving the “gold standard” of five passes at A* to C including English and maths.

The results saw the East Riding drop from the upper quarter to the bottom third of the national league table.

But although all of the 18 secondaries in the borough were invited to take part, the only ones which declined were four of the academies - Beverley Grammar, Cottingham High, Goole High, and Hessle - which all left local authority control last year.

In its report, the panel said: “It was disappointing that these schools were unable to attend the panel or give written feedback as some of these performed disappointingly, both in terms of expected performance and absolute attainment, one significantly so.

“Their contribution to the review would have helped the panel to understand the reasons for that under performance and provided some reassurance that actions were being taken to ensure this was not repeated.”

Panel chairman, Coun Richard Burton, added: “The hope is they can still engage with the school improvement service and digest the findings of the report. It’s disappointing they didn’t take part, they had the same issues with GCSEs like everybody else and whether they are in the LEA (local education authority) or not they still affect East Riding children.”

Hessle suffered the worst drop, with only 41.4 per cent of pupils achieving the benchmark number of passes - a near 20 per cent fall on the previous year.

The panel said the school had been invited to a meeting, but the head teacher, Sarah Young, was unavailable because of other commitments “and would not send a replacement”.

However, Mrs Young said: “I did have an invitation and wrote a letter to say I was going with the chair of governors, but I got a call from the DfE (Department for Education) to say there was a meeting and so my place was at school. I asked for another date but they wanted to do it quickly so we couldn’t arrange one. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take part.”

She added: “Our working relationship with the local authority is a positive one and at the end of the day we all want to work together to make sure children in the East Riding receive the best education they can.”

The head of one of the other academies, Beverley Grammar, said the panel had failed to follow up an initial inquiry, and felt his school’s performance had been so good - results rose 2.9 per cent to a 68.8 per cent pass rate - that the panel probably had more pressing priorities.

Beverley Grammar head Grahame Hodson said: “We had our best results ever last year. We got an email saying I would be contacted but I never was. I would be more than happy to participate in that, but because we did so well maybe some of the other schools got a bit more of a grilling because they didn’t.”

A council sub-committee approved a range of recommendations from the panel yesterday, including the creation of a one-off “Excellence for All Fund” of £200,000 for local authority schools to improve performance. This will now be considered by the full council.

Coun Julie Abraham, portfolio holder for children, young people and schools, added: “It would be disappointing if any school didn’t engage in the process and that’s a far as it goes. The fact that it’s academies is neither here nor there.

“As lead member for children I’m interested in children across the authority, whether they are in maintained schools or academies. I want to make sure every child has the best education possible.”

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