Hidden failure

Those who place such faith in local-authority control, however, may wish to consider the case of Bradford Moor Primary School where the entire board of governors has been sacked after it was discovered that falling standards in maths and literacy had been kept quiet for years, even though Bradford Council had praised the school’s performance in boosting multi-racial education.

It remains unclear whether the cover-up was purely an attempt to make the school appear far better than it was, or whether there was misplaced political correctness involved in hiding the failings of a school where 98 per cent of the pupils are of Pakistani heritage and do not have English as a first language.

Either way, the effect has been to damage children’s education, to send them on to secondary school completely unprepared for the academic demands ahead and to blight further the life chances of a group already identified as being considerably less likely than their white peers to find employment.

This appalling case of educational neglect asks questions not only of the LEA, but also of Ofsted which finally managed to uncover the scandal but whose supposedly rigorous inspection regime had allowed it to remain hidden for years. In which case, perhaps the most urgent question is this: are similar cover-ups going on in other schools?