Bad Faith

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By Vanessa ClarkeEducation reporter

" The Social contract" between parents and schools has become fractured, The Head of Ofsted has said.

In her final annual report, Amanda Spielman says the " unwritten agreement" that families ensure their children go to school and respect the policies, In Return for a good education, " will take time to restore".

Parents are increasingly willing to challenge School Rules , she says.

Ms Spielman is stepping down at The End of the year.

Her report reflects a " broadly positive picture" But draws particular attention to a troubling shift in behaviour, attendance and attitudes towards education since the pandemic.

Looking Back on her seven-year term, Ms Spielman says the pandemic has " left a troublesome legacy".

" We see its impact in lower school attendance, poorer behaviour and friction between parents and schools, " she says.

" Restoring this contract is vital to sustaining the progress we've seen. "

Over the 2022-23 academic year, 22. 3% of pupils were " persistently absent" missing at least 10% of lessons.

Before the pandemic, the proportion was just over one in 10.

Schools are struggling to reverse this trend, Ms Spielman says, with secondary schools seeing more absences than normal on Mondays and Fridays.

'School refusal'

Her report also raises concerns about an increase in part-time timetables.

The government says these should be used in exceptional circumstances only and never as a sanction for poor behaviour.

But Ms Spielman says the increase is partly due to a delay in assessments for " school refusal" or special educational needs and disabilities.

She also says it is " incredibly disappointing" Ofsted's powers to investigate and close illegal unregistered schools remain limited despite every one of her previous annual reports highlighting concerns.

" Most of these places offer a poor standard of education and many are unsafe, "' she says.

Ofsted has also seen an increase in parents complaining about school policies and is calling for " greater central guidance" on a range of issues from " uniform policies to the delicate choices around curriculum for relationships and Sex Education or the handling of transgender and other identity issues" left in large part to head teachers.

" When heads must exercise that autonomy in contentious areas, they can feel isolated and unsupported - and their decisions can be inconsistent" The Report says.

Head teacher Ruth Perry 's suicide ahead of an " inadequate" Ofsted rating led to a debate about how the watchdog operates, with calls for its single-word grading system to be replaced with a narrative judgement.

And some changes to Ofsted inspections have already been been made, including reinspecting schools rated inadequate over their ability to keep children safe sooner, to give them a chance to improve.

But Ms Spielman says there remains " a wave of publicly expressed discontent" about issues Ofsted cannot resolve alone.

Government interventions in schools, following an inspection, has intensified anxiety ahead of inspections and made them more pressurised, she says.

'More intense'

" Ofsted is not a policy-making department and cannot decide to divert its resources to support work. yet it is being argued that Ofsted is acting punitively or in Bad Faith by not doing so and that clarification is needed, " Ms Spielman's report says.

The current judgement model is " in fact entirely In Line with other inspectorates" she says.

Ms Spielman also says funding for school inspections is about a quarter of what it was 20 years ago, meaning " school inspections are necessarily shorter and more intense and reports are necessarily briefer" - But Ofsted " continues to perform its role fairly, professionally, thoroughly and constructively".

MPs have launched an inquiry into school inspections in England, looking at how useful they are to parents, governors and schools.

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Source of news: bbc.com