Excelling Against The Odds

Ofsted (who are the body in charge of School Inspections), have produced a report about how schools with a crummy intake can nevertheless do well. Have a quick look at it here

It is compulsory for all these reports to descend into gibberish at some stage and this one doesn't waste any time. I love the phrase "a disciplined focus on being learning communities"

The gist of the report is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain. ie schools with discipline do better than those without.

The best bit is the list of characteristics of good schools. One of them is 'Highly inclusive' but in the previous paragraph we learnt that one Head suspended 300 kids in a week! How on Earth he got that past the School Governors or the Local Education Authority is not explained.

Anyway my feeling is this:

If we know that discipline in schools is central to success, why doesn't the Government do anything at all to encourage it? Some State Schools have very successful discipline policies which work, but many have useless ones that don't. Thousands of schools up and down the Land are making the same mistakes over and over again, when we could easily have one simple, clear and consistent set of rules to be adhered to by every pupil in Britain.

Oh hang on, I wrote a book about this.