THE BEST SECONDARY SCHOOLS, AS RATED BY OFSTED

Ofsted have today (28 November 2012) published a table giving the percentages of pupils attending good or outstanding secondary schools by local authority area in England.

As many parents know, year on year our councillors here in Tameside never fail to tell us how good their schools are, how exam results have got better and proudly boast that each secondary school operating under their auspices, continues to improve.

That being the case, perhaps those councillors can explain how it is that according to Ofsted, Tameside schools with a score of 34% are languishing 5^th from the bottom, at 145 out of 150 local authorities?

However, it’s not all doom and gloom, because in primary education Tameside schools are performing a little better; they’re positioned 14 places from the bottom at 136 out of 150 local authorities, with a score of 57% in the table of pupils attending good or outstanding primary schools!

According to the Ofsted report, over two million children – 31% of the school age range – attend schools that fall short of being good or outstanding. While some of these schools are inadequate, most are not; they are just not good enough, but Tameside seem to have more than their fair share!

It might also be interesting for our local Labour MP Andrew Gwynne to comment too. He is always telling us about the failure of the Work program and blaming the current lot for why there are so many teenagers knocking on the jobseekers door. Well these Ofsted figures makes one wonder if the two are not in some way connected?

By the way, it’s interesting to note that our neighbouring authority; Oldham are 23rd with an impressive score of 86%. Maybe some of our councillors should have a word with their counterparts…