This in from the Isle of Wight council, in their own words. Ed
Executive member for children’s services, Councillor Jonathan Bacon, said:
“We are seeking a full explanation from Ofsted in relation to aspects of its findings concerning St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School and how these seem to conflict with a number of its findings in relation to St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Ryde – which share the same headteacher and governing body.
“Separate Ofsted inspection groups visited the two schools, which are federated in terms of their management, on the same days and came to significantly different findings in relation to the leadership of the schools. We are seeking clarification over this apparent inconsistency.
“The leadership of governors and the headteacher was deemed ‘good’ at St Mary’s, but the same team was determined to be ‘inadequate’ at St Thomas where they were viewed as not having the internal capacity to improve.
“Parents and the Isle of Wight community may find it difficult to correlate how a ‘good’ governing body and headteacher at one of two jointly-managed schools are viewed differently for the other.”
No process to appeal
Councillor Bacon confirmed that Ofsted was aware of the concerns, but had already decided not to change its judgement following an appeal by the school (St Thomas). There is no process for the local education authority to appeal, but the council has been working closely with the school to ensure all correct points have been covered in any correspondence.
He added:
“We strongly feel any clarification that can be given would be helpful for both the school and parents in determining a positive way ahead – and this is why we are seeking a more detailed explanation.”
A statement on behalf of the school commented:
“St Thomas of Canterbury and St Mary’s Catholic Primary schools are federated. They share the same governing body and senior leadership. The teachers are employed across the federation and work together to plan and deliver the curriculum. This is the strength of the federation. The new executive headteacher has been in post for just over a year, she has worked hard to establish the joint leadership structure which is the strength of two small schools working together.
“On 5 November 2014 both schools were contacted simultaneously to be notified that their section 5 inspections would be taking place over the following two days by two separate inspection teams. The executive headteacher was made aware during her first conversation with the inspector at St Thomas’ that the fact the two schools would be inspected at the same time, would not be a reason to defer one or the other inspection.
“The simultaneous inspections seriously weakened the ability of the senior leadership to support the middle leadership within each school, especially as the two schools are over half an hour’s journey apart and no attempt was made to coordinate the inspection timetables. In addition to this, the deputy head of the federation, who is mainly based at St Thomas of Canterbury, was required to leave during the first day of the inspection due to a close family bereavement. The separate inspection teams made very different judgements on the same leadership and management of the schools.
“The new curriculum and other new initiatives, which had been introduced in both schools, were recognised as ‘good’ in St Mary’s, but were not recognised in the same way in St Thomas of Canterbury. St Mary’s was judged as ‘good’ overall, while St Thomas of Canterbury, was judged as ‘inadequate’.
“We feel there are serious inconsistencies in how the schools were judged by the two separate teams and that the process of inspecting two schools with a joint leadership and management team, did not give us a fair opportunity to show the strengths of both schools equally.”
Image: Veronique Debord under CC BY 2.0
