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27
Aug 2021
Bid to tackle falling standards at North Yorkshire schools
Experts are to be sent into North Yorkshire's schools to address concerns about declining standards.
North Yorkshire County Council is acting after the proportion of its schools rated as good or outstanding fell significantly behind the national average.
As of last month, 80.5 per cent of primary pupils in the county attended a school rated good or outstanding by Ofsted compared to the national average of 88.2 per cent.
In addition, a smaller proportion of the county’s local education authority-run secondary schools have been rated as performing well compared to the national average.
The council has now created a team of analysts to send into schools to drive up standards.
It has identified high level issues at 23 of its schools and moderate concerns at 79 others, representing a total of 40 per cent of its schools.
A meeting of the council's executive this week heard the issue was being compounded by the authority being unaware of how well its schools were meeting children’s educational needs because there had been very few Ofsted inspections during the pandemic.
Councillor Patrick Mulligan, the council’s executive member for education, said areas of concern included attendance and exclusion rates, but the council's figures were dated or likely to have been significantly skewed by the pandemic. He said:
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Cllr Mulligan said the council was continuing to examine why its schools had received lower ratings than average, but he thought the authority was getting on top of the situation having set up a team of analysts to go into schools when invited by headteachers. He added:
Concerns about rising number of home educated children
The meeting also heard educational concerns had been raised as the number of home educated children was continuing to soar, with some 871 children being taught at home in the county in June compared with 650 at the end of March 2019.
Members heard while traditionally the authority had concentrated efforts on ensuring home educated children were safe, it had recently started examining the quality of the education being provided.
Councillors were told four home education advisors had been recruited to help families, some of which may not have suitable teaching plans in place having chosen home education as a last resort.
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