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'Culture of hard work' overcomes poverty
Strong leadership can make a positive impact
The link between poverty and educational failure can be broken by schools with a sufficiently strong leadership, say school inspectors.
The Office for Standards in Education has published a report, Improving City Schools, to accompany a one-day conference on how schools can succeed against the odds.
The Office for Standards in Education has published a report, Improving City Schools, to accompany a one-day conference on how schools can succeed against the odds.
Common features of against the odds successes |
strong management good teaching well-focused curriculum close monitoring of pupils communication with parents |
The report examines the distinguishing features of schools which are successful, despite being located in areas of social disadvantage.
"A culture of hard work is supported by good relationships and the tracking of progress, a positive approach to attainment and progress goes hand in hand with a positive attitude to behaviour and attitude," says the report, describing how successful schools work.
It emphasises the importance of school leadership and the setting of high expectations and the close monitoring of pupil achievement.
Schools are also seen to benefit from working hard at making sure that pupils acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills.
"Essentially what makes the diference are ther clarity, intensity and the rigour with which it is scrutinised. At best, all the energy of the school serves the same end of raising standards," says the report.
The Schools Standards Minister, Estelle Morris, also addressed the conference, following the government's recent assertion that social deprivation should not be used as an excuse for poor performance at school.
Ms Morris welcomed the report, saying that it recognised the importance of "good leadership and effective teaching in turning round failing schools and in succeeding against the odds".
'Blight of underachievement'
The Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, said that schools which performed much better than those with similar levels of disadvantage were examples of how schools could intervene in the cycle of poverty and academic failure.
"They illustrate what can be done to improve standards in circumstances where any progress is hard won. But we must also learn from them. The number of such schools needs to grow rapidly in order to cut the long tail of underachievement which blights the education service in the disadvantaged areas of England."
But the Shadow Education Secretary, Theresa May, said that giving schools greater independence would allow them to follow the path of the most successful.
"Under free schools teachers would be free to manage their schools according to their professional experience and schools like these would flourish," she said.
Last year the Audit Commission reported that there were wide differences in levels of achievement of local authorities with similar levels of disadvantage.
And the government has continued to highlight that individual schools can have very different patterns of results than other schools with the same type of intake.
"A culture of hard work is supported by good relationships and the tracking of progress, a positive approach to attainment and progress goes hand in hand with a positive attitude to behaviour and attitude," says the report, describing how successful schools work.
It emphasises the importance of school leadership and the setting of high expectations and the close monitoring of pupil achievement.
Schools are also seen to benefit from working hard at making sure that pupils acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills.
"Essentially what makes the diference are ther clarity, intensity and the rigour with which it is scrutinised. At best, all the energy of the school serves the same end of raising standards," says the report.
 Ofsted wants to highlight the features of schools which are successful against the odds |
Ms Morris welcomed the report, saying that it recognised the importance of "good leadership and effective teaching in turning round failing schools and in succeeding against the odds".
'Blight of underachievement'
The Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead, said that schools which performed much better than those with similar levels of disadvantage were examples of how schools could intervene in the cycle of poverty and academic failure.
"They illustrate what can be done to improve standards in circumstances where any progress is hard won. But we must also learn from them. The number of such schools needs to grow rapidly in order to cut the long tail of underachievement which blights the education service in the disadvantaged areas of England."
But the Shadow Education Secretary, Theresa May, said that giving schools greater independence would allow them to follow the path of the most successful.
"Under free schools teachers would be free to manage their schools according to their professional experience and schools like these would flourish," she said.
Last year the Audit Commission reported that there were wide differences in levels of achievement of local authorities with similar levels of disadvantage.
And the government has continued to highlight that individual schools can have very different patterns of results than other schools with the same type of intake.
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