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Friday 29 March 2019

Governor response to Ofsted Part I: On data

We were judged Requires Improvement by Ofsted. I was a member of the group of governors that met with the Lead Inspector. It was a fair cop. We were an RI school and couldn’t quibble with the judgement. An external review of governance was ordered. We implemented the resulting Action Plan in full. That was back in 2013. Ofsted visited the school again in 2015. This time I was chair of governors. Matravers was rated Good for the first time in its history. Many outstanding features were highlighted in the report. Governance was held up as an area of strength. Not so when the inspectors came to call in 2018. The school was downgraded to RI and the governors were criticised in the report. In this instance we believe Ofsted got it wrong. 

Governors have not publicly responded to the October 2018 Ofsted report, as the school was in the process of appealing against the Requires Improvement judgement. The appeal has now been considered. The inspectorate has upheld the judgement. We continue to dispute that the school Requires Improvement when measured against Ofsted’s own inspection criteria. This is a statement on behalf of the Board of Governors detailing why we believe that the inspection and its outcome were flawed. The time has come in the words of the old journalistic adage to ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’.  

A panel of five governors was invited to meet with the Lead Inspector, Mr. Steve Smith (Her Majesty’s Inspector - HMI). In previous inspections the inspector allowed governors to outline how they had fulfilled their core functions. Mr. Smith adopted a different stance. In the 30 minute meeting the HMI seemed only to be interested in the historic 2017 performance data as set out in the Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR). The validated version of which was published back in January 2018.  

Governors were surprised at this approach. We understood from the Ofsted Inspection Framework that more recent pupil outcomes should take precedence over historic data. When governors attempted to demonstrate progression from the 2017 to 2018 results, their efforts were brushed aside, as the 2018 data had not yet validated by the Department for Education. Mr. Smith would not therefore accept that outcomes had improved in a number of areas.  

The HMI seemed reluctant to believe that governors were given access to national data, although we explained that all members of the board are given personal log in access to Analyse School Performance, and with it the IDSR. The Training Audit provided for the inspectors in the Governors’ Ofsted evidence folder showed that members of the board had received training in understanding secondary school data.   

The Lead Inspector expected governors to be able to recall some of the details of the IDSR (a 42 page report) from memory. When we could not, Mr. Smith seemed to take it as evidence that aspects of the data were not being drawn to the attention of governors by the Headteacher, which was not the case. The Lead Inspector disputed that the ‘Class of 2017’ were below national on entry and that their outcomes were defined as ‘on national’ according to ASP/IDSR. We agreed that A level results had not been as good as expected, but we did not think this was limited to girls as he alleged. IDSR stated that pupil numbers were too small for such lines of enquiry to be generated. In a follow-up note to Mr. Smith we were able to substantiate our claims by drawing attention to the appropriate pages on ASP and IDSR.  

Mr. Smith did not accept the claim of the Contextual Value Added version of the 2017 Fischer Family Trust Data Dashboard that the school’s Key Stage 4 outcomes were in the top 5% for pupils with a similar starting point and context nationally. Again, governors were surprised at this, as the DfE’s Governance Handbook (January 2017) and the National Governance Association recommend that governors be aware of the FFT dashboard, with the NGA laying special emphasis on the importance of understanding contextual data. The inspector seemed to be of the view that placing pupil outcomes in context amounted to limiting expectations for our students. We insisted that this was not the case and pointed out that in 2018 the attainment gap between disadvantaged and other pupils had virtually closed. We also explained that our Alternative Provision students vastly outperformed those in Pupil Referral Units across England. (Wiltshire has no PRUs).   

The 2018 IDSR, published in February 2019 demonstrates that the progress of disadvantaged students was an area of huge success for the school, not an aspect that requires improvement. Overall, the progress of disadvantaged students at Matravers was above that of other non-disadvantaged pupils nationally. That is also the case for the Maths, Open and Science elements of Progress 8. In the English, Ebacc, Languages and Humanities elements, progress for our disadvantaged students was potentially in the top 10% of schools nationally. When it comes to Key Stage 4 exam results for 2018, the Attainment 8 figure for our disadvantaged students was 42.2, compared with a whole school figure of 44.8 (above national average). That against a background where there is a huge gap in attainment between disadvantaged students and others in Wiltshire schools. The county-wide Attainment 8 figure for disadvantaged students was 33.5 

The HMI claimed that schools in the neighbouring towns of Trowbridge and Warminster had a similar context to that of Matravers, yet their outcomes were better. Governors countered that this was not the case. In 2017 our attainment figures were in line with, if, not better than John of Gaunt School and Clarendon Academy in Trowbridge, while below those of Kingdown School in Warminster. An internal analysis of local schools’ KS4 results for 2018 had been supplied to governors by the Headteacher so we could benchmark our performance against that of our near neighbours. According to the data provided, the Matravers Attainment 8 and 4+ and 5+ English and Maths figures had pulled away from the Trowbridge schools and were either above or virtually in line with those of Kingdown. This analysis was not accepted by Mr. Smith, although it is borne out by the DfE’s ‘Compare School Performance’ figures (Table 1). In fact, Westbury has a higher percentage of SEND and Disadvantaged pupils than our neighbouring towns (Table 2).  

Table 1 ‘Compare School Performance 2018 
School  
Attainment 8 
Grade 5+ Eng & Math 
Matravers 
44.8 
40% 
Kingdown 
46.8 
42% 
John of Gaunt 
41.7 
33% 
Clarendon 
38.7 
32% 

Table 2 May 2018 Census  
Area Board 
Any SEND % 
Disadvantaged % 
Any SEND & Disadv % 
Westbury  
18 
23 
7 
Warminster  
13 
15 
4 
Trowbridge  
18 
20 
6 

The results detailed above are a tribute to our dedicated staff and exceptional students. It is no good Ofsted saying that their inspection judgements are not all about performance data. Mr. Smith was interested in little else when he spoke to governors. The 2017 data, at least.  

In Part II I will discuss other matters in relation to governance and the inspection judgement. 

Guy Davies 
Co-Chair of the Board of Governors