Highlights from the Ofsted Annual Report 2017-18

Last week saw the publication of the Ofsted Annual Report for 2017/18 which gives a state of the nation picture of the performance of early years, schools, further education and skills, and social care providers in England.

Budbrooke Primary School, Warwick was highlighted within the report for improving its grading from ‘Inadequate’ to ‘Good’, as was St. Michael's Church of England Primary School, Bedworth.

Some of the other headlines for Warwickshire are:

• 89% of Primary Schools judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ compared to a national figure of 87% and our regional figure of 85% (4th of 14 Local Authorities in our region). This also represents a 1% increase from the previous year.

• 83% of Secondary schools judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ compared to a national figure of 75% and our regional figure of 75% (3rd of 14 Local Authorities in our region).

• 67% of Key stage 2 children reaching the expected standard in Reading, Writing & Mathematics (64% national, 62% regional)

• 77% of Key stage 2 children reaching the expected standard in Reading (75% national, 73% regional)

• 77% of Key stage 2 children reaching the expected standard in Maths (75% national, 74% regional) - this places Warwickshire 2nd out of 14 Local Authorities in our region.

• Provisional data for 2018 also places Warwickshire at the top within our region in relation to Key Stage 4 performance. 

We must also celebrate the fact that our West Midlands region has the lowest national figure for pupils that did not progress between year 10 and year 11.

These results are testament to the excellent work that you are doing in schools and settings, set against the challenging times that we are currently experiencing.

Feedback invited on school term and holiday dates 2020/21

We would like to invite headteachers and chairs of governors to provide feedback on the proposed Warwickshire school term and holiday dates for 2020-2021 and also the date proposed for the secondary school induction day.

Two options are proposed:

• Option 1: Easter Holiday is set for after the bank holidays
• Option 2: Easter Holiday is set to span across the bank holidays

We aim to avoid part-weeks where possible however sometimes this is unavoidable in order to enable the required number of teaching days in the year.

More information about the proposed options is available in the attached letter.

How to provide feedback

Please provide your feedback by email to consultations@warwickshire.gov.uk or via the online questionnaire by Friday 18th January 2019 at the latest. 

Excellence in Warwickshire Awards 2018

The 2018 Excellence in Warwickshire Awards usually take place during the autumn term, however this year we are reviewing the format of the event and have therefore postponed this until the spring term. So, please be reassured if you are a school who was inspected during 2017/18 and improved your grade or maintained an outstanding judgement that you haven’t been forgotten!

The Awards have previously recognised the achievements of schools in relation to Ofsted, and although we still want to celebrate where schools have done well in this respect, we are looking to widen the scope of the event to include other areas of achievement to tie in with the Education Strategy and the WE priorities. For example, we would like to use the event as an opportunity to recognise schools achieving Warwickshire Workload Charter status and also to include our Long Service Awards.

We know that our schools are doing a lot more that is worthy of celebration and this event is an opportunity to highlight the wide range of successes in schools across the county.

Further details will be confirmed in the new year so watch this space!