Ofsted: “Becoming a converter academy does not insulate you from decline”

Key figures from the inspectorate’s Annual Report on School performance

With David Cameron’s desire that all schools convert to academies by 2020, the latest Ofsted findings add more evidence that doing so does not guarantee improved performance. The report states that “becoming a converter academy does not insulate you from decline. In 2014/15, there were 99 converter academies that declined from good or outstanding to less than good.”

The “troubling gap” between secondary schools in the North and Midlands and the rest of the country was another headline-grabber from Sir Michael Wilshaw’s report on Ofsted findings from the 2014/15 academic year.

But how about primary schools? What do the figures suggest about performance compared to the previous year? Overall there were 3,655 primaries inspected last year, and 4,823 in 2013/14. Here’s how schools were graded overall:

Outstanding: 9 per cent (7 per cent in 2013/14)
Good: 64 per cent (57 per cent)
Requires improvement: 23 per cent (31 per cent)
Inadequate: 4 per cent (5 per cent)

So generally, that’s a good trend, with 73 per cent of primaries good or outstanding and 27 per cent requires improvement or inadequate. That’s a gap of 46 percentage points, whereas in 2013/14 the gap was 28 percentage points.

But what about types of school? Were performances consistent across the board? Of the 3,655 primaries inspected in 2014/15, 3,061 were local authority maintained, 310 were academy converters, 246 were sponsored academies and 38 were free schools. Here are the percentages for each:

LA-maintained
Outstanding: 8 per cent (6 per cent in 2013/14)
Good: 65 per cent (57 per cent)
Requires improvement: 23 per cent (32 per cent)
Inadequate: 4 per cent (5 per cent)

Academy converters
Outstanding: 14 per cent (17 per cent in 2013/14)
Good: 63 per cent (61 per cent)
Requires improvement: 20 per cent (17 per cent)
Inadequate: 3 per cent (5 per cent)

Sponsored academies
Outstanding: 7 per cent (8 per cent in 2013/14)
Good: 54 per cent (47 per cent)
Requires improvement: 33 per cent (36 per cent)
Inadequate: 6 per cent (9 per cent)

Free schools
Outstanding: 37 per cent (16 per cent in 2013/14)
Good: 47 per cent (37 per cent)
Requires improvement: 13 per cent (42 per cent)
Inadequate: 3 per cent (5 per cent)

Given that not every school in the country was inspected, these numbers do not necessarily reflect a bigger picture on the performance of primaries, but for what it is worth the biggest shift in the last academic year comes in the improvement of free schools. With a jump in outstanding ratings of 21 percentage points, in good ratings of 10 percentage points, and a huge decline in requires improvement ratings 29 percentage points.

Local authority maintained schools improved their outstanding and good ratings by a total of 10 percentage points. Sponsored academies did have a decline in outstanding ratings by 1 per cent, however they also lowered their requires improvement and inadequate ratings by a total of 6 percentage points.

Academy converters also had a dip in outstanding ratings, from 17 per cent in 2013/14 to 14 per cent in the latest findings, with an increase in requires improvement. However, their good ratings improved by 2 percent and the their inadequate ratings dipped by the same amount.