Caned school slams report

‘Judgement in no way reflects our many strengths’ - head John Meagher

FAILSWORTH School has made an official complaint after inspectors found it is failing to give pupils an acceptable standard of education.

Head teacher John Meagher says staff and governors are angry and disappointed the school has been placed in special measures - the lowest Ofsted category. He also alleges inspectors broke the Ofsted code of conduct.

The education watchdog says pupils’ achievements, teaching and the school’s leadership are inadequate.

Children generally join with average standards, but these drop to below average when they leave.

GCSE results are well below average and not rising quickly enough and Ofsted says leaders “do not have the capacity to move the school forward”.

The school is classed as inadequate (grade four) overall - down from “requires improvement” (grade three) at its last inspection in February 2013.

But there was praise for the progress made by disabled pupils, those with special educational needs and those doing vocational subjects

Ofsted also highlighted how well pupils do in subjects including music and art, their attendance, falling exclusions, the governing body and work to keep pupils safe.

It added: “While leaders and staff show great determination to improve the school, for which they care and work hard, it is taking too long to reverse the downward trends.”

In a robust defence, Mr Meagher said: “This judgment in no way reflects the many strengths of the school. We have lodged a formal complaint about both the conduct of the inspection team, which we feel broke the Ofsted code of conduct in a number of places, and about the outcomes.

“The inspection and subsequent report also ignores our continued improvement and successes in many areas. We know we have areas upon which we can improve, as does every school, and we already had strong plans in place to deliver these improvements.”

Mr Meagher would not comment further on the details of the school’s complaint, but he added: “While we set records in many GCSE subjects this year, the improvement we expected in a small number of key subjects did not occur.

“Crucially, the way of measuring results changed, which worked against us and many other schools locally and nationally.

“We feel the inspection team didn’t pay any regard to the actions taken, the national results context, the views of any external experts who have worked with the school, nor the plans in place and vetted by a series of educational professionals with proven credentials.”

The 1,480-pupil school is holding a meeting for parents at 6.30pm on Monday.