This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/10/ofsted-head-wrong-gove-snap-inspections-trojan-horse

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Ofsted head wrong for implying Gove blocked snap inspections, says DfE Ofsted head wrong for implying Gove blocked snap inspections, says DfE
(about 3 hours later)
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools and head of Ofsted, has been slapped down for claiming Michael Gove changed his mind about imposing no-notice inspections in the wake of allegations about Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools and head of Ofsted, has been slapped down for claiming that Michael Gove changed his mind about imposing snap inspections in the wake of allegations about Islamic extremism in Birmingham schools.
Sources at the Department for Education say it was wrong of Wilshaw to imply the education secretary blocked his efforts to bring in more snap inspections in a sign of continuing tensions over the sensitive issue. Sources at the Department for Education said on Tuesday it was wrong of Wilshaw to imply that the education secretary had earlier blocked his efforts to bring in more unannounced inspections, in a sign of continuing tensions over the sensitive issue.
It comes just days after Gove's and May's offices exchanged blows over whose department was to blame for failing to do enough to counter Islamic extremism in schools. It comes just days after Gove's and home secretary Theresa May's offices exchanged blows over whose department was to blame for failing to do enough to counter Islamic extremism ahead of a crucial report into 21 schools in the Midlands city.
Wilshaw had told the BBC's Newsnight he first called for more of the unannounced inspections two years ago when he first joined. He said: "I called for it and it's been rolled back, but we need to do it now for some schools." He also said he believed Gove had changed his mind on no-notice inspections. After months of investigating allegations of a so-called "Trojan horse" plot involving infiltration by Islamic hardliners, Ofsted on Monday revealed it found a culture of "fear and intimidation" in some Birmingham schools. It recommended more no-notice inspections and mandatory training of school governors.
Gove responded by announcing that teachers would get less warning of inspections and that all 20,000 primary schools would have to "promote British values". The government has not yet announced the exact definition of "British values" but David Cameron said he wanted a respect for institutions and a belief in personal and social responsibility to be "inculcated into the curriculum".
Speaking in Sweden at a meeting with EU leaders, the prime minister said the changes would win the overwhelming support of the population, including recent immigrants.
"I would say: freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions," he said. "Those are the sorts of things I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain, whether it was a private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else."
Cameron added: "I think what Michael Gove has said is important and I think he will have the overwhelming support of everybody in Britain, including people that have come to settle in Britain and make their home in Britain."
However, in a further area of tension, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said he now wanted to make sure pupils in all schools – including the semi-independent academies and Gove's free schools – were taught a core curriculum to guarantee a certain standard of education.
He told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: "I think in many ways, we need to look at this more widely because I think many people will be surprised to know that some of these schools, while they were under a duty to deliver a balanced curriculum, as Michael Wilshaw pointed out in his report, they're not under any obligation to actually teach anything from the national curriculum whatsoever."
He said he would also like to put an end of unqualified teachers, a move likely to be resisted by Gove, with whom he has clashed in the past.
Labour said Gove's latest spat with Wilshaw, on top of his previous rows with May and differences with Clegg, showed the education secretary was "continuing to try to shift the blame from himself and distract from the fact that his department was warned about the failings in Birmingham four years ago".
"Instead of clearing up his mess, he is playing politics with our children's education," said Kevin Brennan, the shadow schools minister.
The controversy broke out after Wilshaw told the BBC's Newsnight he first called for more of the unannounced inspections two years ago when he first joined Ofsted.
"I called for it and it's been rolled back, but we need to do it now for some schools," he said.
Wilshaw also said he believed Gove had changed his mind on no-notice inspections.
"He said we need to look at this and we need to listen to what headteachers are saying about needing to be in the school prior to inspection, so that they can have a preliminary dialogue with the inspectors about how the inspection should be conducted. So we've pulled back on that and now they just have a few hours. We had a robust discussion about it and I'm really pleased that minds have been changed.""He said we need to look at this and we need to listen to what headteachers are saying about needing to be in the school prior to inspection, so that they can have a preliminary dialogue with the inspectors about how the inspection should be conducted. So we've pulled back on that and now they just have a few hours. We had a robust discussion about it and I'm really pleased that minds have been changed."
On Monday, Gove seized on a finding by Ofsted that a "culture of fear and intimidation" existed in some Birmingham schools by announcing that the government will require all 20,000 primary and secondary schools to "promote British values". The education secretary announced the change in the inspection regime after reports by the schools inspectorate into 21 Birmingham secular schools found an atmosphere of intimidation, a narrow, faith-based ideology, manipulation of staff appointments and inappropriate use of school funds.
These values will include the primacy of British civil and criminal law, religious tolerance and opposition to gender segregation. Gove also suggested girls wearing the burqa would struggle to find their voice and must not feel silenced in the classroom.
In what is being described by ministers as a decisive shift away from moral relativism in the classroom, the education secretary took action after a landmark series of reports by the schools inspectorate into 21 Birmingham secular schools found an atmosphere of intimidation, a narrow, faith-based ideology, manipulation of staff appointments and inappropriate use of school funds.
Ofsted found 10 of the schools needed improvement relating to the "Trojan horse" allegations, five were placed in special measures and the rest were cleared. Several school governors face being barred from holding office. Gove told MPs: "The overwhelming majority of British Muslim parents want their children to grow up in schools that open doors rather than close minds. It is on their behalf that we have to act."Ofsted found 10 of the schools needed improvement relating to the "Trojan horse" allegations, five were placed in special measures and the rest were cleared. Several school governors face being barred from holding office. Gove told MPs: "The overwhelming majority of British Muslim parents want their children to grow up in schools that open doors rather than close minds. It is on their behalf that we have to act."
Education department officials said non-maintained schools were already required to respect British values, but all schools would now be required to promote those values, with Ofsted to inspect schools to ensure compliance.Education department officials said non-maintained schools were already required to respect British values, but all schools would now be required to promote those values, with Ofsted to inspect schools to ensure compliance.
The reports also raise issues for Ofsted, Birmingham city council, the Education Funding Agency and Department for Education officials who failed to inform Gove of a 2010 presentation to his department given by a former headteacher, Tim Boyes, about radical infiltration of Birmingham's schools.The reports also raise issues for Ofsted, Birmingham city council, the Education Funding Agency and Department for Education officials who failed to inform Gove of a 2010 presentation to his department given by a former headteacher, Tim Boyes, about radical infiltration of Birmingham's schools.
A future report commissioned by Peter Clarke, the former head of counter-terror policing, will determine whether there was an extremist conspiracy to pervert the purpose of state schools or merely isolated examples of bad governance as some individuals tried to turn secular state schools into faith schools.
Gove also announced that Ofsted would press ahead with no-notice inspections of schools.
In proposals Gove is less likely to accept, Wilshaw recommended mandatory training of school governors and a governors' register of interests. He also suggested a more prescriptive description of a broad and balanced national curriculum that would have to be followed by all schools, including academies and free schools, a reform that potentially strikes at the heart of Gove's reforms.
Wilshaw, echoing long-standing Labour criticisms, also called for a review of the funding agreements for all academies and free schools.
Unveiling his findings, Wilshaw said inspectors found that school governors had "recently exerted inappropriate influence on policy and the day-to-day running" of several schools in Birmingham, and castigated the city council for not providing adequate support for staff who tried to resist. In one case, a school leader was so anxious about speaking to Ofsted inspectors that a meeting had to be arranged in a supermarket car park, he said.
In a letter to Gove prefacing the results, Wilshaw said: "The evidence suggests three broad categories of school: in some schools, the inappropriate influence of governors is widespread and deep-rooted; in others, there are significant weaknesses in governance, but the level of undue influence exerted by individual governors is less established; in a few schools, leaders have successfully resisted the attempts of governors to change the nature and ethos of their school."
The five rated as inadequate included Oldknow primary and Park View academy secondary school, previously judged by Ofsted to be outstanding, as well as Saltley secondary, Golden Hillock secondary and Nansen primary schools.
Of the remaining 16, five schools – Small Heath, Washwood Heath, Waverley, Chilwell Croft and Ninestiles – were cleared by inspectors of concerns related to risks of extremism and governance, while 11 "required improvement" on specific issues, largely to do with pupil safety and the relationship between staff and governors.
Park View Education Trust, which governs Park View academy and two of the other schools downgraded, issued a statement denying the allegations: "The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of extremism or an imposition of strict Islamic practices in our schools. We reject the judgment that students are not being prepared to play an integrated role in modern British society."
The DfE also published its report into Oldknow primary, a large, mainly Muslim school in east Birmingham, which contained allegations that the school had changed in nature over the course of a year, and had banned Christmas activities, ended exchange visits with local churches and spent £50,000 on a school trip to Saudi Arabia.
Jahangir Akbar, the acting principal of Oldknow academy, said: "I feel that it's a political witch-hunt. There is no extremism here. Our children are safe. It is unfair that these allegations are being made against us. All my middle managers are female, the leadership team has female members. The majority of the staff are non-Muslim."
The governors of Saltley school, another school downgraded to inadequate, also rejected Ofsted's concerns of exposure to extremism: "Parents and the wider community may be wholly confident that students here are safe and well looked after."
Nick Clegg, speaking on Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, called for a core curriculum to be imposed on academies and free schools in the wake of the row about pupils being exposed to Islamic extremism in Birmingham.
"I think in many ways, we need to look at this more widely because I think many people will be surprised to know that some of these schools, while they were under a duty to deliver a balanced curriculum, as Michael Wilshaw pointed out in his report, they're not under any obligation to actually teach anything from the national curriculum whatsoever."
He also suggested some British values that could be promoted in schools were "democracy, gender equality, equality before the law".
In the Commons, the shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, said Gove's "agenda has been an ideology of atomisation and fragmentation: teachers without qualifications; every school an island; a free market of provision; and an attempt to oversee it all from behind a desk in Whitehall. Birmingham has shown that that model is bust".
In Birmingham, the leader of the Labour-run council, Sir Albert Bore, said he was "very reassured" that Ofsted had not uncovered evidence of a coordinated plot or conspiracy to seize control of schools but said it was clear some governors and governing bodies had "failed in their duties" to pupils.In Birmingham, the leader of the Labour-run council, Sir Albert Bore, said he was "very reassured" that Ofsted had not uncovered evidence of a coordinated plot or conspiracy to seize control of schools but said it was clear some governors and governing bodies had "failed in their duties" to pupils.
Theresa May, the home secretary, earlier refused eight times to tell MPs who had authorised the publication of a letter she wrote to Gove criticising his actions and put it on the Home Office website after midnight. The letter was sent to Gove as it emerged the education secretary had criticised the Home Office approach to combating extremism. Some of the schools have strongly rejected the criticism. Jahangir Akbar, the acting principal of Oldknow academy, one of the schools now rated inadequate, said: "I feel that it's a political witch-hunt. There is no extremism here, our children are safe. It is unfair that these allegations are being made against us. All my middle managers are female, the leadership team has female members. The majority of the staff are non-Muslim."
May repeatedly said she had not authorised the release of the letter and the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, had found she had not breached the ministerial code. Her special adviser, Fiona Cunningham, resigned in the wake of an investigation by Heywood. May was not asked whether she approved of the release of the letter or whether Cunningham had ordered a civil servant to put the letter on the Home Office website.
The Muslim Council of Britain said the schools had been downgraded on arbitrary and inconsistent criteria. "If there are irregularities, then of course these should be looked at. But to conflate them with issues of security and extremism is a dangerous approach," it said.
Shabana Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Ladywood, said: "The contents of the Ofsted reports make distressing reading for any resident of Birmingham. But what these reports do not prove is the central charge being levelled, which was that there was an organised effort to import extremism."