The Norwich Evening News today prints a story which is astounding in its shoddiness and lack of professionalism when they report on the state of Norwich schools.
The most shocking of misleading claims in the report is
" nine of the county's primary schools are failing to provide good enough maths and English education. "
Actually, this is wrong, so wrong.
Looking at the Ofsted report of one of the schools highlighted in the report (Catton Grove Middle) showed that
"The quality of education provided by the school is good. The quality of teaching is good overall and this ensures that the pupils learn well."
Whilst a quick look at the Ofsted report for Mile Cross Middle School shows the report to say
"Teaching and learning are good overall. During the inspection some outstanding lessons were observed. All staff provide excellent role models for kindness and good manners. There are a significant number of pupils who need help to maintain an acceptable standard of behaviour. Within a framework of very good relationships, teachers manage these and other pupils extremely well. Teaching assistants are proficient and are valued as essential members of the team approach. In outstanding lessons, lively teaching engages even the most reluctant learners so that they learn at a very good rate."
It is interesting to note that Ofsted, a group of inspectors from outside of Norfolk, are aware of the challenging nature of pupils in differing parts of the city even if the Norwich Evening News does not.
So it is clear that the teaching at these two schools was rated as "Good" by Ofsted, and was not as the Evening News claims "failing".
The Evening News also fails to mention that some of the schools listed have special Learning Supporting Centres, which take statemented children often with learning disabilities or low attainers with learning needs. This will, of course, lower pass rates at those schools. But hey, I'm sure the Norwich Evening News wouldn't let the facts get in the way of a story, would they ?
Did the journalist bother to report the "added value" scores for the schools they listed which showed at least one of those schools listed in Norwich to actually be performing better than average out of Norwich schools. Indeed, its "added value" score was higher than a number of schools in the more well to do parts of the city.
Is this the same Norwich Evening News who after one local school got a rating of "good" by Ofsted chose to use as its headline the one criticism that Ofsted gave of the school rather than the many glowing positives listed by the report ?
A quick scan of the Evening News story will highlight the fact that they spell the word "Norwich" incorrectly in the eighth paragraph. Should teachers be taking lessons from the journalists at the Norwich Evening News when they cannot even spell Norwich correctly ?
1 comment:
Of course, they have just had to lose their editor in case he embarrassed them.
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