Ofsted chief backs academies

Thursday, 4 August 2005 12:00 AM

The chief inspector of schools in England has given his backing to the government's flagship city academies programme.

David Bell has said Ofsted inspections so far reveal a "broadly positive" picture of the secondary schools, which are intended to replace failing inner city schools.

"For the first time, a post-war government has attempted to bring about radical change, in a systematic way, to areas of the country facing the greatest educational need," he wrote in an article for BBC News Online.

Mr Bell's comments come against a background of increasing concern over the academies after an Ofsted report into the West London Academy in Northolt raised "serious concerns" about educational standards there.

But while he said that no-one who has read the reports into city academies to date "could pretend that everything in the garden is rosy", they did show "remarkable" progress.

"On the 13 monitoring visits my inspectors have made, they found that five academies were making good progress and most were making at least satisfactory progress," he said.

"In some cases, what has been achieved in a short time is nothing less than remarkable."

The Ofsted chief said much remains to be done to improve educational standards in the academies, but insisted there were already signs that they were doing better than their predecessor schools or other schools in similar contexts.

"It is also important to remember that many of them were starting from a low base and frankly it would be unrealistic to expect dramatic improvements overnight," Mr Bell said.

"Crucially, though, there is now hope in areas where previously there was none or little worth talking about."

Mr Bell's comments will fail to silence some critics, however, who believe the £25 million cost of each academy - of which £2 million is provided by a sponsor from the voluntary sector, business or faith groups - demands better results.

The government hopes to have 200 city academies by 2010, either built from scratch or in place of existing failing schools.

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