Yesterday, the schools inspectorate cautioned that children are receiving "uninteresting and uninspired" lessons. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, conveyed her concern about the low expectations of teachers and their inadequate knowledge of the subject leading to disordered lessons. In Ofsted’s yearly report, it stated that around 37% of teaching was merely satisfactory, with variations in quality being a significant issue in more than 50% of the UK’s secondary schools and over 40% of primary schools. This year, almost 45% of schools have been rated as satisfactory or worse, with 8% considered inadequate. Gilbert highlighted that the "weakest area" was teaching, adding, "There is too much teaching that is lifeless and dreary. This means that too many young people do not possess the necessary skills to make the most of their lives." The report suggests that inadequate teaching results in mundane tasks that fail to involve the students. The report also highlighted the importance of academies, which are state-funded schools that run independently from local authorities. Ofsted praised teacher training in colleges as 30 out of 64 colleges inspected received an outstanding rating, compared to only five out of 22 school-centred training programmes. Today, a white paper calling for a change in teacher training is published and encourages apprentice-style teaching in classrooms; the focus is to gain teaching skills in the classroom.
The regulatory body cautioned that social services are encountering formidable obstacles while under increased public scrutiny to ensure the safety of children under their care. The period spanning from March 2009 to the present day witnessed an 11% surge in referrals to children’s welfare services. There was also a 12% upswing in initial assessments and a 4.7% increase in the number of children who were placed under child protection plans.
This growth in demand follows a string of highly publicised child safeguarding cases, including the infamous Baby Peter case. The report emphasises the challenges social care services face in numerous local authorities, disclosing, "The safeguarding issues have never been under such immense pressure with public and media scrutiny at its peak. Improvement is expected."
A shortage of qualified staff remains an issue in various areas, resulting in exhaustive workloads. Consequently, children are left waiting excessively for a response due to the extensive workload.
Out of the 29 local authorities that were scrutinised, the following 10 were judged inadequate for child protection concerning their children’s services: Birmingham, Calderdale, Cornwall, Essex, Leeds, Nottinghamshire, Peterborough, Salford, Sandwell, and Warrington.
