More focus on pupil development

Last updated 16:19, Monday, 26 May 2008

Since the advent of the Every Child Matters agenda there has been a new concentration on pupil’s personal development.

When schools evaluate their own performance they need to deal with such issues as healthy life style, behaviour of learners, enjoying learning and making a positive contribution.

When schools are inspected Ofsted looks at how well the school delivers these things for young people.

But of course they are not measurable in the way exam results are, so generally inspectors rely on their own impressions and what the school tells them.

The Government plans to introduce new style inspections from next September.

The plans for these will soon be out for consultation and the signs are that there will be significant changes.

Whereas now schools get a couple of days’ notice of an inspection, in the future the inspectors might just walk in without any warning.

So that will be an end to the frantic running around marking books at the last minute, finding the evidence for pupils making progress, and getting plans up to date.

Instead all these will have to be up to date all the time.

It seems, though, that Ofsted is not yet ready to consult on a new approach to inspecting the well being of students – those things connected with personal development.

There may be a new emphasis on trying to measure these things.

Last year it was announced that Ofsted ought to look at school level indicators to form a picture.

It may be that surveys of pupils and parents will be carried out to help provide evidence.

Possible areas for assessment could be bullying, drug use, rates of teenage pregnancy and obesity.

Will the inspectors go round the school and count the overweight children? Will there be obesity and pregnancy school league tables?

There are obvious problems. Published data could only be used to compare schools in similar circumstances. It would be wrong to try to compare these things in an inner city comprehensive with a rural grammar school.

But even more worrying would be an attempt to hold schools to account for problems which are outside their control and are problems which affect communities and society as whole.

The new approach to well being is the right one. Schools have a contribution to make, young people’s personal development has a crucial bearing on their success in learning.

Behaviour is an obvious one. Unless a student behaves appropriately no learning can take place, for that young person and often for lots of others.

We need to take a broader view of learning than just to concentrate on academic standards. Many schools are now working with this concept and joining together support for students and their academic progress.

What happens to the pupil in the classroom has a key effect on behaviour.

Schools also have a part to play in encouraging healthy eating, exercise, and sexual health.

But just as schools cannot shirk responsibility for good health education which helps young people make informed choices, they cannot be held responsible for overweight children, young drug addicts and pregnant teenagers.

Let’s share best practice and improve education as a whole rather than see it as just for passing exams, but let’s not have obesity and drug-use targets alongside all the other ones.