Leading article: A question of leadership

Published: 01 February 2007

The most alarming outcome of the latest Ofsted report is the 25 per cent rise in the number of primary schools being put on "special measures", with 171 schools - 34 more than at the end of the summer term - now deemed to be providing an unsatisfactory education. They have the threat of closure hanging over them unless they demonstrate an improvement.

Ofsted admits that it has "raised the bar" for what it considers a satisfactory standard of education since a new inspection framework was introduced in September 2005. And the new framework has highlighted deficiencies in another way. Under this regime, inspections are shorter and fewer lessons are monitored. Inspectors make greater use of written records and test scores to reach their verdict on the quality of an education being provided. There was an impressive improvement in the years after 1997 in test results. But the results have since stagnated. One in five children are still leaving school without the required standards in English and maths. That seems to have influenced the conclusions of inspectors in their latest report.

But changes in inspection practices are only one factor behind these results. Many primary schools seem to lack effective leadership. Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, sees a shortage of good head teachers at the heart of the problem. He identifies a damaging reluctance among teaching staff to apply for the headship of their school when it becomes vacant, something that deprives schools of invaluable expertise.

The reasons for this reluctance are complex. The injunctions of ministers that primary schools must extend their opening hours, organising breakfast clubs and more after-school activities, have made the duties of a head more onerous. And the fact that considerably more married women work in primary schools than in the secondary sector is also a factor.

Yet these are hardly insuperable problems. Another reason why teachers are often unwilling to take on greater responsibilities is that the differentials between the pay of heads and regular teachers are relatively modest in the primary school sector. The incentives are simply not there. One way forward is for the Government to pay primary school heads on a similar scale to their counterparts in the secondary sector. After all, the work they do and the responsibilities they take on are hardly less important. Money alone is not the solution to the problems we are seeing in the primary education sector, but at the moment a lack of financial incentives certainly seems to be part of the problem.