Oxfordshire loses its ‘Excellent’ rating

OXFORDSHIRE County Council has dropped from being a four star council to a three because its schools are not improving fast enough.
Latest figures show that 57% of the county’s pupils achieved five GCSEs at grade C or better, compared with 69.2% in Buckinghamshire and 64% in Gloucestershire, placing Oxfordshire at the bottom of league tables comparing exam and test results with similar affluent counties. Oxfordshire was one of two councils to drop a star out of 19 assessed in the South East by the Audit Commission. The other was Slough Borough Council.

Oxfordshire County Council has pledged to work tirelessly to improve its schools? attainment and pointed out that the Audit Commission commended many other key services for performing strongly. The new ranking rates it as a ?good? council rather than an ‘excellent’ one.

Council Leader, Keith Mitchell, said: “My two feelings are disappointment that we have not done better on the attainment issue and determination to improve our performance for our children and get our star back double quick.
“Educational attainment is vital for our children and we were conscious before this inspection that many Oxfordshire schools are not yet doing well enough.
“This is an affluent county with a skilled and well educated adult population by comparison with many other parts of England. Yet for complex reasons the current level of attainment in our schools does not match this.
?We appointed Janet Tomlinson as our new Director for Children, Young People and Families last year with precisely this challenge in mind and people can be assured she is already well on the case.
?I?m glad to say that the many strong performances of other service areas highlighted in the assessment speak for themselves. We have improved services in most of our priority areas and relative to other councils. Many are judged by the inspectors to be delivering a top rank performance, with quality now exceeding previously high standards. The council’s financial management and use of resources have been singled out for particular praise.
“This is very good news in terms of our delivering on our objectives of low taxes, real choice and value for money and shows the underlying strength of this organization.”