THURROCK’S under-fire education bosses have invited the Ofsted chief, Sir Michael Wilsher to the borough following his scathing report which placed the primary schools third from bottom in the country.
Portfolio holder, Oliver Gerrish made the statement at the beginning of the full council meeting on Wednesday night.
And at the same time, he announced that there would be summit of all education chiefs in the new year.
Cllr Gerrish again stressed that the number of primary schools classed as good or outstanding has risen from 33% in 2010 to 49% in 2011.
However, the last two Ofsted reports for schools in the borough (for Aveley and Stanford-le-Hope) both placed the schools in the C category of “requires improvement” whilst a monitoring visit to another primary once again criticised staff’s poor diction, enunciation and grammar.
The local education authority also announced a “groundbreaking scheme” to attract graduates into the borough but privately head-teachers have bemoaned that they have been given a “shoestring” budget to promote the scheme.
Well at least this person may know what he is talking about as he is a serving Head Teacher and has never worked in a local authority, lets hope he can develop a good strategy to move our schools forward.