'A' Grade for Local Schools as Borough Ranks Amongst the Best in the Country

There was a lot of coverage in the national media earlier this week of the first Ofsted 'league table' of local authorities, which ranked council areas based on the number of children attending good or outstanding primary or lower schools.

Bedford Borough comes in at 11 out of 150 authority areas, with 85% of children attending a good or outstanding school. This is obviously a ringing endorsement of the efforts of pupils, families and teachers to drive up standards, working in partnership with the Council.

The fact that you are more likely to be able to send your child to a good or outstanding school here in the Borough than almost anywhere else in the country is something we need to broadcast loud and clear, in particular in order to give our schools the recognition they deserve, and also to promote our Borough as a great place to live and, of course, to invest and create jobs and growth.

The figure of 85% of children being in a good or outstanding lower or primary school is exceptional on a national scale. We obviously aspire to 100%, however. We need to continue working alongside all schools in the task of giving all children the best possible opportunity to fulfil their potential. There's no room for complacency, but when the depth of the quality of our local schools is highlighted in a national context like this, we need to take a moment to say well done to all those staff, pupils, families and all the many people whose efforts and support contribute to making schools successful.

The league table can be found in the schools section of Ofsted's Annual Report, which is available to read here: www.ofsted.gov.uk/about-us/annual-report

In addition to the league tale in its Annual Report, Ofsted has also produced a new 'Data View' tool which allows you to have a good look at the figures around the performance of schools according to local authority areas. It shows that in the case of secondary level schools, for which a league table wasn't published, the Borough again ranks above the national average, with more pupils - 70% - attending good or outstanding schools than in the country overall. The Data View site can be found here: dataview.ofsted.gov.uk