Student protest academy loses its “outstanding” rating –but still found to be “good” by Ofsted

Pimlico Academy, the London comprehensive which featured in weeks of media coverage earlier this year culminating in a student protest, has seen its Ofsted rating downgraded from “outstanding” to “good”, an inspection report released to parents this afternoon has revealed.

However, even the latter judgment will strike some observers as controversial, given the turmoil at the school during 2020-21 and the fact that an emergency inspection which took place only six months ago had documented staff and pupil concerns about recent goings-on at the academy, which is part of the Future Academies chain controlled by the former academies minister Lord John Nash and his wife, Lady Caroline Nash.  

Pimlico was given “good” ratings for quality of education, behaviour and attitudes of pupils and leadership and management, while pupils’ personal development, and sixth form provision, were both rated outstanding, following the inspection two months ago.  The school had not been fully inspected for 11 years, when it was rated “outstanding” just after becoming an academy under Future.

Under “what is it like to attend this school,” the new report states that “becoming better in a subject is taken very seriously by staff and pupils at Pimlico,” before adding that: “The school went through a period of considerable turbulence in the previous academic year.

“Leaders and trustees have worked hard to win back hearts and minds with much success. However, some parents and carers remain concerned about aspects of the school, including leaders’ work to secure further improvements.”

The report adds that “leaders have stabilised the school after a brief period of turbulence,” although, with upheaval seemingly having lasted from the start of the former principal Daniel Smith’s tenure at Pimlico in September 2020 until the end of the summer term 2021, with strike action and the departure of many staff, some will wonder whether this really constitutes a “brief” such spell.

There appears also to have been no mention of an ongoing effect of such “turbulence”, at least as put to me in recent months by a Pimlico teacher – that many experienced staff have been lost to the school. Would this have an effect on the quality of provision, as this source suggested to me it would? There appears no insight on that in this report.

In his letter to parents about the report, Tony Oulton, its acting principal, offered some context around the loss of its “outstanding” rating.

Oulton wrote: “It is important to view this judgement in the context that Ofsted has, as has been widely reported, committed to halving the number of schools grading Outstanding. The framework that Ofsted now uses to inspect schools is far more rigorous than that used previously,” ironically perhaps implying that the rating that this school and others had enjoyed for years had been less “rigorously” founded.

There had been rumours, with there being a longer-than-average two months between the inspection itself and the report’s publication, that Future had been challenging Ofsted on the draft verdict, as shown to the school at the end of the inspection.

There was some speculation that this challenge had been as the chain had sought to get a draft “good” verdict updated to “outstanding,” although a local source put it to me today there was a question as to whether a lower draft verdict had in fact been upgraded to “good”.

With Ofsted not releasing draft grades, even under freedom of information, it will be difficult to get to the bottom of that speculation.

I may well follow up on this report next week.