Improved Behaviour When Staff & Pupils Are More Polite to Each Other Says OFSTED

Improved behaviour in failing schools seems to be happening when both teachers and pupils are more polite to one another.

This is part of the findings in a new report by OFSTED the school inspectorate.

The report adds: "The associated improvements in personal development, especially behaviour, were dramatic."

Involving pupils as "stakeholders", through a school council, house system or open forum, was crucial, it said.

Schools which most successfully revive after being labelled failures have strong leadership, self-knowledge and sense of identity, Ofsted says.

Ofsted's report is based on 14 schools in England previously deemed to require "special measures" - in other words they were failing to provide an acceptable standard of education.

When re-inspected they were showing continuous improvement. The English education inspectorate said the foundation for improvement was honest and accurate self-assessment, a theme now common around the UK.

The themes are becoming common in the UK's four education systems and indeed elsewhere in Europe.

In Scotland, HM Inspectorate of Education's self-evaluation toolkit for schools has a formal six-point scale and stresses what one education adviser calls the "so what" question: what difference did anything make to the quality of children's education?

Senior chief inspector Graham Donaldson talks of "the great strides taken by educational establishments in becoming aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, placing Scotland at the forefront of quality improvement internationally".

Northern Ireland's Education and Training Inspectorate has also found clear links between self-evaluation and improvement, so it forms the core of the education minister's proposed new school improvement policy.

In Wales, Estyn also stresses the need for good self-evaluation.

In a report earlier this year commissioned by the assembly government, it said schools should ensure pupils could be involved more in the self-evaluation, school improvement plans and decisions that affected their teaching and learning.

(With thanks to BBC News: bbc.co.uk/news for this news item.)