Moving goalposts......

Yet again we are informed that the number of 'failing' secondary schools facing closure over poor exam results has doubled after the government raised the minimum target to 40%. According to school league tables 215schools failed to reach the floor target. The government is now expecting a response from these school, either by becoming an academy or to be closed and reopened by a sponsor. Next year the floor target will move up to 45%, will this mean a further 200 schools being labelled 'failing'. The following year the threshold will be 50%. The goalposts are constantly moving placing pressure on schools to keep their head above water but allowing no time for embedding good practice and consolidating on what or what is not working in the pursuit of school improvement.
In the dialogue following this years results we are told that 82 academies are in the group of schools below the 40% and that 68 of the academies are from the original sponsored academies list. More worrying is that 14 schools rated good or outstanding by Ofsted and who became converter academies are also below the threshold.
So what does this mean for sustained school improvement? That there is no formula of success that is right for any one school. That short term gains are rarely matched over a longer time scale unless practice is embedded. That in challenging schools there is likely to be year on year variation in students ability with little or no constant in student outcomes. So when we reach the 50% threshold and we find 300 or more schools below it do we stamp our feet and say they are failing? No we recognise the excellent work many of them are doing in providing holistic education for their students and in many cases providing pathways to a better future. There are so many contexts that league tables do not reveal. The number of CP issues a school has, the number of students in a special needs category, the growing number of young people having mental health issues and the increasing number of students who have English as a second, sometimes third language, all examples of issues that impact on a school reaching the benchmark. The goal posts do indeed move and it is not a level playing field to start with.