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4.19 Senator B.E. Shenton of the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture regarding the publication of performance statistics for Island schools:
Does the Minister consider that parents have the right to know the performance of individual schools and, if so, does he believe that the current policy of not publishing performance statistics, not having regular independent inspections and not publishing inspection reports is appropriate?
Deputy J.G. Reed of St. Ouen (The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture):
As Minister for Education, Sport and Culture and as a parent I fully support the right of parents to know the performance of individual schools. What I do not believe is correct is the publication and the creation of tables which identify or compare performance between one school and another in the public domain. Under current policy individual schools are required to publish their examination results to the
parents. This is usually done through the annual report of the governing body
although some schools also publish their results on the school website or by way of a school newsletter. Secondly, independent inspection does take place in our schools.
In fact our schools are subject to more regular independent inspection than schools in the U.K. All provided schools in Jersey are required to plan a 3-year cycle review during which key aspects of the schools' work are subject to scrutiny. During this cycle trained Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) inspectors are brought in to validate the findings and identify development needs. This means that our schools are subject to annual inspections rather than the 6-yearly inspection cycle that has been the case in the U.K. It is interesting to note that indeed Ofsted itself is now wanting to move towards and follow Jersey's approach in this matter. Once inspections are complete reports are then shared with the department and, where there is a governing body, with the governance. It should be borne in mind that each governing body is required to have at least 2 parent representatives on the board. In addition, any of
these reports could be made available to parents on request subject to any decisions on confidentiality in relation to data protection. I hope this answers the Senator's question.