More lies from Gibb

'Minister concerned over poor pupil behaviour'

This is a headline in today's Guardian. The full online story is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/28/pupil-behaviour-survey-schools?INTCMP=SRCH

Whereas Gibb is commenting on the fact that inspectors have labelled pupil behaviour in 18.4% of secondaries as either satisfactory or inadequate, the percentage of schools found to be inadequate is 1% (the Guardian has 0.1% but there are 3225 secondary schools in England).

Lest you should think that the definition of satisfactory is somehow a condemnation, just ponder the words used in the Ofsted Evaluation Schedule to define the category:

Pupils behave so that learning proceeds appropriately and time is not wasted. They understand what is expected when asked to work on their own or in small groups and only gentle prompting is needed to maintain discipline. Around the school, pupils’ behaviour is orderly so that public spaces are safe and calm. Pupils are polite and generally respond appropriately to sanctions. Incidents of poor behaviour are uncommon.

Any parent would surely be very happy for their kids to attend a school where pupils behaved like this and surveys have repeatedly shown that they are. Yet instead of congratulating the 99% of schools for their amazing achievement, Gibb, by lumping the two categories together, is trying to deceive people into thinking that there is a problem.

It's outrageous.