Ofsted ranks Shropshire schools amongst the worst

The two areas are among the bottom 25 of local authority areas ranked by Ofsted on the basis of the number of good or outstanding primary schools as decided by inspectors' ratings.

In Telford & Wrekin only 53% of primary school pupils are receiving an education in schools rated as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by inspectors.

The report, which summarises judgements on schools up to August 2012, showed Shropshire Council area primary pupils faring poorly with 59% of pupils attending a good or outstanding.

Both councils say the figures are misleading.

According to Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, the figures point to what he described as "unacceptably wide variations in the perfomance of schools in different parts of England."

He said: "We'll be looking very carefully at what's happening in those local authorities with the same sort of population, with similar levels of deprivation, similar numbers of children on free school meals, where one particular local authority does extremely well and another one doesn't."

He added: "We'll be asking a question: why is it parents in some parts of the country have less than a 50% chance of getting their children into a good primary school where there are other parts of the country where that chance is over 90%?"

Shropshire Council’s Lead Member for Learning and Skills, Cecilia Motley, said:

“We are determined to support our schools so they can continue to improve. However, we have to acknowledge that schools in Shropshire are the seventh lowest funded in the country and because Shropshire is a very rural authority, this limited funding is spread thinly. We will continue to press for fairer funding for Shropshire. We will also continue to encourage stronger partnerships between schools so that they can use funding more efficiently and share roles and responsibilities across schools more effectively.”