Labour councillor Marcus Boyland is Camden’s education supremo

HEADTEACHERS are dealing with poorer pupil behaviour following the interruption caused by the Covid pandemic – putting their Ofsted scores at risk, a committee of councillors has been told.

Several schools have seen their inspection ratings fall in recent months, with at least one of the assessments partly blamed on behaviour.

But Dr Rachel Wrangham, a co-opted member of the council’s education scrutiny committee, said that the wider context should be considered.

She told a meeting of the cross-party panel earlier this month: “I think it’s very easy to end up pointing the finger at an individual school and saying the school has a problem with behaviour but my impression is that this is something that is absolutely Camden-wide.

“Then it again comes back to the Covid pandemic. They’ve got children who are in a much worse place than they were in two years ago and frankly the teachers are in a worse place than they were two years ago and that position is only going to get worse.”

She warned against Ofsted saying “it’s a problem with the school and not recognising this as being a much more systemic issue.”

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Dame Christine Gilbert, the chair of Camden Learning, a partnership which helps support the borough’s schools, said: “We have picked this up, we picked it up at the beginning of the summer. One really good, experienced head told me it was the worst term he’d ever had. The children had come back unsettled and the staff were unsettled by the children – and that put a lot of pressure on him.”

She added: “Interestingly, when I talked to primary school heads about the problem in secondary schools, they said to us: We’ve got the same problem. You haven’t seen it emerge as strongly as in secondary schools but it is there and I think it’s about returning to schools after two years.

“But we’re on it, and we’re helping and supporting.”

Camden’s education chief Labour councillor Marcus Boyland said he recognised that there was an issue with behaviour in Camden’s schools and this was “part of the Covid fallout”, adding that support was being put in place for both children and their teachers.