What we know about coasting schools

I've spent over 30 years working in schools as, variously, teacher, leader, researcher, governor and chair of an academy trust, but this is the first time I can remember a government accountability label for schools that was binary: that means "failing" or not. Other school labels involve a spectrum, such as Ofsted's 1-4. We did have "bog standard" kicking about for a while but, while I seem to remember it was an education secretary who coined the phrase, it certainly wasn't an official term. "Coasting schools" is probably the nearest acceptable alternative Nicky Morgan's DfE could come up with.

Anyway, we decided to look at coasting schools, to see what they had in common, other than meeting the DfE's definition. We wondered what Ofsted said about these same schools, whether they were from disadvantaged or remote areas and how the numbers of coasting schools will change in forthcoming years. Read our report here.