School estates statistics 2019

Chapter 4: School suitability

86.0% of schools of a good or satisfactory suitability in April 2019.

87.7% of pupils in schools of a good or satisfactory suitability in April 2019.

Suitability provides a measure of the extent to which a school building and its grounds provide an environment which supports quality learning and teaching. The following ratings are used to measure school suitability:

• A: Good – Performing well and operating effectively;
• B: Satisfactory – Performing well but with minor problems;
• C: Poor – Showing major problems and/or not operating optimally;
• D: Bad – Does not support the delivery of services to children and communities.

In November 2017 new guidance was provided to local authorities on measuring school suitability. Suitability was recorded using this guidance for the first time in the 2019 School Estate Core Facts Survey. Differences between this and the previous guidance mean that a school’s suitability rating may have changed when there has been little or no change to the school itself. Therefore, caution is advised when comparing the 2019 figures with previous years.

Some authorities were unable to implement the new guidance before the 2019 collection and have therefore reported their schools’ suitability ratings using the ratings from the old guidance. As a result comparisons between authorities may not be valid. Please see the background notes for more details.

The proportion of schools with a good or satisfactory suitability has increased 5.9 percentage points from 80.1 per cent in April 2013 to 86.0 per cent in April 2019 (Table 4.1).

Taking into account the different number of pupils in each school, there has been a 6.1 percentage point increase in the proportion of pupils in good or satisfactory suitability schools from 81.6 per cent in April 2013 to 87.7 per cent in April 2019 (Table 4.2).

Table 4.1: Suitability of schools, 2013-2019⁽¹⁾

1. Suitability as reported in April. Changes to the guidance used to measure suitability mean that caution should be used when comparing figures between years. Please see section 6.3 of the background notes for more information.

2. Suitability was measured using new guidance in the 2019 survey. Please see section 6.3 of the background notes for more information. Suitability was not recorded for three schools in 2019 as they were new builds which had not yet been surveyed. No suitability was recorded for one other school as it is a special school located in a hospital.

Table 4.2: School pupils by suitability of school, 2013-2019^{(1, 2)}

1. Suitability as reported in April. Changes to the guidance used to measure suitability mean that caution should be used when comparing figures between years. Please see section 6.3 of the background notes for more information.

2. Refers to pupils on the school roll the previous September except where rolls have been updated to reflect the number of pupils on 1^st April. Schools opened after September but before April will have no pupils recorded for that school year unless they chose to supply this figure during this collection. Please see section 6.1 of the background notes for more information.

3. Suitability was measured using new guidance in the 2019 survey. Please see section 6.3 of the background notes for more information. Suitability was not recorded for three schools in 2019 as they were new builds which had not yet been surveyed. No suitability was recorded for one other school as it is a special school located in a hospital.