The policy of highlighting the failures of individual schools, which had outraged teachers, has been quietly shelved by Education Secretary David Blunkett, removing a long-running source of tension between the government and teachers' leaders.

Schools will have two years to improve if they fail inspections

Although there will be no formal announcement of a policy shift, the Department for Education and Employment says that new legislation puts the emphasis on the success or failure of local authorities, rather than individual schools.

As such, the DfEE has confirmed that no more schools will be added to the list of 18 named and shamed. But there are likely to be more highly-publicised criticisms of local authorities, such as the highlighting of failures in Calderdale's education department earlier this year.

Destroyed morale

The School Standards and Framework Act, passed in the last parliamentary session, gives the government wider-ranging powers of intervention in local education authorities.

These powers and the requirement for schools which fail Ofsted inspections to improve within two years have been interpreted by the DfEE as replacing the headline-grabbing naming and shaming policy.

Naming and shaming was intended to encourage greater public accountability for schools, to show the government's refusal to tolerate failure and to ensure that unsuccessful schools had definite plans for improvement.