The idea that schools could be rated using a single-word descriptor was always ridiculous, given the roles that teachers are called on to play (The Guardian view on one-word Ofsted reports: good riddanceEditorial, 2 September). As a deputy head and former acting head in a large high school, my functions when not in the classroom included ad hoc social worker, amateur sleuth, psychologist, paramedic, car park attendant, dispute arbitrator, health and safety guru, marriage guidance counsellor for parents, advocate, promoter, developer and, back home, married father of two.
At last we appear to be coming to grips with key issues, especially attendance and behaviour, both of which are fertilised by a climate of social decline, confusion and lack of vision. In the inspections through which I helped lead my school, I was repeatedly puzzled to find that nowhere was there a satisfactory channel through which to address the feelings, worries, perceptions and concerns of teachers themselves. My wife and I are both retired from education, but our two children are still teaching. Their frustration and low morale is something we recognise, all four of us having found ourselves depressed, threatened and frightened at different periods in our careers, with nowhere to turn for advice and support.
Bullying and intimidation is sometimes not restricted to students, and can be identified among staff who use status to retain personal authority and influence outcomes. A system of inspections that can recognise the needs of teaching staff would be a step in the right direction. Caring for staff is as important as caring for children.
Roger Nichols
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
• Your insightful editorial on Ofsted ends with the claim of a “slow restoration of autonomy for the sector”. But the secretary of state will, as you say, retain the power to compel change. This raises the central issue behind the crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers, namely the power of the state, which has grown enormously under governments of left and right. That power has inflicted extensive damage on education and it needs to be severely pruned. Until that happens, education will remain at the mercy of politicians exercising their excessive powers.
Now that one-word judgments have been abolished, their replacement must centre on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. The new model of inspection must be collaborative and spell out what went well and, where weaknesses are found, detail what support teachers need.
State power has made schools into exam factories and further education colleges into skill factories. This will not change until power is redistributed, with ministers losing the power, for example, to decide what should be taught and how.
Frank Coffield
Emeritus professor of education, UCL Institute of Education
• I wonder if Zoe Williams (Good riddance. Ofsted’s one-word ranking system for schools never made any sense, 3 September) has read Decline and Fall, in which Evelyn Waugh offers this hierarchy of schools: “We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. School is pretty bad.” Paul Pennyfeather, the novel’s hapless hero, finds himself teaching in a school classified as “School”, having been sent down from Oxford after an incident with the rampaging Bullingdon Club. The novel was first published in 1928. It certainly is time for a change.
Karen Lewton
Newcastle upon Tyne
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