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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Anna Fazackerley

Ofsted inspectors ‘make up evidence’ about a school’s performance when IT fails

A girl in a school library
The teachers’ union said that every inspection over the last five years could ‘be disregarded’. Photograph: lovethephoto/Alamy

Ofsted inspectors have been forced to “make up” evidence because the computer system they use to record inspections sometimes crashes, ­wiping all the data, an Observer ­investigation has found.

Since 2018, inspectors have made live notes on laptops or tablets as they interview staff and observe ­lessons after Ofsted invested in a new ­electronic evidence gathering (EEG) digital platform. However, our investigation has discovered the technology has had serious issues from the beginning, sometimes crashing unexpectedly and losing all notes from interviews, or even whole days of evidence, so that inspectors have to replace those notes from memory without telling the school.

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