Ofsted is younger than me. And yet, for those of us who have been in education for a couple of decades, the inspection regime is part of the furniture. Its presence permeates school classrooms, offices, staffrooms and corridors. The idea of it not being around seems unimaginable – but now calls for its reform are becoming hard to ignore.
In the wake of the death of Ruth Perry, a headteacher who took her own life while waiting for the publication of a damaging Ofsted report, the floodgates have opened. Teachers across the country are speaking out about the impact of inconsistent processes, unpredictable inspectors and the strain of waiting weeks, months and years for an inspection to be announced.
As executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association, I hear these voices all the time. At a recent meeting I listened to heads share their experiences. One, a head of two schools, was able to tell the group how different the two experiences had been. I asked, “Is there anything you wish you had done to prepare better?” His reply was no: it was impossible to predict what happened during the last inspection and he knows the next one will be different again. He also told us that the process – and especially the waiting game – had done nothing to help the school.
Like many things in schools, the inspection system has a language and a rulebook of its own. There are different timeframes depending on which category a school is currently in. For example, if the school was labelled “requires improvement” overall at its last inspection, Ofsted claims it will revisit within 30 months (as opposed to four years for a “good” or “outstanding” school). It often doesn’t.
Ofsted judges schools on four key areas (or five, depending on the type of school), which include: quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management. Under the current system, a school that is marked “good” in four out of five areas can still receive a headline judgment of “inadequate” – as happened at Perry’s school – and this is the word displayed everywhere, including on estate agents’ search engines.
There has been anger against the backlash, too, from those who see Ofsted as a saving grace in a school system that has failed their child. I have worked with children with special educational needs and disabilities and I have worked with their parents, who often feel they are battling for better provision. They see Ofsted as essential in safeguarding their children’s education. But teachers are not afraid of professional dialogue and scrutiny, and we’re certainly not calling for “mass deregulation”, as I saw suggested on Facebook this week. School leaders are proud creatures and they really care. School improvement and changing things for the better, day in and day out, is their bread and butter.
There are countless ways the inspection programme could change for the better, as well. One improvement would be separating out what is currently called “quality of education” from areas that are more befitting of an annual audit approach. For example, a school’s recruitment procedures can be checked relatively swiftly. Was there an advert for a role, did it mention safeguarding, are there interview notes on file, is there a complete career history, were references sought? This should not be left for years on end.
The current framework handles the different sizes and phases of schools (infants, juniors, etc) very poorly. The “deep dive” model in current inspections is where an inspector will pick a subject to scrutinise with the teacher who leads it. That might work well in a large secondary school, where heads of departments are well-placed to talk through their subjects. But there are schools here in Suffolk, and across the country, where there are three classrooms and three teachers. The headteacher might be one of them.
This approach leaves a class of 25 children without their teacher for a number of hours on the day of the inspection. There is no slack in a small primary school.
But if you really want to find the hottest outrage at the current model, I suggest you make friends with the early years sector. I have heard countless anecdotes about inspectors sharing with early years leads that they have never taught in early years education – and they “don’t know much about it”. This precious zone of a school, where the most magical phase of child development happens, should be given the expert attention it deserves. Instead, early years specialists are hit with questions such as, “Why is that child not sitting at a desk?”, when the child is playing intently with small objects under a table, and is three years old. Ofsted must do better.
Finally, headteachers’ names do not need to be on inspection reports. Our job is to share responsibility and create a healthy networked model whereby everyone is committed to improving the school. Quality Care Commission inspections of GP surgeries do not carry a doctor’s name, and it’s the same with inspections of hospitals. As Perry’s sister, Julia Waters, said, calling for a review of the entire inspections system: “We do not for an instant recognise Ofsted’s ‘inadequate’ judgment as a true reflection of Ruth’s exemplary leadership or of the wonderful school she led selflessly for 12 years.”
As the week has progressed and the voices calling for reform have become louder, Ofsted has managed to make one, dismissive statement in five days. Stopping school inspections would be “against children’s best interests”, said its chief inspector, Amanda Spielman on Friday. It appears there is little interest in reform. At what point will the inspectorate recognise that it requires improvement?
Rebecca Leek has been a senco, headteacher, CEO and school governor. She is currently the executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
