In Focus 🔍 | Ofsted, created in 1992 to inform parents about the performance of a school and raise standards, has long since drawn criticism for its high-stakes inspections of educators who are already overstretched, overworked and underpaid.
The school had six weeks to prepare – a generous lead, seeing as schools are now given a day’s notice, or on some occasions ‘car park notice’ of 15 minutes.
This included looking at how Ofsted can return more quickly to schools who have work to do on safeguarding but are otherwise performing well, and piloting changes to their complaints process so isses can be addressed during an inspection rather than considered afterwards, which they admit creates ‘delay and frustration’.
Teacher Charmaine Lee has nearly 30 years experience in the profession, and has seen first-hand on multiple occasions what a negative Ofsted score can do to morale. ‘It also puts locals off from sending their child there. A poor Ofsted result can be awful for the school and the community all round.’ Schools are typically graded once every four years, but with the coronavirus pandemic, budget cuts and a general shortage of inspectors, some schools have not been examined in over a decade. Chief inspector Amanda Spielman, has announced plans for the inspectorate to examine all schools by August 2025.
In 2019, Ofsted amended how their inspections were assessed. The most significant change is the creation of a new quality of education grade, which requires inspectors to place more focus on the curriculum. Ofsted reported the school had poor record keeping and failings in employment checks, which could have put children at risk. Because a safeguarding issue was highlighted, the entire school’s Ofsted rating was downgraded to Inadequate.
While Alex hasn’t had the full Ofsted report back yet, the verbal feedback he received from inspectors was overwhelmingly positive – and so highlights the frustration of a school’s reputation to be labelled as Inadequate over an admin error.‘We want Ofsted reports to accurately reflect the quality of education in schools and colleges,’ he says.
‘Inspectors need to have a degree of discretion. There needs to be some thought of: It would be ridiculous for this school to fail its Ofsted [inspection] on the basis of this small point, let’s actually do something to fix it rather than just bringing the hammer down and making sure that their reputation is ruined for however long it is.’
However, teachers like Charmaine believe that Ofsted’s criteria can be seen as limited. While it’s clear parents value a school’s ranking and believe they have a direct impact on a child’s wellbeing and happiness, other studies point to the contrary: a 2020 report in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry stated that ‘Ofsted-rated school quality was a weak predictor of student wellbeing and student engagement’.
Schools need to be inspected, but the government needs to work with unions to create a fairer, better system
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