Union conferences round-up: Inspections, capability, email abuse, strikes among issues on the agenda

A majority of teachers believe that school inspection operates in the interests of politicians – and not students or the public.

A survey of 2,800 teachers by the NASUWT, released in the run-up to a debate on school inspection at its annual conference in Bournemouth, found that 95 per cent of teachers believe the inspection system is designed principally to meet the interests of politicians.

Furthermore, 81 per cent said that current inspection regimes undermine levels of public confidence in the quality of education that schools offer.

The motion, which was passed by delegates, expressed “growing concern about the increasingly politicised, punitive and irrational approach employed by inspection systems and their inspectors”. It argued that a significant number of lessons are now being graded as unsatisfactory “unreasonably”, while there are also “increasingly unrealistic expectations as to what a teacher should achieve in a lesson and in the course of a working day”.