Best Practice

Is it time to shake off the shackles of Ofsted?

Inspection advice/guidance
Headteachers complain about a stifling accountability culture that quells risk-taking and doesn’t truly measure what schools do for their pupils. But is there anything schools can do to change things? Nick Bannister takes a look at a growing grass-roots movement

The debate about school accountability rages as loud as ever.

Many heads agree that the current inspection framework is too narrow and doesn’t focus enough on the other aspects of a school’s performance. The league tables hem schools in further, with the sense that schools can live or die by their English and maths results.

In its school inspection framework Ofsted says that its inspectors focus sharply on those aspects of schools’ work that have the greatest impact on raising achievement – pupil achievement, teaching quality, behaviour, and leadership and management. Inspectors are also required to report on the “spiritual, moral, social and cultural development” of pupils at the school and the extent to which the school meets the educational needs of the range of pupils at the school, and in particular, disabled pupils and those who have SEN.

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