For many school leaders, the start of a new school year means a fresh start; a new chapter. This year, this feeling was heightened with the new government’s welcome announcement that single-phrase Ofsted judgements were to be scrapped immediately.
It is no exaggeration to say this was met with enormous relief by most school leaders. Not because they are opposed to accountability, but because overarching grades were emblematic of a broken system, which has, for years, done many schools and their leaders more harm than good.
These crude, overly simplistic judgements too often failed to give a fair or reliable picture of schools or consider their unique contexts or the communities they served.
When we surveyed nearly 1,900 school leaders last year, 64% disagreed that headline grades were reliable, while 97% opposed their continued use (NAHT, 2023).
The pressure associated with these high-stakes inspections – with the threat of intervention for successive “requires improvement” grades – meant they caused real harm to school leaders’ wellbeing.
While the tragic death of headteacher Ruth Perry was the starkest illustration of this, Ruth was far from alone in feeling overwhelmed by the pressure brought to bear by Ofsted.
Half (49%) of school leaders responding to our survey said they have needed professional help with their mental health or wellbeing in the previous year – they cited Ofsted pressures as the factor which had the greatest impact.
It is little wonder that school leaders are glad to see the back of these judgements, which have also contributed to the severe recruitment and retention crisis facing schools.
There were other small but positive changes to inspections announced earlier this month by Ofsted (2024). Notice of those inspections due to take place in a particular week will now be given on a Monday – putting an end to heads nervously waiting for “that call” for most of the week.
As well as calling for an end to headline grades, NAHT had also proposed the removal of reported grades for the four sub-judgements for an interim period, to be replaced by a simplified narrative report. We feel this would create more time and space for collaboration on full-system reform.
However, schools will continue to receive reported grades for these sub-judgements, and for any early years or sixth form provision. But if a school is judged inadequate on any of those measures the government has helpfully promised more of an emphasis on support than immediate intervention.
Just the beginning of reform
The inspectorate’s problems, unfortunately, run far deeper than any of this. Dame Christine Gilbert’s devastating independent review (Gilbert, 2024) found inadequate performance management of inspectors, deep concerns about the effectiveness of Ofsted board’s oversight, and a pervasively defensive culture, with no independent external oversight of complaints.
Dame Christine is clear on the need for lasting institutional reform.
Worryingly, Ofsted’s stated approach is to “evolve” the current inspection system.
However, the NAHT is clear that the system itself is broken and unfit – fundamental reform is needed, particularly if the government is to achieve its goals of improving teacher and leader retention and resetting the relationship with the profession.
Tinkering with a broken system which has lost the trust of the profession is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. It will not deliver the cultural change required.
This is a golden opportunity to look afresh at the purpose and nature of inspection and what a fair, effective and useful inspection system should look like.
Accountability needs to be fairer, and more humane, helping schools to improve, while providing more reliable, nuanced information for parents.
Only 20% of school leaders responding to our Crisis Point survey felt Ofsted reports provided useful information for parents, and only 18% thought they were useful for schools.
Ofsted’s track record and public statements do nothing to suggest it alone has the will or appetite needed to reinvent itself. It has in the past been defensive and unwilling to respond constructively to criticism, as the Gilbert Review recognised.
For these reasons we need the government to set the agenda, not leave it for Ofsted to come up with tweaks of its choosing behind closed doors.
The Gilbert Review indicates as much, arguing that Ofsted needs to “act in response to a number of very hard messages to effect real and sustainable change, and its progress in doing so needs to be closely monitored”.
It adds that as part of its planning for a report card system the government should “initiate a debate about the essential elements of the wider public accountability system, of which Ofsted is a part”.
Education unions should be involved from the get-go, alongside Ofsted and the government, working together collaboratively to redesign the system from the ground up, including examining what works well in other countries.
Reform needs to have the buy-in of the profession if the inspectorate is to regain its trust.
We cannot simply be called upon to sign-off a fait accompli, following a cursory consultation on Ofsted’s terms. We saw the danger of that with the Big Listen survey and its leading questions, failure to collect data on single-phrase grades, and summary of responses from unions collectively representing hundreds of thousands of professionals being reduced to a single sentence.
By axing single-word judgements the new government has drawn a marker in the sand as it seeks to reset the relationship between government and the profession.
Now it must build on this momentum. That means making clear to Ofsted that it must own the criticisms directed at it, and that this is just the beginning of a journey towards deep and lasting cultural and institutional reform. Education unions must be central to this journey – we are all experts when it comes to schools, so let’s work together.
This kind of opportunity doesn’t come along often, so now is this time to seize this moment, embrace new thinking, and develop a new system of inspection which truly supports schools to provide the very best education for our children.
- Paul Whiteman is general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. Read his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/paul-whiteman
Further information & resources
- Gilbert: Independent learning review for Ofsted, 2024: https://buff.ly/4gzVW4Y
- NAHT: Crisis Point, 2023: https://buff.ly/3XOrsVD
- Ofsted: Ofsted publishes updates to school inspection handbooks, 2024: www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-publishes-updates-to-school-inspection-handbooks