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Ofsted reform: Reserving our judgement...

The move to scrap single-phrase Ofsted grades is a positive step – but it is only the first step of ground-up, institutional reform that must be led by the profession and not left to Ofsted and its cursory consultations, says Paul Whiteman
Image: Adobe Stock

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.

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