Researchers urge Ofsted to also consider the ‘emotional elements’ of being an outstanding school

Aspects such as relationships, excitement and the “buzz” created by teachers in the classroom should play a part in inspection judgements, the study from Nottingham Trent University says.

The research questioned secondary and further education practitioners and reviewed Ofsted documentation in a bid to clarify how outstanding schools can best be defined. It revealed a disparity between the views of Ofsted and practitioners.

While the inspectorate talks about schools in terms of “hard” aspects such as attainment, discipline issues and attendance, those questioned by the researchers talked about outstanding in “softer” terms such as “respect, fairness and trust”.

Dr Andrew Clapham from the university’s School of Education, who led the research alongside Dr Rob Vickers, said: “The most stark finding from our study was the difference between Ofsted’s definition of outstanding and the informants’ definition.