A growing “culture of complaints” combined with “dubious practices” by Ofsted is piling pressure on headteachers and driving them out of the profession, a conference has heard.
Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) in Liverpool on Saturday (May 5), Jim Nicholson, a headteacher and secretary of the Stockport branch of the union, said that school leaders were an “easy target for ever-increasing dissatisfaction within the public realm” – and that this was having a detrimental effect on their wellbeing.
“School leaders are vulnerable and easy to attack,” he said.
“While everyone understands that we need a process of complaints, it is apparent that there is no clarity of process anymore.
“We never know from which angle or which direction (complaints) will come.
“School leaders are under fire from the Department for Education, from the Education Funding Agency, from Ofsted and from anyone else who decides to have a pop at us.”
To applause from delegates in the room, he said that the impact of this developing “complaints culture”, which had gained pace in recent years, could “not be underestimated”.
“We strive to improve the lives of others … and yet the lives of school leaders have become an increasing challenge,” he continued. “Despite their strength of character, at times, with such pressure on their shoulders, it takes just one more straw to break that back; one more vexatious complaint to push hardworking committed colleagues into a pit of despair.”
It was, he added, “humbling and heart-breaking” to watch colleagues “shake and cry – to go from being infectiously optimistic to a state of anxiety and paranoia, lack of self-esteem, and suffer stress-related illness”.
This pressure meant that senior leadership teams were “losing great people rapidly”, he said, adding that headteacher turnover in his town, Stockport, has almost tripled since 2011.
A 2017 National Foundation for Educational Research report found that nationally, retention rates for secondary headteachers fell from 91 per cent in 2012 to 87 per cent in 2015 – a worse performance than in the primary sector.
Elsewhere in his address, Mr Nicholson outlined a number of “dubious” Ofsted practices of which he had heard, that he said were worsening the situation.
These included: three-year-old complaints that had been closed being “brought back to light” at the beginning of an inspection, putting colleagues on the back foot; inspectors speaking to complainants who were not members of the school community and using them in their lines of enquiry; and inspectors acting on complaints that had gone through “no due process whatsoever”.
Mr Nicholson was speaking to a motion which called on the union to support school leaders in challenging Ofsted and its protocols where it is investigating and recording parental complaints against school leaders.
He said that the creation of a “clear structure for complainants”, in order to ensure that all professionals, parents and authorities understood and followed an effective process, was required, and doing so would improve the wellbeing of school leaders, and perhaps help them to “trust Ofsted again”.
An Ofsted spokeswoman said that the inspectorate “takes concerns raised about schools very seriously, as parents would expect”.
“All complaints received are reviewed and, when appropriate and in line with the process set out in statute, thoroughly assessed to see if any action from Ofsted is required – sometimes this includes consideration at the next inspection,” she added.
“If individual schools are concerned about an aspect of their inspection, we encourage them to raise this with the inspection team, in line with our complaints procedure.”
The motion came after Damian Hinds, the secretary of state for education, promised a “clearer system of accountability” that would “let good schools get on with their job”. Mr Hinds admitted that after speaking to school leaders since taking up his post, he has found “real confusion within the sector” about accountability.
He announced a consultation to scrap the “confusing” system of having both floor and coasting standards to measure school performance and has also pledged to end “inspections” of schools by representatives of the Regional School Commissioners (RSCs).
He said: “I’m clear that Ofsted is the body that can provide an independent, rounded judgement of a school’s performance.”
Mr Hinds has set out his plans in a policy paper – Principles for a clear and simple school accountability system – published last week to coincide with his address to the NAHT conference.
- For details of Mr Hinds’ announcements on accountability and for more from the NAHT annual conference, see our news coverage here.