Last week, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) revealed radical changes to its school inspection framework. This move comes after the heart-breaking suicide of head teacher Ruth Perry. Ofsted have done away with their former single-word judgements. This decision follows the awful circumstance of Perry taking her own life after an inspection that lowered her school’s rating. The new method will enable schools to receive ratings on a greater range under far more categories of performance.
Schools will receive one of five grades: urgent improvement, needs attention, expected standard, strong standard, and exceptional. Through this process, they will develop their whole curriculum, early years provision, curriculum achievement, inclusion, leadership, personal development, and attendance, and grades. Furthermore, the new inspections will be based on a “traffic light system” to assess the quality of safeguarding and wider school life.
Ofsted’s chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver has played down the detrimental impact of this new grading system. He claimed that these adjustments “are going to be better for parents” and are “much fairer” to schools. The modifications follow extensive consultations that garnered approximately 6,500 responses, indicating a robust dialogue around educational standards and the welfare of educators.
Despite the changes, opposition remains. National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) is going to court to challenge the new framework. Historically, they have forged powerful alliances with two other teachers’ unions to this existential challenge. The High Court threw out their judicial review of Ofsted’s inspection plans. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said that the union would now be looking at making an appeal against this ruling.
Ofsted’s barrister, Sir James Eadie, reassured that wellbeing issues were “absolutely in Ofsted’s eyeline,” highlighting the organization’s commitment to considering the mental health of educators during inspections. The one-size-fits-all approach to inspection was seen by critics as jeopardizing the health and wellbeing of teachers and school leaders. In response, there have been immediate and intense calls for reform.
Responding to the announcement of revisions, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she called the new framework “a much, much richer, more granular insight” into school performance. Taking action the detailed inspection reports will focus on unifying key findings and summarizing clear underlying strengths and the critical areas most in need of improvement.
Though we applaud the NAHT’s legal challenge, Ofsted intends to implement the new inspection framework as planned later this month. The nonprofit’s goal is to encourage a broader view of how schools should be doing while countering the negative impact on educator wellbeing.
