Unfit for purpose?
Over the past 30 years, we have seen the arrangements for the inspection of schools by OFSTED change many times, each change bringing with it new distortions in the system. The extremely high-stakes nature of school inspection drives behaviours and resources in ways which mitigate against long-term sustainable school improvement.
Formulaic frameworks, regularly changing in design and implementation, focus schools on ‘preparing for inspection’, produce armies of consultants advising on how to ensure successful inspection outcomes, and – while distracting the workforce from other priorities – create a constant state of fear and tension regarding the next inspection.
The terrible tragedy of a headteacher taking her own life is only the tip of the iceberg, according to those who work in the area of school leaders’ wellbeing, such as Headrest (the helpline for headteachers). There is now overwhelming evidence that OFSTED is having a detrimental effect on recruitment and retention of the workforce, particularly (and alarmingly) in regard to headteachers.
A few years ago, OFSTED themselves talked about the need to remove ‘OFSTED myths’, but these ‘myths’ arose solely from the design and implementation of the latest framework, and it would seem that each new framework attempts to correct the ‘myths’ that have arisen from the one previous. This creates distortions to pedagogy, with schools forced to respond to perceived and actual preferred ideological approaches often not in the best interests of pupils, and with abuse and ‘gaming’ responses to each new framework.
Is anything being done?
So many of us had hoped that following the removal of the one-word judgment, the ‘Big Listen’ and the change of government, we were going to see a genuine attempt to address the fundamental problem: that the way we do inspection is unfit for purpose and that its high-stakes nature needs to change.