The death of head teacher Ruth Perry has brought Ofsted’s inspection process under scrutiny, particularly their grading system.
In the aftermath, Sir Michael Wilshaw, former chief inspector of schools, has said that the style of inspections needs to change. In particular, the events surrounding Ms Perry’s death have given him cause for concern over the use of single word headlines to rate schools. According to Sir Michael, reports that highlight urgent changes “would have been better than calling someone inadequate”.
According to Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union the NAHT, “As long as the Government continues to insist on consigning schools to simplistic single word judgements, the inspections system will remain fundamentally flawed and put unnecessary pressure on school leaders.”
There will be an inquiry into Ofsted’s school inspections which will explore concerns over the one-word ratings. In particular, MPs will consider the impact that Ofsted inspections have on the wellbeing of teachers, school leaders and pupils.
On Monday 12 June 2023, Ofsted announced changes, including the launch of a consultation on reforms to their complaints systems and giving schools more information around the timing of their inspections. Ofsted also stated that schools that are graded as inadequate overall only because of ineffective safeguarding, but where all other judgments were good or better, will be revisited within three months of a report being published. For more information on these changes, please see my colleague’s article here.
It seems that Ms Perry’s death has caused a lot of unrest and controversy over how schools are graded and what those ratings mean to the readers.
Sir Michael supports calls for a move towards a report card style grading as opposed to the current system for grading schools.
However, Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, stated that scrapping one-word judgments would not resolve the “underlying discomfort” among head teachers if the consequences remain the same.
There is clearly a disconnect between the regulator and the schools when it comes to understating the meaning of these one-word grades. Language is very powerful, and if reports are intended to reflect the quality of a service, the language used to describe them will have that much more impact.
The schools and their staff are concerned with being branded in a particular way and Ofsted is concerned with ensuring that they accurately rate them. This is not to say that ratings should be softened to the point where they are misleading, but it also means that a more nuanced approach may be required as Sir Michael has suggested.
