When I was a teacher (which was a long time ago), I only once had an Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) inspector observing one of my lessons. Mr C was, in my memory, a large man. He had taught modern languages in a grammar school. My class was what was once known as a ROSLA year (students compelled by government dictat to stay on a year longer than before). They were students who had not done well enough at GCSEs to take A levels, and so we had to devise a curriculum for them, which would give them decent qualifications when they left.
As head of English, my part was steering through the innovative vocational Royal Society of Arts 'Basic Clerical Skills' module (at a similar level to NVQs). It was one of these lessons that Mr C came to witness. My students were a bunch of Oxford east enders. They were rough diamonds whom I liked. The lesson, I seem to recall, was quite mundane but very orderly. No one left their seat. No one kicked up a rumpus. I was able to go round the room with appropriately encouraging and helpful advice. With that group, it was a triumph. Not as exciting as our trips down the canal or to local historic buildings, but a triumph of self-restraint on the part of the students. Well, that was my view at least!
However Mr C didn't see it that way apparently, as the headteacher told me after. Mrs Storrar was a remarkable woman who had returned to teaching following a time in industry. And she had more faith in most of her staff, including me, than in the inspector. I can't remember what status this inspection had, but it was certainly not a whole-school inspection. As the head and I observed, Mr C had (or appeared to have) no experience of teaching our kind of students. I assume his verdict had been that my lesson had been inadequate. Since then I have been governor of a number of schools and have witnessed the more recent Ofsted régime in education - and at second-hand in social work.
I've long relished what Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, said about critics: "Critics are like horse-flies which hinder the horses in their ploughing of the soil. The horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a double-bass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes. And what does the fly buzz about? It scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'Look, I too am living on the earth. See, I can buzz, too, buzz about anything.'" A word of comfort to teachers when irritated by inspectors, who criticise them....
But the truth is that Ofsted is far worse than an irritation. Schools were once given a week or more's notice of an inspection. I believe notice now is the day before. I suppose the idea is to prevent schools rustling up paperwork to impress the inspectors arriving seven days later. "Keep them up to the mark!" In my experience in the areas of public service with which I'm familiar, there is little more than a scintilla of evidence for lack of dedication. It's true that Baroness Casey's year-long review of the Met Police revealed enough going wrong for her to describe it as institutionally sexist, racist, and homophobic, but it is a huge unwieldy institution which is asked to do too much.
But why am I writing about Ofsted now? You'll notice that I began to comment about it at the beginning of this week - this was because of the delayed local news concerning the suicide in January of Ruth Perry, headteacher of Caversham Primary School, in anticipation of a negative Ofsted one-word verdict of her respected school: "inadequate". A single word gets repeated on estate agents' details. The reaction from local heads was to take Ofsted rankings off their websites and to threaten to keep inspectors out of their schools. and to demand Ofsted suspended inspections out of respect for a good headteacher. Since then it has hit the national news, first with the head of Ofsted, the upper-crust, Amanda Spielman, whilst expressing her sympathy with Mrs Perry's family, refusing to pause inspections, and then the eye-wateringly wealthy, privately educated Rishi Sunak backing Ofsted as giving parents the information they need. I wonder whether his parents would have been satisfied with a single-word summary of his years at Stroud School. Even if it had been "Outstanding" or "Requires improvement", they would have deserved more. And that is the problem with Ofsted. "Ofsted inspections 'provide independent, up-to-date evaluations on the quality of education, safeguarding and leadership, which parents greatly rely on to give them confidence in choosing the right school for their child,' a Department of Education spokesperson said." Maybe... However, it does not really give parents a true picture of a school or organisation - because although the report is many pages long, that's not what parents look at and neither is it what teachers hear. They see and hear only the headline.
Ruth Perry's sister, Professor Julia Waters of Reading University, had no doubt why her sister took her own life. The Caversham report was sensationalist and drawn from scant evidence. “In our (family's) opinion, the findings of Ofsted were disproportionate, unfair and, as has tragically been proven, deeply harmful in their (implied) focus on one individual.” I suppose the theory behind Ofsted inspections was a good one; indeed school inspectors have a long history. But the idea of publishing grades in order to "push up standards" dates, I think, only to 1992. It is just one example of governmental obsession with targets, like SATs, instead of education. The only competent Secretary of State I've known was Estelle Morris (now Baroness) whose term in office was far too short (2001-2). Her virtues were honesty, humility and that she had been a state school teacher. She was a breath of fresh air. Here at last was someone who knew what they were talking about. Others tend to use the position as a step up the political ladder. There seems to be an idée fixe among others to set out to oppose those they should be championing - as was revealed in the disgraceful WhatsApp exchange between the Secretaries of State for Health and for Education and during lockdown. As the BBC reported, "In other WhatsApp messages released by the paper, Mr Hancock described teaching unions as 'absolute arses'. "Sir Gavin replied that they hated work"
One feels that Estelle Morris would have been on the side of teachers - which is, as every teacher knows, is the best form of pedagogy. And it is without doubt the best form of inspection. Collaboration and encouragement would be a far better way to raise educational standards than the present emotionally draining regime, which drives conscientious teachers to mental ill health and even to despair (as I have witnessed). Ofsted needs to look at itself if it really seeks to be a force for good. If its effect is drive teachers out of the profession, it is clearly of no help to children and is failing. Otherwise it should be replaced. Maybe, like the Met, it needs to be reconstituted.
A good article on this subject can be found in the Guardian here.
