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'Modest' Ofsted reforms 'go nowhere near far enough'

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School leaders do not believe that the “modest” changes to Ofsted processes go far enough to address systemic problems with the inspection regime.

Both the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) welcomed the changes unveiled on Monday (June 12) but voiced their on-going frustration at the lack of more significant reform.

In particular, both unions are calling for the removal of “blunt and reductive” single-word judgements.

Ofsted’s changes were unveiled as part of the inspectorate’s response to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry, who at the age of 53 took her own life ahead of the publication of an Ofsted inspection report that was due to downgrade her outstanding school to “inadequate”.

An inquest into the death is to be held at Berkshire Coroners’ Court with a pre-inquest review scheduled for July but there has been an outpouring of anger from the profession and increasingly loud calls for change to the high-stakes Ofsted regime.

A petition calling for an inquiry into the Caversham inspection has now reached around 243,000 signatories and counting and Ruth Perry’s sister Professor Julia Waters addressed the NAHT annual conference calling for headteachers who inspect to “hand in their badges”.

A big focus has been the way Ofsted inspects safeguarding. The inspection report at Ruth Perry’s school – Caversham Primary School – rated the school as good in every area except leadership and management, which was rated inadequate mainly due to safeguarding concerns of the inspectors. As such the overall rating was automatically inadequate.

On Monday, Ofsted unveiled a series of changes to inspection processes and procedures, including how it reports and judges safeguarding.

Inspectors will now return within three months to schools graded inadequate overall only due to ineffective safeguarding, but where all other judgements were good or better. Parents will be informed of this intention in the report.

Ofsted stated: “If the school has been able to resolve the safeguarding concerns it is likely to see its overall grade improve.”

Furthermore, Ofsted added: “From September, we will offer schools greater clarity about the threshold for effective versus ineffective safeguarding through our inspection handbook, as well as regular blogs and webinars. We will also describe ineffective safeguarding more clearly in inspection reports to help reassure parents and others that these judgements are not made lightly.”

Around 1.3% of all state schools are currently judged ineffective for safeguarding and in the last 18 months only 12 state schools have been judged good or better in every area apart from safeguarding.

Meanwhile, Ofsted has also launched a consultation (Ofsted, 2023) over what it called “significant changes” to its complaints system, aimed at resolving complaints more quickly, making it easier to make a complaint and making the process more transparent. The consultation closes on September 15 and proposals include:

  • Extending on-site dialogue during inspections, to “help address any issues at an early stage”.
  • Introducing a new opportunity for providers to contact a senior HMI the day after an inspection if they have concerns about the process or outcome.
  • A new conversation between the complainant and the investigator at the beginning of the process, aimed at making it “more responsive to the specific concerns”.
  • New arrangements for formal challenges to inspection outcomes to be considered sooner than is currently possible, “so they can be addressed, and reports finalised more quickly”.
  • Removing the current internal review step in the complaints process and allowing complainants to escalate concerns to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO) at an earlier point in the process.
  • A new, periodic review of closed complaints by external representatives, “to provide additional scrutiny and challenge”.

Elsewhere, Ofsted has also published details giving schools a better idea of when their next inspection will come (Ofsted, 2023). Schools will continue to be given only one day’s notice before inspectors arrive, but the new information offers clarity on the year that a school can expect Ofsted to visit.

And Ofsted also says that from September, when discussing areas of weakness, inspection reports will refer to “the school” by default, rather than individuals.

A notable aspect of the Ruth Perry case has been the pressure the headteacher felt while waiting for the report to be published, given she wasn’t allowed to talk about the outcome. As such, Ofsted has now said that headteachers can decide which colleagues, or others, they share their inspection outcome with as long as they are “aware that judgements are provisional until the report is finalised”.

Geoff Barton, general secretary at ASCL, and Paul Whiteman, general secretary at the NAHT, were both agreed that the changes do not go far enough.

Mr Barton explained: “It should not have needed such a tragedy (of Ruth Perry’s death) to bring about reform. We have been warning for years of the serious damage the inspection system causes to the mental health and wellbeing of leaders and teachers. Change is long overdue.

“The changes to inspection processes and the revised complaints procedure set out by Ofsted represent a modest improvement. However, they are only a step in the right direction, and the inspection system is badly in need of much more significant reform.

“In particular, the use of single-word descriptions to judge a school or college must be scrapped, and replaced with a system that is less blunt and reductive. The application of an ‘inadequate’ rating dismisses everything that a school or college does in a single stroke and takes no account of circumstances such as funding and teacher shortages. It is a trapdoor that is both demoralising and counterproductive.”

Mr Whiteman added: “While these individual measures are sensible and somewhat helpful, they go nowhere near far enough in addressing the profession’s concerns. But for the on-going campaigning by NAHT, our threat of legal action, and the bravery of Ruth Perry’s sister Julia Waters in speaking out, even these changes would not have happened.

“It has taken far too long for the government and Ofsted to announce this relatively modest set of measures and school leaders remain immensely frustrated at the lack of urgency and ambition being shown. NAHT continues to call for more fundamental reform of the inspection process.

“While the government insists on consigning schools to simplistic single-word judgements, the system will remain fundamentally flawed and put unnecessary pressure on school leaders. Neither the government or Ofsted are showing sufficient understanding of the problem or enough ambition to solve it.”

On Monday, chief inspector Amanda Spielman said: “When we inspect schools our priority must always be children’s education and wellbeing – but at the same time we want to make sure inspection is as positive an experience for school staff as it can be.

“Since the sad death of Ruth Perry, there has been considerable debate around Ofsted’s work and I want to reassure people that we are listening to their concerns, and thinking carefully about how we can revise aspects of our work without losing our clear focus on the needs of children and their parents.”