Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 9 MAY 2007
MS CHRISTINE
GILBERT CBE, MS
ZENNA ATKINS,
MS MIRIAM
ROSEN, MR
DORIAN BRADLEY
AND MS
VANESSA HOWLISON
Q240 Chairman: Is the sort of stuff
that this Committee has looked at, shown to us by people like
Edexcel, taken into account. They can tell you in the school which
questions were particularly badly answered and I suggest that
might lead you to surmise that that part of the course was badly
taught. That is very valuable information. That is what I am told
by people at Edexcel. Are you using it?
Ms Gilbert: We would be very unlikely
to pick up that sort of detail in the short school inspections
we are doing now. However, if we looked at that issue thematically
or in a survey or a topic that it was important for us to look
at or that the DfES asked us to look at, we would feed it into
our programme and look and feedback on just that. It would be
a piece of work.
Q241 Chairman: Why do we have to
wait for anyone to ask you? It seems absolutely clear that here
is the new technology, rapidly changing, that can give you more
information about how children are scoring in exams, what is well
taught and what is poorly taught, and you are saying that you
would not look at that routinely?
Ms Gilbert: I do not know what
it is you have seen as a committee, so I would have to look at
that and see. I do not know what the theme or topic would be.
We look at a number of issues and we prioritise those issues,
because there are always more things that people want us to look
at, or that we want to look at in our programme, than it is possible
to do, and we make decisions about those. I do not know what the
information is but we use information as much as we can in the
institutional inspections but also in the survey inspections.
Ms Rosen: If a school has that
kind of information, it really should be building it into its
self-evaluation. It is extremely valuable information for the
school. If the children are not doing well in one particular aspect
of a subject, that will be reflected in the self-evaluation and
will be discussed during the inspection. It is a good school which
knows its strengths and weaknesses and is acting on them and doing
something about it. Our focus would be: "You know this, what
are you doing about it?"
Q242 Chairman: I do not want to advertise
a commercial organisation but I would suggest, Zenna Atkins, that
you and your committee get down to see Jerry Jarvis at Edexcel,
and OCR and AQA, just to see the high level of information that
is now available. I am sorry, but if Ofsted is not looking at
that, I am worried.
Ms Atkins: The Board, and certainly
I, will take you up on that. I think it is an issue which faces
more than just Ofsted. It is about the effective and efficient
use of the vast range of electronic data that is now available
to us as inspection regulation services in inspecting and regulating
public services. I have been talking to the Chairman of the Audit
Commission about how they are using that information, how they
are farming data from wide sources, and talking to the Chairman
of the Healthcare Commission, Sir Ian Kennedy, as well about what
is the range of data available and where does it interface and
where is it useful to us as individual inspectors and regulators.
I will certainly take you up on that and make sure those organisations
are fed into that debate, because they may be very relevant to
the health of a community equally. We will take that on board.
Chairman: Thank you. That leads us nicely
into Helen's last questions on improvement and innovation.
Q243 Helen Jones: In the Strategic
Plan, Chief Inspector, you say that good inspection makes what
you call "a vital contribution to recovery and improvement".
How does Ofsted measure that contribution?
Ms Gilbert: We ask schools, in
the process we have outlined this morning, about that. We do track
improvement, particularly in those schools that are performing
less well. I do not just mean the inadequate schools but we look
in detail at progress in terms of the special measures schools.
With notice to improve, we go back very quickly and we assess
the progress there, and generally that has been extremely positive.
In satisfactory schools with worrying aspects, we are now using
the resources that we were using for outstanding and good schools
and investing it in those schools, because we feel that our contribution
there is going to have greater impact. We can track and show;
for instance, of the 59 schools that were designated notice to
improve at the beginning of, I think, last year, when we went
back six to nine months later 56 of those had improved.
Q244 Helen Jones: That is very interesting
but I am trying to tease out of you how you measure the contribution
of Ofsted as opposed to the contribution of everything else going
on: the school doing self-assessment, for example; the role of
the local authority, for example. You are now a very big organisation
which costs a lot of public money and I am asking you how we can
measure what we are getting for our money.
Ms Gilbert: To some degree, we
have to rely on the schools. As Miriam said earlier, it is quite
difficult to isolate effects sometimes, but the schools will tell
you. For instance, if you ask schools in special measures what
made the greatest difference, they will tell you that it was,
first of all, being designated special measures and then the regular
visits from the inspectors after that which really honed up the
schools' skills in terms of self-evaluation and development. We
have to rely on that. It gets harder as the schools get better.
It is an important piece of external perspective, which is what
schools are telling us. They value it for that; they value it
as an endorsement of their prioritisation and so on. But the direct
link you are suggesting with all schools is quite difficult to
tease out.
Q245 Helen Jones: The Chairman referred
to schools that are very innovative earlier and to the inspection
team. Can you give me any examples of innovative schools that
Ofsted has inspected and the results of those inspections? How
do you then spread that good practice?
Ms Gilbert: I cannot give you
any individual examples of that. We do pick up good practice when
we are inspecting schools and that is looked at sometimes in subject
reviewsthe reviews we mentioned earlier, when we are looking
at a particular topic or an aspect of work and so on. We go into
those schools or colleges where outstanding or good practice has
been seen, the report is then written up and it is described and
shared at subject conferences and so on. The survey work does
pick up examples of good and interesting practice, as I said earlier.
The schools themselves are very positive about those thematic
inspections. Those that have been involved in it say it has helped
them to reflect on what they are doing, to be crisper and clearer
about what they are doing, and to improve their good practice
in that area just by having the inspectors coming in. We have
evidence about that in the reports we have done.
Q246 Helen Jones: Before Miriam answers,
can I clarify that? We have heard earlier that there is a very
small proportion of schools returning surveys from normal inspection.
Is that the same for thematic inspections?
Ms Gilbert: I think with thematic
inspections it is easier to pick up the survey returns because
there are far fewer numbers. For instance, if you are looking
at a subject, it might be around about 30 schools in a year. You
can phone, you can pursue. We do get better returns from them.
Ms Rosen: This year we are conducting
a survey into schools with innovative curricula. We will be publishing
that and hopefully that will give examples of good practice that
others can look at and find interesting.
Q247 Helen Jones: We will look forward
to seeing that. You also say in your plan: "We influence
policy development through our analysis and reporting." It
is correct, is it not, that in two very important areas, the academies
programme and the School Improvement Partners, the Government
has used private consultancies, PricewaterhouseCooper and York
Consulting to look at those programmes. Why, in your view, is
that happening? Is it a failure in Ofsted? Are you not able to
analyse those programmes?
Ms Gilbert: I do not know why
the DfES has chosen to do that. I have not been engaged in any
of those discussions and I think that question is probably best
placed to them. They might be conscious of the restrictions placed
on Ofsted through the Better Regulation initiative. We have to
work through a very tight budget to do some of these things. If
the programme is full, for instance, for the yearif we
are looking at a programme of issues and they want a big piece
of work doneit might be that they have to ask somebody
else to do it. I do not know if Miriam has been involved in those
discussions.
Q248 Helen Jones: Before Miriam comes
in, could I ask a follow-up question. These are very important
educational initiatives. Is Ofsted going to look at them at all?
Ms Gilbert: We might do. They
are not in the programme. This is the question the NUT asked me
when they wanted us to do them. We might, in time, look at the
impact that they are having on the ground. In terms of our planning,
we will think about our programme, we will look at what is in
our programme, and it might be that moves up the agenda in something
that we might look at. It did not feature in the list of things
that we looked at for our three-year programme, but it is a rolling
programme which is reviewed annually. We would not look at it
this year if the DfES was getting somebody else to look at it,
but it might be that in three years' time we wanted to see the
impact of the SIPs on the quality of provision in schools.
Q249 Helen Jones: The academies programme
has been running for some time and is expanding. I accept that
SIPs has only just started up but are you telling me that Ofsted
as an organisation does not have in its work plan any plans to
look at these very new and sometimes highly controversial areas
in education. If not, why on earth have they been left out?
Ms Gilbert: I think we invest
quite a lot in the academies. We do very detailed visits and inspections
of the academies. Each academy is inspected by Ofsted and there
are various visits to the academies. The SIPs is a different issue.
As I say, it may or may not feature on our programme in future
years.
Q250 Chairman: Could I push you a
little bit, Miriam, on this. When we go to schools, heads or the
teams often say to us, "Look, we are doing this really innovative
stuff" and they see as a problem that the Government puts
so much emphasis on individual school leadership, that a head
may go and a wonderful new system will die because the head has
gone off somewhere or retired. What can we do not just about identifying
innovation and good practice but spreading it systematically.
Should that not be part of Ofsted's role?
Ms Rosen: By our reports we do
hope to disseminate good practice, and also, by frameworks that
we produce. The current framework for inspection of schools, for
example, does not focus only on the leadership of the head but
it focuses on leadership throughout the school. Therefore, we
would hope that if the head leaves the whole school does not immediately
fall apart. But I think we do quite a lot by publishing survey
reports and by publishing reports of outstanding schools that
other people can look at.
Q251 Chairman: Would you agree with
Policy Exchange who recently said they have done some work that
suggests that heads do not make a difference in a school?
Ms Rosen: All our inspection evidence
is that the quality of leadership and management is very important
and that heads do make a difference. We would agree that a head
cannot do it by themselves; that the other managers within the
school are also very important, as indeed are the teachers. The
head hopefully will make sure that they have around them a good
management team and good quality teachers and will help to keep
those teachers up-to-date and well trained.
Q252 Chairman: Would you have evaluated
the Policy Exchange report, Chief Inspector? Would your team have
read that and would you have had your team assess it?
Ms Gilbert: We are due to discuss
it. We have looked at it and we have had brief conversations about
it, but, as I read itand I would absolutely endorse thisteaching
and learning is absolutely fundamental to good progress from pupils,
and good heads generally set up a structure which gets good teachers
and good teaching in classrooms. So I do not think we are at great
variance there.
Q253 Chairman: You can tell, these
are the last couple of questions. When we were looking at Sustainable
Schools and Building Schools for the Future, we found that, for
a school involved in the early waves, if they were going to do
it well it was a tremendous distraction from their day job. Are
you in inspection picking up that that is a very great pressure?
Does a school's performance deteriorate when they are involved
in a large programme like that?
Ms Gilbert: Certainly so far it
has not emerged as an issue that we have picked up generally.
I read a selection of reports and all special measure reports,
and even in those special measure reportsand I might read
half a dozen a weekthere has never been a mention of Building
Schools for the Future. Actually, that is not true. It was not
Building Schools for the Future, but one of them talked about
building work in the school having slowed down progress, but generally
there is no reference at all to Building Schools for the Future
in distracting from the main purpose of the school.
Q254 Chairman: Dorian, I am probably
more fond of Wales than I am of Portsmouth, and I cannot resist
asking you a couple of final questions. You are going to go down
in history as the man who brought testing in for seven-year-olds,
are you not? Is that one of your claims to fame?
Mr Bradley: That is one of the
things I have done in my past, Chairman.
Q255 Chairman: Do you think it is
about time we scrapped it?
Mr Bradley: I thought it had been
just about scrapped, Chairman.
Q256 Chairman: Why have they just
about been scrapped?
Mr Bradley: I thought that was
the trend. Certainly, it has occurred in Wales, which may be leading
the UK countries in this regard.
Q257 Chairman: Do you think they
are going to be scrapped in England now?
Mr Bradley: It is not for me to
say, Chairman.
Q258 Chairman: You just said it.
Mr Bradley: I thought what I said
was that I thought that was the trend.
Stephen Williams: Wales leads the way.
Q259 Chairman: That was a trend.
Do you think that is a trend, Chief Inspector?
Ms Gilbert: I believe very much
in the importance of assessment. I believe formative assessment,
assessment of learning, is absolutely crucial. I see that as the
area on which we really have to focus next. You asked about issues
coming out of inspection reports and for me the issue of assessment
is still the weakest part of teaching and learning, so I think
it is a crucially important area and I am really pleased that
your Committee has chosen to have to focus on it over the next
few months.
Mr Bradley: Chairman, perhaps
I could say, having been so closely involved and in all that I
have done ever since, that I am rather sad to see that assessment
is going. The initial form of standard assessment tasks, as they
were when they were introduced, I thought did a lot to improve
the standard of teaching and learning in infant schools and this
certainly helped year 2 teachers lead the way in using assessment
to set a programme for improvement of those young people. I am
really sorry to see that go from the national scene.
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