Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE, MICHAEL HART,
VANESSA HOWLISON,
MELANIE HUNT
AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
14 MAY 2008
Q120 Mr Chaytor: So that set of
proposals will not appear in the new consultation?
Christine Gilbert: No. There is
passing reference to it, but we are nowhere near going out to
consultation.
Q121 Mr Chaytor: So, the 2009
inspection framework will not take on board the issues that are
raised in the Children's Plan?
Christine Gilbert: It will do
so, but it will be a separate line of discussion. We make passing
reference to the parallel piece of work that is going on. My guess
is that we will not be there until about the end of July, probably,
with a set of proposals. That is because there is not an obvious
set of hard indicators that tell you about well-being. Again,
we are looking at using surveys to tell us about pupil views of
their own well-being, and so on, and what they might mean, so
that it does not become a vast bureaucratic exercise. We are looking
at a range of things, and we are quite a way from being able to
talk about that issue in detail.
Q122 Mr Chaytor: In the 2009 framework,
what are the implications for the existing Ofsted work force,
given that the inspection criteria are likely to be widened? Do
you envisage a need to recruit a different type of inspector,
or a need to have an in-house training programme for inspectors
to take on this wider set of indicators?
Christine Gilbert: The key thing
about next September is that the contract that we have with our
regional inspection providers will finish; in fact, it will finish
next August. So we will begin a new contract at the same time
as the new school inspection framework is rolled out. We are saying
and working out what that framework might be in the contract deliberations,
as we enter a competitive dialogue with a number of providers
who are showing interest. It will be their responsibility to ensure
that their staff are trained to be able to do the job that we
want them to do. Regarding our own staff, we still believe that
HMI will play a major role in many inspections, as part of the
inspection teams but also having a role in the inspection process
itself. We have an intensive training programme for all inspectors—all
staff, actually—in Ofsted. That programme picks up the key
issues. For instance, we have been inspecting well-being since
September 2005, I think, and there is a training programme to
address all these new things as they come on board.
Q123 Mr Chaytor: On the parents'
perception and the public perception of the quality of the school,
the fact remains—I think that most people would agree—that
it is still dominated by the headline indicator of the SATs results
or the GCSE score. In fact, in your earlier response to Paul Holmes,
you made the point that standards remain important; we were talking
about wider levels of achievement and you were focusing on standards
as defined, to a certain extent, by GCSE score. So my question
is this: what more can you do to communicate the wider description
of a school's achievement that is contained in the Ofsted report
to counterbalance the simple attraction of a headline GCSE score?
Christine Gilbert: One of the
things that parents tell me is that they do not just rely on examination
performance and that they rely, particularly as the children get
older, on Ofsted reports. For instance, I was talking just last
week to a journalist who has a strong education interest. She
told me that in choosing a school for her daughter she was not
looking for the best-performing school in terms of SATs or GCSE
results in that authority. Behaviour was her key focus and she
could only find out about that by reading Ofsted reports. She
said that she devoured all of them on the schools in her area.
Our evidence is that that is not common—Ofsted reports are
used a lot for secondary schools, but not so much earlier in the
system. Parents do not just go on exam performance. That being
said, I worry that we separate these things. We have five outcomes
for Every Child Matters that are completely interdependent. If
you focus on a child's well-being, the optimistic view is that
that child's academic performance should improve too. There is
an interplay between all those things—they are not just
separate. It is important that a good school looks holistically
at the child, just as in the new organisation that we are establishing
we look holistically at the whole picture right across the piece.
Q124 Mr Chaytor: But does that
point about the holistic approach not strengthen the argument
that the key conclusions of the Ofsted report should be published
simultaneously with the GSCE scores and that the performance tables
should not just include information on examination results, but
from the Ofsted report? I can see how those children with highly
motivated parents who have access to broadband and who have probably
been to university would take it as read that they would consult
the Ofsted report. I have not been given any indication that the
vast majority of non-graduate parents who do not have access to
broadband study Ofsted reports in their spare time. Is the logic
of your answer to my previous question not that the key indicators
of the Ofsted report should be published as part of the performance
tables?
Christine Gilbert: There would
be no difficulty in publishing it—I know that that was one
of the proposals made yesterday—but one of the other things
that you commented on was the inaccessibility of the league tables
now. It would be important that it was not just another piece
of evidence that was difficult to access. It is important that
the whole picture of the school is seen, and an Ofsted report
does give that whole picture.
Q125 Mr Chaytor: Finally, coming
back to the point about the 638 schools whose GCSE scores are
under 30%, if 23% of them are good or better, what is your advice
to the Secretary of State about what he should do with those schools?
Christine Gilbert: I need to be
careful here. We looked at one year in detail.
Q126 Mr Chaytor: If 23% of them
in one year are deemed to be good or better, what is your advice
to the Secretary of State about whether he should close those
schools?
Christine Gilbert: I would not
presume to give him advice on closure or not. As I have said,
closure is a complex thing and the consequences of that closure
for the local area and so on need to be considered. I welcome
the focus on higher expectations for all schools. Apparently,
the vast majority of those schools have set themselves targets
that they will have reached 30% by the end of the period in question.
I am not sure about the detail of that. Even in the schools that
we look at, if they are improving, it will show at some point
in the results. The issue is whether that will show quickly enough
for the children in that school. I would ask the Secretary of
State to look at our results, and for the Department to work to
build on the progress that those schools are making. He should
support the schools in making that progress.
Q127 Chairman: Before we move
on to the 2009 inspection framework, from what you said, you consult
widely on that changing inspection framework and you listen to
people. Have you talked to people who are concerned about the
early-years foundation stage—the people involved with the
Open EYE campaign. Have you had any representations from them—have
you talked to them?
Christine Gilbert: The school
inspection framework that we are producing next week will launch
a three-month consultation period and different soundings will
be taken beyond that period as proposals and suggestions come
in. I imagine—Michael will not know either as he was not
there—that there was a fairly intensive consultation period
on the early-years foundation stage. Actually, I think that I
remember it from the local authority perspective.
Q128 Chairman: How do you react
to the view that we are increasingly putting an onus on teachers
to draw into education—formal education—much earlier
than some of our European neighbours. For example, standards are
being set very early, with pupils learning to read and write and
get skills which, in other countries like Denmark, they do not
even start to do until the age of seven. We in this Committee
are picking up this unhappiness—something that the early-years
inquiry some years ago picked up—about pushing formal education
to a lower age. Is that something you are picking up in inspections?
Do you worry about it?
Christine Gilbert: We looked at
this briefly, very soon after I was appointed to Ofsted, and the
evidence we had was inconclusive. It was not clear that there
was a strong argument—there was only "on the one hand
this and on the other hand that." But we have not done a
fundamental piece of work on it since then. We will be looking
at and monitoring carefully the impact of the early-years foundation
stage, which we start inspecting in September. About this time
next year, we will be able to give you some feedback.
Q129 Chairman: If your inspector
went in and saw children of four sitting there being taught to
learn to read and write in little rows, that would worry you,
would it not, Miriam?
Miriam Rosen: Much of the good
early-years work that goes on is not as formal as you just implied.
I am not sure that that is implied within the new arrangements,
but we will be in a much stronger position to report on that in
a year's time.
Q130 Paul Holmes: I asked about
that point two or three years ago at a similar meeting. Some of
the playgroups I visited in my constituency—a friend of
mine used to run one—complained that when Ofsted first started
to inspect them, the inspectors asked, "Where's the evidence
of formal learning?" These were three and four-year-old kids,
and Ofsted was asking about formal learning. You are saying that
the requirement for formal learning is not there.
Michael Hart: Perhaps I can come
in here. In our best provision, it will not be presented as formal
learning. I have visited early-years settings where there was
excellent learning going on, in a much more informal way through
play activities—some of it structured, some of it informal
play opportunities—which do work towards the early learning
outcomes that we would expect and that are reflected in the early-years
foundation stage. The best practice will not necessarily be a
formal type of approach, which you just described.
Q131 Paul Holmes: So Ofsted inspectors
certainly should not be asking a playgroup where the evidence
of formal learning is.
Michael Hart: They would be asking
about where the learning opportunities were going on. I think
that the word "formal" is a bit of an aside—it
probably should not be in that question at all.
Q132 Chairman: Why not, because
people like Open EYE tell us that inspections push people to give
more formal learning earlier? If you talk to some people in the
Steiner movement, for example, they feel that you do not really
approve of their less formal approach to early years. Is that
right—that the inspectorate frowns on the Steiner approach?
Michael Hart: The Department has
recently responded to Steiner and that did include reference to
Ofsted at the time. We are clear that the early-years foundation
stage outcomes can be delivered in a whole range of ways. One
of them is through approaches adopted by the Steiner organisation.
That has been reflected in responses that have been given by the
Department.
Christine Gilbert: We did do some
trialling fairly recently on aspects of the way in which we are
going to inspect—whether we are going to make one judgment,
four judgments and so on. The responses from those involved in
the trial—it was more or less a random sample—were
really very positive. My impression from reading the correspondence
about Steiner is that it has a fixed view of the foundation stage,
which is not right. It wrote to me maybe three weeks ago and I
wrote back saying—
Q133 Chairman: It is not right?
In what sense?
Christine Gilbert: We are not
going in looking for a particular form of teaching and learning.
We are looking for effective development and learning, and we
hope that what Steiner is doing is leading to good development
and good learning.
Q134 Chairman: Does it? What is
your view?
Christine Gilbert: I have no idea
yet. We have not inspected it. I do not know whether it has been
involved in—
Q135 Chairman: You have never
inspected a Steiner school?
Christine Gilbert: I am sorry;
I thought you meant in terms of the early years foundation stage.
Q136 Chairman: People who come
before the Committee, people who talk to us and people whom we
meet on visits—I visited a Steiner school in Blackheath
very recently—say that the Ofsted influence is driving an
approach to early years that is more formal than they think desirable.
You are not living in a bubble, Chief Inspector. I am not an advocate
for Open EYE—I have severe reservations about some of the
things that it has said—but you said that you started early
years inspections in 2004.
Christine Gilbert: You mean the
whole approach for 2002, when early years child care came over
to Ofsted?
Q137 Chairman: Yes. You must have
some view on the big debate. Are we pushing children into too-formal
learning too early?
Christine Gilbert: We are not
pushing them. The inspectorate does not push a particular model.
It goes in and sees, looks at children's needs, assesses the progress
they make and reaches a particular judgment. Steiner schools are
independent schools and, as far as I am aware, perform well. The
provision that we inspected in early years—Michael might
be able to give you more detail—does not stand out as an
area of concern, and it had not written to me about previous inspections.
It wrote to me about their concerns about what is being introduced
from next September and, as far as we are aware, there is sufficient
flexibility. The issues include not only the inspection framework,
but the regulations and the way in which we are going to inspect
them. We have written back fairly positively, and the Department
has written an even more positive letter about how the future
will be for them.
Q138 Paul Holmes: I was interested
in your comment that you do not have a particular model and that
you just want effective outcomes. Let me move the argument on
from Steiner to an older age group. I cannot resist it: Summerhill
school, of course, had a long-running battle with Ofsted. We had
one Ofsted session in which its pupils were at the back of the
Room and were lobbying Ofsted out in the Corridor. The school
took you to court and won the case, and it was not closed down,
although Ofsted wanted to close it down. Have you moved on from
having one particular model whereby you wanted to close Summerhill?
Christine Gilbert: Summerhill
was before my time. I did hear just this morning that the pupils
used to come regularly to this Committee; it was not just once.
Chairman: We miss them. At least there
were some young people here.
Miriam Rosen: That was a very
long time ago. Summerhill has been reinspected since then, and
the school was found to be satisfactory. We look at effectiveness
and, for independent schools, we look at whether they are meeting
the regulations.
Q139 Paul Holmes: Between the
two inspections—following one, you said that Summerhill
should be closed down, and following the other, you said that
it was satisfactory—who changed, Summerhill or Ofsted?
Miriam Rosen: It was not us who
said the school should be closed down. The Department makes those
decisions, not us. We were looking at the school's performance
against the regulations, and we looked at that again. In the meantime,
it had, as you say, won the battle for us to be looking slightly
differently at how it meets the regulations. In the second, most
recent inspection, it was found to be satisfactory.
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