Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
6 MAY 2009
Q340 Mr Chaytor: I appreciate
that, but test data are still dominant in the minds of parents,
teachers and pupils. May I ask you about teacher assessment? What
is your overall judgement of the accuracy of teacher assessment?
Has that improved in recent years?
Christine Gilbert: We don't assess
teachers, we look at teaching. I think that that is closely linked
to good self-evaluation. You would expect the school to know where
its strengths and weaknesses were and to do something about its
weaknesses. That is why the self-evaluation form—or self-evaluation—is
so important. In addition to the question about data, schools
address issues that you pick up on in their self-evaluations.
Often, schools will present inspectors with other data to consider.
Inspectors do consider what heads share with them.
Q341 Mr Chaytor: But in the
context of your earlier remarks about the importance of objective
data at Key Stage 2, Chief Inspector, why are you reluctant to
rely on teachers to provide those data? Do you think that they
are not sufficiently objective or that their assessment skills
are not sufficiently well developed?
Christine Gilbert: Many moons
ago, I was an O-level and then a GCSE examiner. With the best
will in the world, you need a form of moderation for teacher assessment.
That is why I said that it would depend what is put in place of
Key Stage 2 tests if they go. I would be nervous about a more
bureaucratic system being put in their place. In my view, you
could not have teacher assessment without some form of national
moderation.
Q342 Mr Chaytor: So something
that was less bureaucratic and perhaps less universal, but which
had a greater emphasis on teacher assessment with moderation,
would be an acceptable solution in your view.
Christine Gilbert: It might well
be.
Q343 Mr Chaytor: What else
might be? What other alternatives would be acceptable to Ofsted
to replace Key Stage 2 tests?
Christine Gilbert: I would want
something that gave me some clarity about a child's performance,
benchmarked against the national perspective. Quite honestly,
parents tell me that that is what they want. They just want some
clarity at the key phases. From listening to the debate at the
weekend, I do not think that anybody is arguing about GCSEs at
16. I think that 11 is a key phase and that some information is
necessary. I think it absolutely wrong to distort the time spent
in school with teaching to those tests. Reducing that is a laudable
aim, but there must be some clarity about children's performance.
Q344 Chairman: The Department
has told this Committee that schools can still administer the
tests and that it will still supply the tests, even at Key Stage
3, if schools want to do them. What is wrong with this range of
tests being set nationally, run by schools and marked locally?
That is not very bureaucratic is it?
Christine Gilbert: It depends
what moderation there is. When I was a history examiner, I spent
many hours in meetings trying to establish what different grades
were, and so on. Some of those meetings were on Saturdays, I have
to say. But those days have gone. The time spent out of school
on some form of moderation depends on the level. I am sure alternatives
could be found, but something at 11 is important. Some clarity
is needed about what it is, but it should be nothing too complicated.
Q345 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
importance of the key stages, the Key Stage 3 tests have been
done away with, with no controversy whatsoever. But is not Key
Stage 3 arguably as important as Key Stage 2—and probably
more important than Key Stage 4, in the context of the establishment
of the diplomas and the extension of the participation age to
18? Has the age of 16 become almost irrelevant? The age of 14
will be the key point at which the curriculum diversifies.
Christine Gilbert: I think the
Chairman said in passing that most schools were going to continue
with Key Stage 3 tests. My impression was that a lot of them were
going to carry on with them this year. I do not have any substantial
evidence to back that up, other than anecdotes heard on my visits
round the country. But schools will put in place systems for assessing
pupils and their progress—good schools have them in place
now—not just once a year, but regularly. That is one of
the things that has happened over the last few years. Schools
have got ever better at doing that. So schools will have in place
systems to tell them how children are making progress; they will
not just be waiting from 11 to 16.
Q346 Mr Chaytor: Again, in
terms of the importance of the key stage, as a parent, although
my children are long out of school, I understand the importance
of parents having accurate information. But surely that applies
every year. There is no point suddenly getting a grade for your
kid at 11, if it comes as a complete shock because you did not
know what was happening at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. So is there not
a powerful argument for having better assessment and information
for parents in each year the child is in school, rather than a
single, big-bang, high-stakes test result that labels the child
at one particular stage?
Christine Gilbert: I can completely
support parents having regular information in the way that you
have described. It is helpful to have a national check on that.
Teachers are assessing children and they sometimes are surprised
by the external results. Sometimes there is a drift upwards with
marks. When I was a director of education years ago, when the
Key Stage 1 teacher assessment was introduced, the results went
down, because the teachers were tougher than the external ones.
It is important to establish some national feel for what is going
on. But what you are saying about regular information is crucial
to parents.
Q347 Chairman: I want to turn
to Edward now, but before I do I want to ask whether you have
a lot to do with the school improvement partners.
Christine Gilbert: We do not have
much to do with them. We are currently doing a survey, which will
be—
Q348 Chairman: But you have
a lot of knowledge of the field, Chief Inspector. Are these SIPs,
which we have heard in this Committee can cost us up to £1,000
a day, supplied by the same people from whom you get your inspectors?
Are the school improvement partners coming from the same source?
Christine Gilbert: My understanding
is that they are employed by local authorities.
Q349 Chairman: Where do the
local authorities get them from? Where do they come from?
Christine Gilbert: I think they
get them from different places. A number of serving head teachers
are SIPs.
Q350 Chairman: They do it
on a school-to-school basis—they don't go to CfBT?
Christine Gilbert: They might
well do. I really don't know.
Chairman: If you don't know, Chief Inspector,
that is fine. I'm not trying to build up a conspiracy theory,
I'm just trying to track where we get this expertise from. It
always seems to be leading in one or two directions.
Q351 Mr Timpson: Chief Inspector,
earlier you touched on self-evaluation in the inspection process
and how it helps inform the inspection from the outset, being
a good base and good grounding from which to move up. But you
also said that the self-evaluation form is important and then
corrected yourself—qualified it, should I say—and
said that self-evaluation is important. I accept that that may
have been a slip of the tongue, but is that not one of the problems
with the current emphasis on the self-evaluation formula? Although
it is only guidance, and it is not mandatory, there is a fear
among a lot of schools that are often nervous about an Ofsted
inspection, so they are reluctant to go outside the self-evaluation
formula and look at other forms of self-evaluation which ultimately
might not only portray the school in a more correct light, but
make it feel that it is more engaged in the process.
Christine Gilbert: It was a deliberate
correction. I had realised what I had said. The form itself is
not a process of self-evaluation. The form is the outcome of the
process of self-evaluation. There are two things. First, heads
are positive about its impact. About 95% fill it in and, as I
have said, they do not have to do so. I think that it would be
a brave decision not to fill it in, and about 95% do. Schools
have got outstanding without having filled it in. Actually, the
external evaluations tell us that more than 90% of heads think
that it is a really valuable thing to have done. We have had various
things. A survey by York Consulting also said that heads were
really positive about it. At the same time, head teachers complain
to me about the size of the form when I have been talking to people
at conferences. They say that it has got so big and unwieldy that
they are finding it difficult. We have therefore been piloting
a much shorter form— section A, the first part of the form—to
encourage greater focus on evaluation rather than just pouring
everything in. It is not so much the form that is important, but
it helps the debate and gives the inspector something concrete
to talk to the school about to see if it is aware of its strengths
and weaknesses. The process would have been gone through, such
as the engagement of governors, the engagement of staff and the
engagement of key partners, children and so on.
Q352 Mr Timpson: I will come
on to the engagement of governors and parents in a moment. Will
the self-evaluation review that you are now undertaking form part
of the new inspection regime in September? Can we expect to see
a streamlined self-evaluation form?
Christine Gilbert: Yes. We have
streamlined it and the pilot schools tell us that it is infinitely
better. The pilot schools have been very positive indeed. I have
not read anything that was negative about the evaluations that
have been made so far.
Q353 Chairman: Are you sure,
Miriam? Were you nodding?
Miriam Rosen: Yes, the heads are
enthusiastic about the new streamline SEF. Instead of having lots
of prompts that are integral to it, there will be a help button
and guidance notes that they can look at to help them fill it
in. It will not appear to be such a big and intimidating form,
and that has gone down very well.
Christine Gilbert: We are just
about to put the draft on the web. As I have been talking about
it up and down the country, I can see the anxiety and concerns
of the heads. Although they think that the current one is too
long, they are also nervous about moving to a new one in September,
so we are just about to put a draft on the web.
Q354 Mr Timpson: Is it the
intention that past concerns about the self-evaluation forms preventing
meaningful self-evaluation involving and engaging parents, governors
and teachers will be addressed by the new form, to give schools
more confidence to go through a meaningful self-evaluation rather
than just filling in the form?
Christine Gilbert: The criticism
about it not being meaningful hasn't been made to me. I don't
know if it has been made to Miriam. It has not really emerged.
Chairman: They are all frightened of
you, Chief Inspector. They wouldn't dare say something.
Christine Gilbert: I don't think
that they are. They do say various things up and down the country.
I don't think that they would be nervous. I always say that they
don't need to give me their name or the name of the school when
making their comment. That would have come through as a complaint.
They said that it had got too long and too unwieldy. We don't
insist that they complete it all—they don't have to. I don't
think that filling in the form is going through a process of self-evaluation.
You have to go through the process and then fill in the form after
the process. It is all part of going through the process. Heads
update the form regularly; they use it as a working document over
the course of the year.
Q355 Mr Timpson: I am conscious
of the time. Let us move on to the involvement of others in the
inspection process and what weight you give to their views. First,
let us look at governance. I hope you will confirm in your answer
that under the new inspection regime that will come into universal
use at the beginning of the school year, the views of governors
will be given sufficient weight in the inspection process. The
governors must be happy that their views have been given the weight
that they deserve.
Christine Gilbert: We are concerned
to ensure that governors feel engaged. One of the negative aspects
of no-notice inspection has been the difficulty of engaging governors.
At the moment, if there are two days' notice, the inspector phones
the head and the head is asked to tell the governor—by that
I mean the chair of governors or another representative—who
might be at work, unavailable and so on. We are thinking hard
about that. It is important to us that governors are very involved.
We expect the governors as a body to feel engaged in the production
of the self-evaluation form, and we would ask about that.
Q356 Mr Timpson: Finally,
can I ask about parents. We will all have come across parents
who want to be active in the school and have their say about how
it is run, the quality of the teaching and so on. However, there
are also some parents who, for whatever reason, find it difficult
to engage with the school, particularly those who find it generally
difficult to engage with teachers and those in positions of responsibility.
We now have the section 5 inspection regime and questionnaires
for parents to fill in. There is a concern among some that those
questionnaires make those people who find it difficult to engage
with the school even more likely to disengage. That could be because
they have their own problems with literacy, an aversion to forms,
or whatever else. Often, they are people who have children with
a vulnerability over and above what one would normally expect.
Do you accept that proposition? What can be done to ensure that
those types of parents get more involved in the inspection process
and in providing information?
Christine Gilbert: One of the
things that has happened in the pilots has been a number of meetings
with focus groups of parents to see how they could be engaged
more easily. The percentage of those filling in the forms is still
too low. That has been under active discussion during the pilots,
but we have not come up with any proposals yet. One of the things
that is different is that we will be asking schools about how
they engage parents and pupils and what they are doing in that
area. One of the first questions I was asked was about what I
saw our key purpose as being. The Education and Inspections Act
2006 says that we have to regulate and inspect to ensure that
users are engaged in the settings that we are inspecting. We want
to ensure that parents are properly engaged in the life of the
school—not only on the day of the inspection—and we
want to know how the school is doing that. Schools might do that
in different areas, contexts and so on. That is a difference in
what will be taking place.
Chairman: Graham, a quick question on
this before we move on.
Q357 Mr Stuart: You mentioned
that test data and parental dissatisfaction act as prompts to
go in and inspect a school. What other data do you have at national
level to help to identify schools? Please be specific.
Christine Gilbert: Miriam will
pick up on points about this. We look specifically at the last
inspection grade and at what any surveys that have taken place
say about the school. We look at attendance—and I think
we mentioned exclusions although I am not sure if that went in.
We look at test results, parent and pupil satisfaction and perceptions
of what is going on in the school.
Miriam Rosen: We are looking at,
for example, whether there has been a change of head teacher,
because we know that a change of head teacher is a factor that
can precipitate a school going into special measures. Sometimes
it could be that a new head teacher has just taken over and is
moving the school up and out, but we are looking at whether we
can capture data like that as well.
Q358 Mr Stuart: You have not
mentioned local authorities.
Miriam Rosen: Yes, we are in discussion
with the Association of Directors of Children's Services about
whether it could give an indication of the local authority's view
of the school, which could also be an indicator.
Q359 Mr Stuart: You do not
formally have plans to ensure that you collect that at the moment.
Miriam Rosen: We can have access
to the school improvement partners' report when we go into the
school, but we do not at the moment have it in advance of going
in. The SIP report should give the local authority's view of the
school.
Chairman: It is not a question, but we
got the feeling in an earlier evidence session that governors
and parents seemed to think they had been rather sidelined. John,
we shall have a quick look at school report cards to finish the
session.
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