Memorandum submitted by Dr Steve Austin
TIME TO
PUT OFSTED
ON NOTICE
TO IMPROVE
Time spent as a local authority adviser and School
Improvement Partner has left one former primary headteacher disillusioned
with the Ofsted inspection system.
I must have been very lucky that during my time as
a primary school headteacher, I had good experiences of Ofsted
inspectors. In the main, they were polite, courteous even, when
delivering difficult messages; they were credible with recent
and relevant experience which enabled them to make judgements
with authority; they were consistent in giving judgements which
were not at variance with the school's own self-evaluation or
the views of local authority advisers. The staff that I worked
with felt that the inspections we went through together were fair,
professionally conducted, and came to the correct judgements.
After three years as a School Improvement Partner,
I am disappointed and angry with a system that is on the brink
of failure.
Widespread inconsistency
I am finding more and more education professionals
who are becoming part of a growing consensus that suggests that
Ofsted inspections are inconsistent in their judgements. The government
operates in a way which depends upon different teams of Ofsted
inspectors and HMI giving consistent judgements. Politicians and
governors naively believe that Ofsted inspection is a scientific
process and the same outcome would be achieved no matter who the
inspectors were or what their personalities.
Almost no headteachers believe that this consistency
exists. It has always been the case that there are differences
between individual inspectors and inspection teams. There will
always be a certain human element to this process. However, I
am convinced that such issues are getting worse rather than better.
There does seem to have been a significant increase in inspections
whose judgements are questioned by heads, governors, local authority
advisers (and even internally by some Ofsted inspectors and HMI).
I recently attended a continuous professional development
session for School Improvement Partners. This was attended by
over 100 SIPs from my region. At one point, a brave SIP took the
floor and spoke out about the inconsistency of Ofsted inspections.
She received spontaneous applause and a standing ovation. She
had put into words what we were all thinking.
The inconsistency works both ways. Schools receive
the "outstanding" grade from an Ofsted inspection when
the local authority does not agree. Other schools in the opinion
of the local authority do not receive the outstanding grade when
they ought to have done. Schools are placed into Ofsted categories
of special measures and notice to improve when this is a complete
surprise to the local authority and other schools avoid such a
fate by being given a "satisfactory" verdict.
The fact that the local authority advisers and school
improvement partners disagree with an Ofsted judgement does not
of itself make Ofsted wrong. However, I can verify from experience
in my own local authority that discrepancies are definitely on
the increase. At the very least this leaves headteachers confused
as to what is expected. There is a growing feeling that the system
has essentially become a lottery. A school's Ofsted grade is considered
to be more luck than judgement.
Ofsted's management will refute these claims but
the old industry adage that "perception is reality"
is a feature of the management theories and books from the world
of commerce, industry and retail. Surely it is time for Ofsted
to look carefully at itself and see the need to improve.
I recently met with a Regional Director of Ofsted.
She was very relaxed about my suggestion of inconsistency and
simply said: "There will always be some inconsistency."
To a certain extent this is true but do Ofsted inspectors and
their managers fully understand the devastating consequences for
a school community and headteacher of erroneous or unnecessarily
harsh judgements? I wish I had been talking to an Ofsted senior
leader who was prepared to say: "not on my watch" rather
than take a complacent "well, what can you do?" attitude.
Credibility
I firmly believe that during my time as a headteacher,
I experienced a gradual but significant increase in the credibility
of inspectors. I became a primary school headteacher in the early
days of Ofsted's inception. I considered the very first Ofsted
team that I encountered to be professional and correct in their
judgements but they were a team made up of people who were of
a secondary school background. All subsequent inspections that
I experienced were conducted by people with experience as primary
school heads and most were still practising. I welcomed this change
to a more credible Ofsted workforce.
I am in dismay that we seem to have gone full circle.
Perhaps as a result of some recruitment crisis or shortage of
suitable candidates, we appear to have lost sight of the need
for credibility and recent, relevant experience in our inspectors.
There are so many inspectors now carrying out Ofsted
audits of our schools who are without the kind of experience which
should be a minimum expectation that I believe it is no exaggeration
to state that this is a disgrace. A small primary school which
I support was recently inspected by someone who had been out of
school for many, many years and whose last post was as Principal
of a Sixth Form college. I thought those days had gone but they
are back and with a vengeance.
It is not at all uncommon to find myself at Ofsted
feedback sessions being led by inspectors who do not have any
recent and relevant experience of the kind of school that they
are inspecting and therefore have no authority to make judgements
that the head, governors and staff will take seriously. This leads
to a situation where what is being judged and what is being required
in terms of recommendations for improvement is not set in the
context of any real understanding of what it is like to work in
a primary school or any understanding of the job of a headteacher.
Having been through accreditation as a School Improvement
Partner and having worked alongside an excellent team of SIPs,
it seems to me that the government and National College for School
Leadership has made a determined effort to ensure that SIPs are
people with credible experience. It is a huge shame that Ofsted
does not appear to have taken any such steps.
Manner and conduct
In the early days of Ofsted, we did have some mavericks.
We allowed some unsuitable people to become Ofsted inspectors.
The need to establish a Code of Conduct came out of understanding
reached by Ofsted's management that all was not well and some,
power-crazy, authoritarian people with bullying tendencies had
slipped through the net and become inspectors.
There was a time when Ofsted's management seemed
to care about such matters and took firm action to strike off
unsuitable inspectors whose manner and way of dealing with schools
and headteachers was unacceptable. Whatever one thinks of Sir
Chris Woodhead and his time as HMCI, this was an area where he
was particularly passionate and diligent. He did a lot to root
out unsuitable inspectors who ought not to have been allowed to
continue to inspect our schools.
I am convinced that this passion and diligence, born
of a view that excellence is standard and only the best people
should inspect our schools, has disappeared. Perhaps this is another
victim of a perceived recruitment crisis. As a head, I never had
occasion to complain about the conduct of inspectors. As an adviser,
I have become involved in far too many examples of sheer bad manners,
inappropriate comments, poor social skills and inspectors whose
manner brings shame on the inspection system. And yet they continue
to work. Even after serious complaints and even after very rare
overturned judgements and voided inspections some people who should
not be allowed to inspect schools continue with seeming impunity.
Complaints
I seem to be describing a crisis in which several
inspectors, totally unsuitable for the role, are breaking their
own code of conduct and engaging in conversations with staff in
schools which can only be described as downright rude. How can
this be? Surely Ofsted has an established system of feedback and
formal complaints? Is it not the case that, according to Ofsted's
own feedback data, the vast majority of school's are satisfied
with their inspections?
Let me put this as bluntly as possible: headteachers
generally do not complain. I have come across many heads who are
given perfectly appropriate cause to complain but choose not to.
There are many reasons for this lack of willingness to complain
or to give critical feedback.
One comes from Ofsted itself and its own propaganda.
There is an Ofsted publication on how schools which are placed
into special measures go about effective and rapid improvement.
One of its points is that the schools which make the most rapid
improvement are those which do not waste time complaining or questioning
the Ofsted judgements but rather get on with the business of tackling
the issues for improvement. Such a publication actively discourages
complaint and negative feedback.
Another reason is that an Ofsted inspection, even
one with short notice, is a stressful time for headteachers, staff
and governors. There is a great sense of relief when it is all
over. Most heads want to move on and not go back over the details
of how it was conducted and whether or not it was correct in its
judgements. Even in those schools that have a good case for complaining,
headteachers rarely do any such thing.
In my own local authority and in my own schools,
I have been involved in trying to persuade heads to complain formally
or to use the feedback process to make negative comments. Most
choose not to. It is very hard to get them to put pen to paper
and record the poor behaviour of Ofsted inspectors and HMI.
There is a fear among some headteachers. Will complaining
make matters worse for my school? Will we be perceived as people
who cannot accept Ofsted findings? Will we be re-visited by an
early re-inspection? Will our complaints be noted, recorded and
count against us in future?
We have all got used to the culture where there is
no appeal. In so many walks of life there is some kind of fair
appeals process which allows people to exercise a fundamental
democratic right to a second opinion. Headteachers know that they
can appeal against their SATs results if they feel that the markers
have got them wrong; but there is no appeal against Ofsted judgements.
The idea that there was no appeal against Ofsted
inspection judgements was not such a bad thing in the days when
Ofsted inspectors were credible; when Ofsted's management was
determined to root out arrogant and inappropriate behaviour; and
when there was more consistency. But now this aspect of the Ofsted
framework must be reviewed.
Ofsted does not know itself. Its framework for feedback
and complaints is abysmal and schools have no confidence in it.
It is an organisation which has not set out proactively to seek
views on its performance but relies on a discredited system to
applaud itself that there are very few complaints.
I wonder what would happen if we did have a genuine
appeals system. I believe that there would be a very large number
of appeals, which is why the expense and time-consuming nature
of such a system is greatly resisted by Ofsted. But I think it
is absolutely necessary and as long as one does not exist Ofsted
will continue to have a grossly erroneous and complacent view
of itself as highly regarded.
Management and communication
The move towards a new framework from September 2009,
has exacerbated the fault lines. There are serious problems built
into the inspection system as it is managed at the moment and
these will not be solved by the new framework. Ofsted does not
know what is wrong with it as an institution and therefore is
making no attempt to deal with its weaknesses which will be there
just as much if not more so under the new framework.
Acting on behalf of my local authority, which was
one of the pilots for the new framework, I have been actively
involved in meetings related to the development of the new framework.
One thing has become abundantly clear to me: Ofsted's senior management
is seriously flawed.
There is very poor communication between the Ofsted
regional offices and the inspection contractors. I came across
numerous examples, far too numerous to list in this article, of
Ofsted contractors and inspectors on the ground not carrying out
reforms in the manner in which Ofsted's senior leaders had assured
us they would. The left hand does not know what the right hand
is doing.
Some of the senior leaders and HMI mare in fact the
very people who are the subject of much complaint because of their
off-hand and arrogant manner when carrying out inspections. Many
of Ofsted's regional senior leaders suffer from exactly the kind
of lack of credibility (as a result either of long years away
from the job of teaching or lack of any relevant experience) that
bedevils out current inspection teams.
The gulf between Ofsted expectations and what is
actually happening in perfectly good schools is wider than it
has ever been.
Ofsted does not know itself
What does Ofsted expect of our schools? That they
should know themselves well and evaluate their performance effectively
and accurately. That they should be rigorous in their search for
feedback and seek out actively even the critical voices and the
hard to reach parents and pupils so gaining a fully rounded view
of how the institution is perceived. That they attract the right
staff with relevant qualifications and experience suitable for
their job. That they safeguard their pupils by employing only
those staff who behave appropriately, avoiding those teachers
who have a bullying mentality or a draconian approach to discipline.
That they have an effective and transparent complaints procedure
which encourages, rather than deters, honest comment. That they
strive for improvement and accept that only the best will do.
I am only asking that as an institution and system,
Ofsted expects of itself what it expects of schools. That is why
I think that the organisation needs a Notice to Improve.
August 2010
| 
