Memorandum submitted by Boarding Schools'
Association and State Boarding Schools' Association
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Acknowledged
at outset that the primary purpose of inspection is to safeguard
the welfare of children.
2. Ofsted
inspection of boarding welfare appears to be about compliance,
not improvement. The two purposes of inspection are separable,
but in this case they were separated without warning or consultation
and costs were reduced appropriately only because of pressure
from schools and the Boarding Schools' Association.
3. The current
Ofsted inspection process is believed by schools to have had little
impact on school improvement.
4. The performance
of Ofsted in carrying out its work in boarding welfare has been
perceived by most schools as unsatisfactory.
5. Ofsted
teams have been perceived as inconsistent or highly variable quality
and very often without team members with any experience of boarding
schools.
6. Squeezing
the 52 standards down to 21 key standards, then reporting under
6 artificial headings, has radically altered the inspection and
reporting process for the worse.
7. There is
no reason why inspection of all children's settings and services
should be conducted by just one inspectorate.
8. Ofsted
providing an accountability mechanism of autonomous schools should
be possible.
9. For independent
boarding schools in membership of the Independent Schools Council,
allow the Independent Schools Inspectorate to conduct boarding
inspections as they now do education inspections in those schools.
10. For state
boarding schools, ensure boarding inspections are conducted by
personnel with actual boarding experience and expertise.
11. Boarding
Heads want an inspection regime which understands the sector,
challenges the sector from a position of credibility and understanding,
can advise as well as assess, is informed by some data - eg reliable
questionnaire responses, which looks at the experience of boarders,
not the experience of the inspectors
12. INTRODUCTION
1. The Boarding Schools' Association (BSA) is
a membership organisation which exists to support and promote
good practice in boarding. It has over 450 member schools, the
majority of which belong to the constituent associations (GSA,
HMC, IAPS, ISA, SHMIS) of the Independent Schools Council. 35
of our member schools are state boarding schools. The State Boarding
Schools' Association (SBSA) is a constituent part of the Boarding
Schools' Association. Our independent school members educate approximately
68,000 boarders; there are approximately 4000 boarders in state
boarding schools.
2. Since April 2007, Ofsted has been responsible
for inspecting boarding welfare in all our schools both independent
and maintained boarding schools.
3. This submission is made on behalf of member
schools, and with the approval of the Executive Committee of the
Association, but without formal surveying of member schools because
of the timing of the request for evidence.
What the purposes of inspection should be
4. Until April 2007, the purpose of the boarding
welfare inspection conducted by the Commission for Social Care
Inspection (CSCI) was twofold: to assess boarding provision against
the 52 National Minimum Standards for Boarding (2002), and to
advise schools on improvement. A judgement was made about each
of the 52 Standards, a report of about 40 pages confirmed the
team's findings. Thus a school's provision was thoroughly examined
and identified in the report as meeting the minimum standards,
exceeding them, or falling short of those standards. Where improvements
were needed, these were identified. Many schools built up relationships
with their local inspectors which meant informal discussions might
be held about, for instance, intended changes in boarding accommodation,
and these conversations helped schools to get it right. When
Ofsted took over the inspection of boarding welfare, they immediately
removed the advisory role, declaring it not their remit. BSA complained
that the same charges were being levied when only half the service
was available - inspection against standards, no advice.
5. Schools have therefore become accustomed
to an inspection regime which simply checks compliance. Our understanding
is that they would prefer an inspection force also to be supportive
and advisory. But if it is to be merely checking a school's provision
against the National Minimum Standards, then a second tier of
advice and assistance to schools should be available.
6. The change from inspect/advise to simply
inspecting, which occurred when Ofsted took over boarding inspections,
was a de facto change with, so far as we are aware, no
consultation or warning. Heads of boarding schools therefore believe
that an inspections regime which used to advise has been simply
lost because of a remote and unexplained decision.
The impact of the inspection process on school
improvement
7. Schools have felt that the Ofsted inspection
of boarding has had little positive effect on school improvement.
They have felt that inspections have been focused on extreme compliance
- e.g. a Head reports that one section of her report was downgraded
from "Outstanding" to "Good", despite the
inspectors noting that all the boarders enjoyed school, enjoyed
boarding, spoke of their absolute confidence in all staff at all
levels, because one teacher was not familiar enough with the staff
handbook to know the school's whistleblower policy. The one example
stands for many similar accounts - one small infraction of a regulation
is perceived by the school as having a disproportionate impact
on the report and its summative judgement of a whole school in
fact working excellently well.
8. The Ofsted version of inspection is perceived
by schools as having made little contribution to school improvement.
The performance of Ofsted in carrying out its
work
9. The BSA does not collect statistics about
Ofsted inspections, but anecdotally there are many more negative
views of Ofsted's work in boarding inspection than positive views.
In particular, schools have found that judgements given at the
oral feedback session have subsequently been changed for publication
- as if the people on the spot made one decision, but somewhere
away from the school some mysterious process or pressure forced
them to change their judgement to accord with some unknown agenda.
Schools have challenged reports, and had those challenges accepted,
only to find that the report on the website continues to include
errors. The quality of writing has sometimes been poor. We know
that there is no quality assurance for boarding inspections (unlike
ordinary Ofsted inspections). This is all the more serious because
unlike the inspections of education, there is no data to act as
a "reality check" on the judgements. And boarding inspectors
may be doing only a handful of inspections a year, building little
experience. No data, no quality assurance and inexperienced inspectors
ends up with poor inspection.
10. When a leader in Ofsted inspection (Jane
Cooper) made herself available to member heads at the State Boarding
Schools' Association annual conference in January, she was inundated
with individual accounts of poor practice on the ground. In particular,
Ofsted attempts to join up their inspection of boarding with their
inspection of a school's education appeared to be failing. She
said that she was delighted to hear from the people being inspected
and promised to effect improvements. I understand that some inspections
were then delayed in order to try to do them more effectively.
But this is poor performance after three years doing the job.
11. Members of the State Boarding Schools' Association
Management Committee met with Christine Gilbert and drew attention
to the particular difficulties of education and boarding inspectors
establishing whose view of a school should take precedence, with
possibly serious consequences for schools - e.g. "Outstanding"
education, but "Inadequate" boarding, and vice versa
- which would land a school in special measures?
12. Such difficulties might be exacerbated where
a large school had a small boarding population (e.g. Burleigh
Community School , with 1,300 pupils, 39 boarders).
13. Ofsted pupil surveys at present canvass all
boarders, but only a percentage of day pupils - this is not equitable.
Moreover, managing parental surveys in boarding if inspection
is short notice is difficult if many parents are overseas. They
are disenfranchised by the assumption that all parents are day
parents, and the survey being timed accordingly.
The consistency and quality of inspection teams
in the Ofsted inspection process
14. Headteachers believe neither consistency
nor quality has been seen in the three years of Ofsted inspecting
boarding. They are now accustomed to practice varying depending
upon what region a school falls in, and to practice varying again
according to the lead inspector. Ofsted officials spoke in the
early days of intending to make their inspection of boarding a
national business, with schools entitled to expect consistency
and quality because it was an Ofsted process. It was a laudable
ambition, and some of the inspection teams have worked well and
effectively. Our impression is that these inspections are in
the minority.
15. In boarding in particular, Ofsted inspectors
are perceived as being ignorant about boarding and bringing expectations
from other areas of inspection, such as care homes - "Let
us see your restraint policy" appears to have been a frequent
request - which are inappropriate in schools where parents are
lively, active and highly involved partners with schools in the
care of their children. The CSCI regime entitled schools
to a Boarding Sector Professional Inspector (i.e. a person with
experience and expertise in boarding, lent to the inspection team
by another boarding school, in the spirit of peer review) if the
school had more than 20 boarders. Ofsted intended at first not
to have such people at all, erroneously believing them to be ill
prepared and untrained, and, because lent by other schools, possibly
involved in a cosy relationship with the inspected school. After
strong protests from both BSA and individual schools, they agreed
to include a Boarding Sector Additional Inspector in their teams
inspecting schools with more than 50 boarders, if such an inspector
were available. No entitlement. The BSA has approximately 145
boarding schools with fewer than 50 boarders. Six of the state
boarding schools have fewer than 50 boarders. Immediately, such
schools were effectively disenfranchised, losing the one person
on the team who might have known anything about boarding schools,
which are very far removed from care homes and children's homes.
Schools receive inequitable service for no good reason. The number
of BSAIs has dwindled dramatically since Ofsted took over boarding
welfare inspection, so that now state boarding schools are supplying
a disproportionately large percentage of them, but may not be
benefitting from their expertise in their own inspections. Ofsted
even attempted, unilaterally and without explanation or consultation,
to stop the use of BSAIs in state boarding schools. In practice,
I am told that BSAIs have effectively been viewed as junior members
of the team, and their input into final judgements has been restricted.
Where inspectors are inexperienced and the inspection appears
cursory the whole process of Ofsted boarding inspection is brought
into disrepute.
The weight given to different factors within the
inspection process.
16. Ofsted transformed the inspection of boarding
welfare from a careful consideration of 52 standards, with judgements
on each, to an alleged consideration of the 52 standards, in practice
and so declared in their paperwork for every inspection report,
reduced to 21 "key standards". In itself, this unilateral
action, entirely without consultation or explanation, completely
undermined the rationale of the NMS as written and enacted. All
judgements were then corralled under the five headings of Every
Child Matters - Being healthy, Staying safe, Enjoying and achieving,
Making a positive contribution, Achieving economic wellbeing -
for reporting purposes, plus Organisation. So, a school received
6 judgements, instead of the old 52.
17. The silliest of the headings for a boarding
school was "Achieving economic wellbeing", which may
be assessable in some contexts but which in boarding schools boiled
down to how good were the premises. It is difficult to see how
a child achieving "economic well being" is proved by
the state of the buildings or bedrooms. It is particularly difficult
to assess a child's economic well being when he is a junior boarder,
perhaps aged 8. Even inspectors professed themselves baffled
by how to find any of the standards to fit this category of ECM.
In the event, their Annex to every inspection report for boarding
says that for this category, National Minimum Standard 51 is the
key standard. This is indeed an important standard - it covers
what is expected of a school if it arranges for a boarder to be
accommodated anywhere other than in boarding accommodation, e.g.
a home stay arrangement. But very, very few schools ever do this
at all. So one of only six judgements being passed on a school
is made in the light of its performance in something it does not
do. This heading of Every Child Matters is a nonsense in the
context of inspecting boarding.
18. Of the other headings, "Being healthy"
has twp key standards, "Staying safe" has 10 key standards,
"Enjoying and achieving" has two, "Making a positive
contribution has two, and then 'Organisation' has four key standards.
Clearly they are disproportionate, but each heading is presented
as if of equal weight. 'Staying safe' is a limiting judgement,
and 'Organisation' cannot go higher than the judgement of how
a school keeps children safe. Some schools have thus failed their
Ofsted inspection of boarding because one 18 year old Australian
who had never set foot in the country and therefore could not
have a British criminal record, had not been CRB'd before being
admitted to boarding accommodation. All our member schools acknowledge
the primacy of safeguarding every child in their care, and shortcomings
must be immediately addressed. But there has been a pervasive
sense of Ofsted inspectors nit-picking while ignoring or under-valuing
eminently good practice.
19. State boarding schools judged outstanding
in education and therefore not due to have a full Ofsted inspection
would not wish a boarding inspection to trigger a full (i.e. boarding
and education) inspection.
Is inspection to support children's learning and
welfare best conducted by a single inspectorate?
20. There is no reason why this should be necessary
and surely more reason to provide the right inspectors for each
setting according to its needs. Boarding Sector Professional
Inspectors were not drawn in to inspecting care homes - care homes
were not their field of expertise. Why should care home professionals
inspect boarding? Most schools would prefer an inspection to be
all at once, covering all their work at once, rather than having,
for instance, education inspected one week, and boarding the next,
or several weeks later. But even with Ofsted, one inspectorate,
for the state boarding schools dealing with both areas of the
school, the inspection events were not consistently joined up.
If they are to inspect at different times, why not be different
inspectors? Preferably with expertise in the sector they are
inspecting.
The role of Ofsted in providing an accountability
mechanism for schools operating with greater autonomy
21. An objective review of school performance,
a check on its compliance with regulations, should be valuable,
particularly as schools operate with more autonomy. Certainly
schools value the external validation of what they do. They do
try to achieve "Outstanding" in their inspections.
But the very term is at odds with the notion of National Minimum
Standards. Logically, the inspection process should test whether
the school meets those - they are minimum standards and if a school
does not meet them, they should fail the inspection. "Outstanding"
suggests doing better than meeting them - but better where and
how and how is that judgement made?
22. Such an objective view, an accountability
mechanism, a compliance check, is likely to be more simply expressed
than the current model of reports under the ECM headings, which
are largely descriptive, rather than recording the satisfactory
meeting of the requirements of regulations.
Recommendations for action
23. The majority of Independent boarding school
Heads would prefer the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI),
which already inspects their education provision, to take over
the inspection of boarding in their schools.
24. The majority of independent boarding school
Heads would prefer the ISI model of peer review and inspection
to be introduced into boarding inspection. This would mean inspection
by experienced practitioners in boarding schools, rather than
by personnel with expertise in different social care settings.
25. The majority of independent boarding school
Heads would prefer one inspection event, with education and boarding
inspected at the same time, which is more likely if one inspectorate
is conducting the inspection, even though Ofsted found it very
difficult to manage in the state boarding schools.
26. The majority of Heads in state boarding schools
would prefer their boarding welfare inspections to be conducted
by people with expertise and experience in boarding - boarding
sector professionals.
27. The majority of state boarding Heads would
also like it to be one inspection event, but that is less important
than having knowledgeable inspectors on the team.
October 2010
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