The role and performance of Ofsted

Memorandum submitted by Dr John Oversby, in a personal and independent capacity

1. My response will relate to inspections of secondary ITT programmes. I was, for a lengthy period, a subject Course Leader for a secondary PGCE/GTP university provider and, therefore, subject to regular inspections with respect to my subject course, as well as contributing to the provider’s overall report. I have also attended many meetings of secondary ITT providers arranged by the National Strategy, the TDA, and through meetings organised by The Association for Science Education, especially by its semi-autonomous group, The Association of Tutors in Science Education.

2. The OfSTED Framework for Inspection for ITT clarified, initially, a detailed enquiry into course construction and implementation in partnership with colleagues in partnership schools, selection and assessment of course members, evaluation of the course, and actions to lead to improvement. Further developments of the Framework focused more on bureaucracy as a major source of evidence for establishing quality, linked with interviews of key personnel. The atmosphere was one of sampling, rather than a thorough enquiry of all aspects. I gained the distinct impression that this was an outcome of cost-saving measures, despite the official explanation of placing more responsibility for self-assessment.

3. Inspection data are used, in ITT, as a validation process of providers for accreditation of QTS. It is my view that this is a valid purpose of inspection that should be continued, although not as frequently as at present. Inspection data are also used to allocate target quotas for recruitment, through allocation to a few bands of quality. This process, carried out by the TDA, is not sufficiently transparent in relation to overall required numbers in different regions or in different subject disciplines in the secondary phase. Changes are often large and relatively sudden in some disciplines for some providers, making it difficult for them to manage change. Consultation with providers over allocation of target quotas is either opaque or non-existent, giving rise to inspection outcomes becoming very high risk information. In my view, this has led to a cautious approach which stifles much innovation. Provider leaders too often focus on the procedural aspects of inspection in an atmosphere of fear about the inspection outcomes and their potential devastating impact on overall provision by the provider. Construction of provider league table based on the approximate bands allocated by OfSTED creates a strong market orientation to ITT provision, sometimes exacerbating recruitment in regions where there is a shortage of suitable recruits.

4. In earlier Frameworks, the depth of OfSTED Inspector interviews with key personnel provided an excellent opportunity for these colleagues to review their work within an external framework, and to discuss contextual factors that impacted on their provision. This has been lost in more recent Frameworks that are based on paper-based self-evaluation as the major source of evidence collected by colleagues. Despite the integrity of the inspection teams, and their personal focus on the human side of ITT provision, this has resulted in the inspection becoming more remote from many of those engaged in providing ITT.

5. In some respects, the OfSTED inspection process has led to an improvement in ITT provision, through OfSTED’s explicit views of the purposes and implementation of ITT, through the opportunity for dialogic reflection with Inspectors, through oral debriefing reports following inspections, through a requirement for Action Plans, through OfSTED’s summaries of the outcomes of inspection cycles, and through consultations on Framework modification.

6. The inspection teams have, for the most part, been of high quality and very well trained. There have been a few occasions when some idiosyncratic views of some inspectors about mechanical procedures have been unable to be challenged, but have led to providers adopting new procedures to meet these views. The moderation process remains opaque, and this is unhelpful in understanding how some grading decisions have been reached. It should be possible to have some reporting of how moderating procedures have worked, to improve transparency and to give more credibility to the grades finally awarded. The weight given to different factors is clearly given in the Frameworks.

7. It is essential that ITT be inspected, although I recommend with less frequency than at present, but with greater interaction with those working directly with ITT students. I see no good reason why there should be a single inspectorate.

October 2010