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Baroness Perry of Southwark: My name is down to support Amendment No. 32. If I had been better organised, it would also have been down to support Amendment No. 11.
I support very strongly the thrust of the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It is absolutely crystal clear that if inspections of only one and two days are to work, the schools themselves must have the right kind of self-evaluation procedures, and a large part of the inspector's job is to check that those procedures are actually working. I emphasise the words "actually working" because my own experience, not only in my inspectorate days but also in my many years of chairing the Charter Mark Judges' Panel (where very similar kinds of procedures were necessary), is that such self-evaluative procedures can look very impressive without producing any real results at all. It is all too easy, as I have seen in schools and colleges time and again, to generate vast amounts of paper—huge self-evaluation sheets for different departments, individual teachers and even pupils in positions of responsibility, such as prefects, and so on—all of which finally come together in one vast heap on someone's shelf to collect dust without anything else ever being done.
If the inspectors are to check that the procedure is actually working, it is desperately important that they should look for schools that are genuinely self-reflecting, reflecting on their own practices and listening to their clients, whether they be students, parents or local businesses with whom they are working, and making adjustments to their performance and to the way in which they carry out the processes in the light of those matters. At the end of the day there has to be a real output other than piles of self-evaluation forms. I therefore approve absolutely of the wording of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, in which she refers to,
Those procedures have to result in action, and I support very strongly what the noble Baroness has said.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood: I want very briefly to support this amendment, for two reasons. The first is that the philosophy of the inspection system that this Bill encapsulates requires a confidence in the capacity of schools to evaluate themselves. The system will not work unless that is present.
Secondly, the beginning of Clause 2(1) says:
The Secretary of State needs to know that self-evaluation is working; otherwise, he will have to change the inspection system.
Lord Lucas: It is not difficult for an inspector on a short visit to ascertain whether it is working. If it is going well, everyone will be bubbling about it because it will produce the kind of results that teachers and pupils really appreciate. I can remember that the first time I came across this kind of measure working extremely well was in Greenhead College, Huddersfield, which had a very inspiring principal, now sadly retired. The English department spent hours telling me about the system of numbers that it was using to evaluate the performance of teachers. You do not expect that kind of thing, but because it worked well and because it supported the teachers, a teacher would know if he was doing wrong and could call on the support of his colleagues. They would gather together with him, sort out the problem and he would receive the extra training required to bring him up to scratch. They felt it was enormously supportive.
The pupils knew that they were getting the absolute best from their teachers. You could spot a child going wrong very quickly, you could spot a teacher who was off-beam very quickly, and everything was done to support the child and support the teacher and the whole college was absolutely delighted about it.
Teachers mostly go into teaching for the joy of seeing children succeed. When one of these systems is working well, you can see it and be confident about it. It is not simply a question of waiting for the A-level results and then feeling rather sad about 15 or so pupils who have not done as well as you thought; you can see halfway through a term whether they are going wrong. You catch them, you pick them up, and come the A-levels they are where you want them to be.
It is so fulfilling when these systems are working that you cannot go into a school without knowing that it is happening. It is terribly easy, too, to see when it is not happening. You simply ask the head what systems they have in place for evaluating teachers and what systems they have in place for training. If there is not real enthusiasm there, if there are not the stories of success and the new ideas that have been brought in pouring out of a head teacher, then he is not doing it right.
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Often, even in some of the old and great schools, it is not being done at all. There is a feeling that you do not need to know these things—that a good teacher is a good teacher, that people go their own way, that the results produce themselves at the end of the day, that it is rather demeaning to be watched by colleagues and that the idea of being judged by colleagues can be difficult for experienced teachers. There are all kinds of reasons why the system jams up, but when it works well it enthuses the whole school.
It is not something that will be difficult to put into a short inspection, but it is absolutely crucial, as other noble Lords have said, to whether the system will work.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: Before he replies, perhaps the Minister will deal with the criticism that has come to us from the General Teaching Council for England. It states that it approves of the Government's new relationship with schools—the NRWS—and welcomes the way in which the role of school self-evaluation is upgraded by that model. In particular, the council commends the reference in the original Ofsted consultation document, Ofsted: The Future of Inspection, to the need for inspection to complement schools' development of planning and self-evaluation and to Ofsted's wish,
"explicitly to share the responsibility for improving all educational settings in a way we have not done up to now".
Those statements undoubtedly represent a significant policy shift, if carried through, as Ofsted has often been criticised by schools for not supporting them sufficiently in addressing the improvements that inspection has identified as necessary. That is the GTC's criticism and the Minister would be well advised at least to comment on it, if not to reply to it.
Lord Filkin: Although I agree with much of what has been said, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary—as the Committee would almost expect me to say. It has, however, been an important debate because, as we have said a number of times, the self-evaluation process is in a sense central to the Bill. One of the questions that I asked in preparation was how we can ensure that self-evaluation is done well.
It starts, of course, from the principle that self-evaluation is not a burden. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, indicated, it should be a fundamental part of a school's processes, almost irrespective of whether this Bill had been invented. That is what good leadership is about. You are clear about what you are trying to achieve and you have rigorous and, you hope, not too bureaucratic processes for challenging yourself and seeing where you need to improve.
Therefore, the thrust of the Bill, through aligning inspection with what ought to be good management and leadership practice, is an attempt to have a virtuous circle rather than the imposition of another burden. The self-evaluation ought to be done every year. It is not something that is done when the inspector cometh, but it is part of good management and leadership.
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Self-evaluation is central not only to the inspection process but is an important part of the wider policy for a new relationship with schools. Both self-evaluation and outside evaluation are vital to that new relationship. Our interest is in promoting quality outcomes, not policing in detail every activity that might contribute to how they are achieved.
Clearly, schools are at different stages of development, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, indicated, in terms of the effectiveness and quality of self-evaluation. We are currently developing guidance jointly with Ofsted to include some good practice examples and guidance on completing the self-evaluation form, which is part of the inspection process. The guidance will be strategic rather than prescriptive, in line with the ethos of the new relationship with the school. It will not be a matter of, "Here is the form that you have to fill in.". That does not mean to say that there will be no check on the effectiveness of the self-evaluation.
The strict answer to the probing amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, and the reason why it is not necessary, is that the assessment of the school's self-evaluation will take place partly through the inspection itself, which will test the school's judgment made through self-evaluation against the evidence that inspectors have gathered—either as part of other processes or as part of what the school offers.
We shall come to this issue later, but there is an important message. If one thinks of schools that are at the lowest level of performance, as will be recognised from the different structure of categorisation, the school that is clearly not performing well, but which owns up to it and accepts it—in other words, it has an honest and realistic self-evaluation of where it sits and the commitment to do something about it—could find that it is in a different category from a school that is in denial. That is fundamental to motivating the right sort of behaviour that the system is trying to stimulate.
It is not just an external inspection through the Ofsted process but a conversation with the school improvement partner. Part of the SIP's function is to challenge the processes used by the school in carrying out self-evaluation and the outcomes that result. The SIP can pose questions, suggest sources of evidence and challenge interpretations of the evidence that the school itself has not seen, but which someone external with a wider perspective of what is possible and what is happening can see. That is what good external challenge is about. The SIP can advise managers on identifying improvement priorities and read the summary provided on the self-evaluation form critically, checking that it is based on evidence, not assertion, and that it identifies significant issues.
We have all seen the process that produces glossy documents, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, which are modestly self-congratulatory. Much more impressive are the people who have achieved, but who are critical about how to go further. That is what impresses the experienced inspector and external stimulus.
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