Moreover, perhaps contrary to the public 2 OFSTED: INSPECTION REFORM perception, a large majority of school leaders (83%) who responded to the most recent set of post-inspection surveys agreed that “the benefits of my inspection outweigh any negative outcomes”.11 Given this, and the lack of alternative means to provide information to parents and challenge to schools, it would be unwise – and unpop. [...] In this report we will look at the four core challenges for Ofsted and the Department for Education and what the options are for the new chief inspector and the secretary of state: • Accountability: Ofsted was introduced to shift the purpose of inspections to achieve improvement through accountability to parents and central government, rather than just to provide advice and recommendations. [...] As even this brief overview indicates, the bigger the change the more complex the wider ramifications and the greater the risks to the system. [...] In an environment in which funding for public services is highly constrained (something that will not change after the next general election), the new chief inspector, and the Department for Education, will need to be able to make the case that budget increases will materially improve the quality of inspection, the training of inspectors, and reliability. [...] As Sean Harford, Ofsted’s former director of schools, wrote in 2019, in response to concerns the new framework wasn’t making a big enough difference: “[Though] schools in the poorest areas of the country face a steeper path to providing a good quality of education for their pupils… When it comes to an overall judgement, we have to report on the quality of education as we find it.
- Pages
- 20
- Published in
- United Kingdom
