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Back off Ofsted! (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13)

What you told the union

Some common themes have emerged in members’ emails and letters about the new inspection framework:
• the impact of ‘raising the bar’ in inspection judgements, especially those relating to attainment
• the new focus on safeguarding
• variations in inspection teams’ interpretation of the new framework and evaluation schedule
• inspectors’ professional and personal conduct during inspection visits.

The main areas of concern within these four themes are highlighted on these pages, using examples from members’ correspondence:

‘Raising the bar’

Inspection judgements are reached by evaluating the school’s performance against the criteria set out in the Ofsted evaluation schedule. These criteria have changed considerably compared with the previous version of the schedule. This has had a considerable impact on judgements relating to achievement especially, as inspectors now take far more account of pupils’ attainment, as measured against national averages.

“At our last inspection (two years ago) we were judged to be a good school with outstanding features. This time our inspection was triggered by Year 6 SATs results being below average… We realised before they even came that we were fighting a losing battle. Due to the new framework we already knew that Ofsted had made their mind up about us in terms of progression…”

“… because our CVA [contextual value added score] was lower than expected and hoped, Ofsted very clearly came with the judgement of ‘satisfactory’ already in their sights and simply ensured that all other areas suited their judgement… At the final judgement delivery, our SIP [school improvement partner] attended and was taken privately into a room with the lead inspector and urged to downgrade our local authority category to satisfactory in the light of the inspection findings…”

“It was made clear from the start we could receive no more than a ‘satisfactory’ due to our SATs results. The fact that some of our children require much more basic needs to be met before being educated was irrelevant. In fact everything was irrelevant except raw results.”

Members noted significant conflict between Ofsted’s expectations and the guidance given by both local authorities and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) on performance judged against CVA data. Many reported a lack of consideration of their school’s circumstances and were angry at the way Ofsted now appeared to be underestimating the achievements of the most deprived pupils by judging them against national averages. They questioned how this would help teachers raise the confidence levels and engagement of pupils who already felt that their achievements were not valued.

Safeguarding

Inspection judgements on standards of learning under the new Ofsted framework give more weight to inspectors’ decisions regarding the safeguarding of children in schools. Safeguarding is now a ‘limiting judgement’, which means that if a school is judged inadequate in this strand of the evaluation, its overall effectiveness is likely to be judged to be inadequate.

Ofsted says that if schools follow DCSF guidance, they will meet its inspection requirements regarding safeguarding. However, from its own guidance to inspectors, it appears Ofsted is raising the threshold of safeguarding by encouraging schools to develop ‘good practice’ beyond the statutory minimum for a school to be judged ‘good’.

Members have even told us of instances where, despite their school having met the statutory requirements, they have been downgraded to ‘inadequate’ rather than ‘satisfactory’. Some correspondence from members seems to contradict Ofsted’s implication that its safeguarding criteria are reasonable.

“We are a small, friendly village school and we now have to be fenced like a prison and exclude the parents…”

“We are now locking all gates for the duration of the school day. Not only has this caused havoc parking in the mornings, as certain parking areas are now off limits, but also at the end of the day children are forced to exit via two small pedestrian gateways. This is in itself a risk as we have 1,400 pupils leaving at the same time…”

“The first thing the inspectors picked us up on was that there were leaves in the playground, which was a ‘safeguarding’ issue, even though it is autumn and we are in the countryside… ”

It would appear that, as a result of unclear guidance provided to Ofsted inspectors about how they should judge safeguarding measures in schools, inspectors are making inconsistent decisions that do not necessarily correlate with statutory guidance and/or health and safety provisions. Some members have told us that disproportionate decisions made by inspectors over minor issues had resulted in their schools being downgraded to inadequate, even though a satisfactory or higher level had been achieved in all other categories.

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