SecEd

The ONLY weekly voice for secondary education

Inside this issue

Boycott threat after unions blast Ofsted

by Chris Parr

Creating a 21st century library

We hear from a practising librarian who was challenged to develop a brand new library fit for the 21st century in a 19th century building

Pages 8 and 9

The leaders of two major education unions are to take legal advice on the possibility of boycotting Ofsted inspections. Speaking to the National

Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) annual conference in Liverpool on Saturday (May 1), Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), received an extended round of applause after revealing that the two unions will be discussing ways to implement an inspection boycott.

Ms Blower said: “We (the

NAHT and NUT) need to ask our lawyers to find a way that would mean we can boycott Ofsted.” She added: “Ofsted blights the

lives of our members, and of whole school communities. A primary school in my area was threatened with a category, and colleagues in the area said ‘that’s not right’. We successfully had it removed. There aren’t many success stories against Ofsted, but there are some.” However, Ed Balls, Labour’s

education spokesman, labelled the move “crackers”. Speaking to SecEd at the con-

ference, he said: “Whenever you change the inspection framework, it takes a little bit of time for both schools and inspectors to get used to the new framework, and they have raised the bar on attainment. But they have also been clear that it is a broad judgement about the progress of all children, and attain- ment is not a limiting factor. “At a time when the debate is

about willing public support for continuing to invest in education ... the idea that it is sensible for the NUT to start talking about boy- cotting independent inspections is crackers.”

Teachers back Labour

Which Whiteboard?

Our ICT pages this week look at how you should go about choosing which interactive whiteboard is the best for your school

Page 10

Working together

The Edge Partnership of Schools in Birmingham is made up of 10 schools – five secondary, three special, one grammar, and an academy. We look at how they are working together for the benefit of all

Page 12

SecEddigital

and Twitter

Thousands of teachers are reading SecEddigital, a virtual edition of SecEd, which is emailed out every week. You can sign up for free by emailing editor@sec-ed.co.uk. SecEd news and features are now also available on Twitter. You can follow us at www. twitter.com/SecEd_Education

Today (Thursday, May 6), hundreds of thousands of teachers and school staff will be heading to polling stations across the UK in what promises to be one of the closest general elections in recent times. While the Tories may be

ahead in the national polls, an exclusive survey carried out this

SecEd survey findings:

Labour: 44%

Lib Dem: 38%

Conservative: 11%

Undecided: 7%

week with the members of SecEd’s 200-strong editorial board shows quite a different result, with Labour and the Liberals well ahead of the Conservatives. The poll comes three weeks after

SecEd took our editorial board’s questions to the three main parties’ education spokesmen and published their answers. This week we found

out what our board thought of the politicians’ responses before asking them how they intended to vote. For more, see page 4.

Ofsted threat: Christine Blower, NUT general secretary

Ms Blower’s speech came after

four separate conference motions called on the NAHT to take “robust action” to change the Ofsted frame- work, to campaign to have the inspectorate replaced with a “pro- fessional non-partisan body”, and to urge the inspectorate to make more intelligent use of data. Tim Gallagher, a consult-

ant headteacher from the union’s Worcestershire branch, told of a colleague who had suffered a heart attack following a stressful inspec- tion, claiming that “individual rogue inspectors” were causing hurt and damage. He added: “The current Ofsted

system is inappropriate, unfair, and not fit-for-purpose.” Mike Curtis, an NAHT member

from Oxfordshire, added: “Everyone here knows a good headteacher who has been hounded out of the profession by a bad Ofsted experi- ence. Sometimes achievement does dip and help and support is what is needed here. Being told that you are a failure can push you into a downward spiral.” A spokesman for Ofsted defend-

ed the inspection framework, say- ing that results of its own internal survey found that schools’ expe- rience of the inspection arrange- ments introduced last term had been “overwhelmingly positive”. He said: “Nine out of 10 who

have responded to feedback sur- veys say they were satisfied with the way inspection was carried out. Most believe inspection judgements were fair and accurate. Independent surveys also confirm that the vast majority of both teachers and par- ents support school inspection and consider it helps to promote improvement.” Elsewhere at the NAHT con-

ference, Michael Gove, the Conservative education spokes- man, received a rapturous round of applause after saying the inspection framework was “broken”. His party has pledged to intro-

duce an inspection regime that would assess four “core” areas: quality of teaching; quality of leadership; pupil achievement and attainment; and pupil behaviour and safety. David Laws, the Liberal

Democrat spokesman, was also warmly applauded after calling on politicians to realise that “excessive regulation is part of the problem, not the solution”. Mr Balls added: “In my own

personal experience, although sometimes it can be tough, I think (Ofsted) works often to the ben- efit of schools – especially where change is needed. It is important that Ofsted is consulting and talking to schools, and it is important that they are doing things in a consistent and fair way.”

UK news n SecEd: On your side n Independent thinking n Moral support n Lighting fires n Union address n At the chalkface

Issue 248 • May 6 2010 Price £1.00

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