As a former history teacher, I’m of the view that Mary Antoinette probably didn’t say “let them eat cake” during the French Revolution.

But the apocryphal brioche-related phrase is nonetheless used to symbolise the obliviousness of the ruling class to the struggles and discontent of others in French society.

It would be rather overblown to suggest the plight of inspection policy in England today is quite on the same level as the situation faced by the eighteenth-century French proletariat.

But some may be wondering if revolution is in the air today following the secretary of state’s decision to guillotine overall effectiveness judgements.

Are we witnessing an Ofsted revolution?

Well, it rather depends. There are undoubtedly important shifts taking place, but there is much still to be decided in the months ahead. And we probably won’t know exactly how much of a revolution there has been for a while yet.

The change announced by the secretary of state for education is bold and welcome.

We have been concerned for some time that the risks of Ofsted using single-phrase overall judgements may outweigh any benefits.

There has been a growing sense that overall judgements often oversimplified the complex realities of school performance and masked the nuances and specific strengths or weaknesses that might exist.

In this way, the intention behind removing overall effectiveness judgements is to enhance insight and understanding about schools, not reduce it. This feels like the right aim.

It will also feel right to many on a symbolic level - a sense that the government is listening. Rather than telling schools and parents simply to ‘eat cake’ (or judgements for that matter), this signals a more relational approach.

But the extent of the revolution is far from certain, yet.

Aligning policy plans

We’ll know more about changes at Ofsted when its Big Listen response is published tomorrow. It will be interesting to see not just the individual changes but what they add up to as a whole.

And then we have the government’s promised report cards. Twelve months from now, inspection sub-judgements will be guillotined completely, to be replaced by a new way of measuring and indicating school effectiveness.

To ensure that this policy change actually creates more meaning for parents, rather than adding layers of complexity, careful consideration must be given to how the new system is implemented and communicated.

We can learn a little from the French here, too. It took quite some time for the metric system to become universally adopted and appreciated for its clarity and consistency in post-revolution France.

Ofsted and the DfE will need to ensure the new report cards are introduced in a way that is accessible and understandable from the outset and dovetail their workstreams so they are coherent, and purpose-aligned.

A significant risk in the year ahead is that various streams of accountability reform become siloed, ending up being piecemeal and less than the sum of their parts.

The government and Ofsted will need to think carefully about how they mitigate that in a policy environment that is characterised by myriad calls for ‘end this’, ‘inspect that’, ‘do it this way.’

Among all of the debate about how inspection should be carried out, it’s easy to forget inspection is a tool, not only to inform parents but also regulators. So, the why of inspection matters greatly.

It should be the case that redesigns of inspection and accountability arrangements build with and from an overarching strategy for regulation.

Vive la révolution?

While we’ve had glimpses of such a strategy over the years (including this government’s continuation of intervention for ‘schools causing concern’), we would welcome the new government, working with the inspectorate, crafting something that really describes the aims and approach of accountability and regulation. From there, future reforms like the report cards will likely flow more naturally.

As we begin to imagine what the future holds for inspection, this broader lens brings into focus other related areas.

For example, one wonders how well the current system of performance tables coheres with a report card future. And what of the government’s plans for regional improvement teams? How might accountability and regulation reform interact with this work?

These are big questions and impossible to answer now. But they will need to be answered with coherent plans that make sense for schools, parents and regulators. Much of this will need to be completed over the next twelve months.

Only when the dust has settled on all this will we know how much of a revolution there has really been, and whether it’s been of the right kind.

But for now, we can commend the government on the step to remove overall effectiveness judgements. It has at least opened the space for change.

Vive la révolution? Time will tell…

Steve Rollett is deputy CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts

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