In most walks of life, the tide has turned against organisations being run in a climate of fear. It used to be thought that fear might keep people on their toes or help to raise standards. Indeed, for short bursts of time, it sometimes does. But now it’s pretty clear that fear, at best, makes people risk-averse and at worst, paralysed by anxiety.

Ofsted, in its current form, is a hangover from this now outdated mindset. It generates unnecessary pressure and unnecessary fear. The grading of schools into four categories, based on a one- or two-day visit, is a label and a bludgeon that is wholly counter-productive. For schools named “outstanding”, it usually results in them being more cautious - in order to keep their status. For those that “require improvement” or are in special measures, it almost always results in a haemorrhaging of staff and plummeting morale, making improvement much more difficult.

The erratic nature of the judgements is unfair: there’s a correlation between areas of poverty and low Ofsted grades. Those working the hardest to close the achievement gap between rich and poor get penalised for their efforts.

We are told that parents want the grading. It is a patronising view of them - implying, as it does, that they are too stupid to read a short report and make sense of the strengths and weaknesses of a school. Let’s stop blaming parents for a system that is wrong.

‘Toxic’ Ofsted

There are not many things that create consensus in education, but there is near unanimity that there is something “toxic” about the Ofsted approach. It is, to borrow a phrase that Dylan Wiliam uses in a different context, “a lethal mutation”. It is the mutation of a good idea - a standards-raising body - into an overly oppressive organisation that does more than any other to shape the actions of schools. Headteachers up and down the country feel obliged to do what they think Ofsted demands and wants. Because the stakes are so high, headteachers, like football managers, are constantly looking over their shoulder to see when the axe might fall.

There are three other strategic failings in its current format.

The first is that there is little developmental about an Ofsted report. Instead of writing a document that would be useful to the school - under the format, for example, of: what is going well, what needs to improve - inspectors are forced to use a checklist and not give their own developmental points. This makes the process entirely judgemental and the aftermath one of coping, not moving forward with purpose.

Crucially, it means that no head would ever be open to the inspector about the failings of the school. Instead, their duty is to put the best gloss on what is going on. A professional conversation without real candour is a terrible waste.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of Ofsted’s current format is that it has the potential, greater than any other organisation in education, to spread “best practice” and nurture “next practice”. Getting into every school, it has the ability to collate and curate remarkable practice and make it available. Occasionally, of course, this happens with subject or thematic reports. But it is not currently the engine of Ofsted practice as it should be. Again, this is not the fault of current Ofsted staff, for it has never been its remit.

There is also a huge consensus in the profession that the compliance aspects of an Ofsted inspection, most importantly safeguarding, should be separated out. This should be subject to no-notice inspections of a pass/fail nature. There is no case for no-notice or very short notice inspections for the main inspection if the aim is genuinely to help the school to raise standards.

These big and vitally important issues about Ofsted’s future are not part of the current consultation, and the education profession is being asked to comment on the micro changes which - in the grand scheme of things - are really neither here nor there.

Yet, they are worth responding to, if only to iron out the worst mistakes. For example, why is the EBacc mentioned? It’s not the job of Ofsted to be ideological. We are yet to see whether the chief inspector’s support for a broader curriculum will play out on the ground or whether instead there will be an ideologically driven agenda to promote one form of knowledge curriculum. I hope it’s the former - Amanda Spielman’s determination to get away from schools being run as exam factories is encouraging.

The current Ofsted reforms are a huge missed opportunity. Much of this is down to the constraints placed on it rather than the intentions of the chief inspector. I know she would like to be more radical. Headteachers, in turn, have more power than they think and should speak with one voice for an accountability system with no grades and with the genuine mission to help all schools improve rapidly.

Liz Robinson is the co-director of Big Education and former headteacher at Surrey Square Primary School, and Peter Hyman is co-director of Big Education and co-founder and first headteacher at School 21