An Ofsted director has said there is too much marking and too much reliance of meaningless data in the education system.
Sean Harford, the inspectorate’s national director of education, has said inspectors do not need to see lots of data, spreadsheets, graphs and charts about how children are performing.
His comments follow a recent Association of School and College Leaders poll which suggested that some Ofsted inspectors were adding to headteachers’ workloads by asking for information that they are not supposed to request.
In a new blog, Mr Harford also reiterated that Ofsted does not want to see a specific amount, frequency or type of marking.
He said he had been asked on Twitter what was the biggest flaw in assessment in this country.
‘Too much marking’
“I think there is too much marking being expected compared with the resultant benefits to pupils’ learning; too much reliance on meaningless data; and too little meaningful assessment of the right things at the right point in the curriculum,” Mr Harford said.
He added that Ofsted could help to address this, saying: “We shouldn’t be asking you to predict progress or attainment scores.
“This is for the very good reason that they’re based on the national performance of each cohort, so they can’t be compared until everyone’s taken the test.”
He said Ofsted inspectors were looking to see that a school’s assessment system supports pupils’ journeys through the curriculum. Schools are told that it is important that they don’t design assessment around what they think inspectors will want to see.
“What inspectors do want to see is the assessment information your school uses, in the format that you find works best, to help you know how well your pupils’ are doing at the point they are at in your curriculum. And then, crucially, what you do with that information to support better pupil achievement,” Mr Harford said.
Last week the ASCL poll revealed that despite Ofsted not requiring schools to predict the attainment or progress score of their pupils, 62 per cent of leaders were asked to predict pupil attainment and 47 per cent were asked for predicted progress scores.
Ofsted also said it does not require extensive tracking of how pupils are doing, but almost half of respondents to the poll (45 per cent) said their school was asked to provide this information.
