I’m all in favour of an inspection system that rewards a wider educational focus, especially if it takes the heat out of external exam results. It’s the ultimate defeat for education to produce a cohort of students who have performed their socks off but then value very little of the learning that has been crammed into them.

Evidence emerging from the English and Media Centre research into students’ reactions to the first round of the “reformed specifications” in GCSE English is disquieting, showing that many potential A-Level students for English seem to have been put off. It’s a strong case for the kind of change mooted by the inspectorate.

So far, Amanda Spielman has avoided the bluster of previous incumbents. Capable of sharp controversial comment at times, she has also been prepared to listen, when she acknowledges that Ofqual has been part of the problem of excessive workload.

If she is to achieve her aim of eradicating the practice that has been responsible for the narrowing she so abhors, she needs to take a further step forward in understanding the origin of current pressures. Consulting teachers about the efficacy of her proposals and the consequences when they are implemented would be a welcome improvement on past practice. This way, Ofsted inspections would be more about educational outcomes than appeasing political stakeholders. 

It’s a step in the right direction that Ofsted intends to discourage schools from starting GCSE courses in Year 9 and to stop seeing Year 7 as GCSE fodder. 

Something has to give

Ofsted overlooks the fact that GCSE courses have become so large and in order to accommodate them in just two years, many schools have had to use lunchtimes, holidays and after-school sessions for intensive coaching and lesson catch-ups. Somewhere, something has to give, and at the moment it is some teachers’ and pupils’ time in Years 10-11.

The current inspection system requires schools to prove that they are achieving high standards. Focus on pupil progress and outcomes result in evidence trails, which are problematic because they are expected to remain positive at all times. 

Data from systems like the 16-18 information system, Alis, Middle Years Information System (MidYIS) and FFT are produced at the start of a key stage and are taken to imply that the educational journey should be a done deal from the taking of the test to the final result in five years’ time. It’s no wonder that schools invest in exam board progress tests and watered down GCSE tests of their own devising to ensure their pupils achieve their predicted grades or better. High stakes inevitably entail low-risk strategies to minimise damaging consequences.

Even though we all know that the most effective learning is fraught with difficulty, failure and revision, the culture of blame can be off-putting. Under constant surveillance, teachers and pupils will be reluctant to experiment. An over-repetitive cycle of data-drops and reporting may satisfy third parties, but it has just become another factory process detracting from the breadth and pleasure of learning.

Like many of my colleagues, I’m wondering how Amanda Spielman and her inspection teams will expect schools to evidence their efforts at widening the curriculum. Does she simply mean that Key Stage 3 should be about content not included in exam specifications? Does she mean more innovative teaching methods balanced with traditional strategies? And is the co-curricular now more central to the inspection process?

If so, have the classroom teacher and subject head now embarked on a bout of evidence-provision that cannot possibly be accommodated in the working week?

Schemes of work and sample plans, handbooks, Quality Assurance documents, policies and a plethora of other documents have to be made available just in case inspectors wish to view them. These days, the audience for such documents is not confined to the teacher, but for inspectors to pick up evidence to support their judgments.

Inspectors on tour

Currently, the Independent Schools Inspectorate has a system that involves inspectors going on a tour of classrooms with sheets to record where they find evidence of the themes they are looking for, such as British Values. This may sound laudable because inspectors will find schools operating as they really are. 

The only problem is that instead of inspectors seeing schools operating as individual self-regulating educational entities, schools themselves become a reflection of inspection demands. Teachers need to be able to deliver excellence and as many themes as possible in even less than a 20-minute slot as inspectors tour from classroom to classroom, filling in multiple sheets.

This results in a premium being placed on performance over learning. There is no room for uncomfortable moments when pupils don’t quite get the instruction or are struggling with the material, let alone needing longer than a few seconds to generate their own solutions. 

Perhaps, in its consultation, Ofsted should include a question on the best ways of inspectors gathering sound evidence of learning, which do not use “learning walks”.

So, how can variety be shown in teaching and learning?

If the regulator wants to widen learning, it needs to work out what will be the manifestations of curriculum breadth. Tracking systems can show each child’s involvement in lunchtime clubs, competitions, outside ventures and achievements in class. The value of this is that all achievements are celebrated and recorded for pupils and other parties. They inform individual pastoral and academic discussions. 

This is all well and good, but the recording of achievement takes a lot of time. If support staff are involved it eases the burden. But for most schools, this won’t be an option, as support staff are already overloaded or cut back. If individual teachers are expected to fill in the forms each time new activities are identified, it exacerbates the workload problem.

Just as it has been said that peace treaties provide the conditions for the next war, so it is that every change in the inspection creates the potential for excesses. 

When Ofsted’s new framework emerges for wider consultation it is to be hoped that the process will include a survey for individual teachers to comment on proposals. In this way, information can be gathered as to current practices that distort education, together with some warnings from those on the receiving end of the potential escalation of workload, wherever it may occur.

Yvonne Williams is head of English and drama at a secondary school in the South of England.