Ofsted still rewards schools in leafy constituencies - but this is no longer where the Conservative government needs to impress voters.

Despite private concern regarding the reliability, validity and usefulness of inspection, the idea of root and branch reform of the schools inspectorate has, for many years, been relegated to the “too-difficult, too-risky” box by ministers and their advisers.

The government knows, through bitter experience, that when it gets into public disagreements with the “independent” inspectorate, it invariably comes off second best.

Ofsted is one of the most publicly recognisable brands in education. It tells us that the public loves it. Focus groups say that parents want spot-checks on schools and that they like the simplicity of a single word judgement to describe a school’s effectiveness. Ofsted is a clear vote winner, apparently.

Why Ofsted is harmful

The fact that inspection does more harm than good to educational standards is, therefore, a rather inconvenient truth. Compelling evidence shows that overall effectiveness judgements are rather meaningless, often wrong and a poor indicator of the quality of education that your child will receive. Yet, so far, no politician in charge of school standards has felt overly keen to tackle this problem head-on.

And why would they? The vast majority of schools have been judged “good” or “outstanding”. Having an “outstanding” school down the road makes people feel good about where they live, particularly when they see house prices rise as a consequence. Very few people in these predominately middle-class areas will thank you for calling this out.

However, the story is often very different in deprived neighbourhoods. These are places where current inspection arrangements are actually making it harder for schools to provide a good standard of education. Where great teachers and leaders are being put off working because they don’t believe that they’ll be treated fairly by the inspectorate for doing so.

Inspections unfair on deprived schools

In the same way that an “outstanding” judgement can lift a community, a failing judgement can depress it. The Conservative election victory was delivered by working-class votes. The political map has changed. Boris Johnson’s so-called “New Majority” are precisely the people who are being let down most by our current inspection system.

This should cause policymakers in and around Number 10 pause for thought. If the Conservatives want to deliver on their promises to this new group then they need to look again at their intended reforms through the eyes of their new voters.

During the election, faced with Labour’s promise to abolish Ofsted, the Conservatives made the predictable play that they would strengthen it. This wasn’t just a case of “when they go low, we go high” - this was focus-group-friendly policy designed to look strong on standards and behaviour.

But looking strong is different to being strong. Tory strategists may well reflect whether an approach of more school inspection is still the best policy when all the evidence shows that current arrangements are doing serious harm to the working-class communities that they are so keen to befriend.

Earlier this year, Theresa May’s government took a massive leap of faith in backing Ofsted to right the many wrongs of the high-stakes inspection regime, first among them to level the playing field between schools serving deprived communities and more affluent areas. Questions are already being asked whether that faith was misplaced. The recent announcement of inspection outcomes from the first 800 or so inspections under new arrangements show that this disparity is continuing unabated.

There is an alternative. Last year, NAHT, where I am deputy general secretary, presented a vision for the future of inspection within the report Improving School Accountability - which identified recommendations to level the playing field and use inspector expertise more constructively to provide a sharper diagnosis of issues. Our School Improvement Commission will report in the Spring and will take this further, setting out how inspection could be refocused to support not hinder continuous improvement in all schools.

For government to achieve the necessary improvements to inspection requires nerve and a willingness to expend considerable political capital. But with such a strong parliamentary majority, perhaps things are finally about to change.

Nick Brook is deputy general secretary of the NAHT headteachers’ union and chair of the NAHT’s accountability commission