Contrary to the perception of some, consistency is not about doing the same thing over and again to get improved results. And it’s not having a hard and fast set of rules from which you cannot deviate. Instead, it’s about having a consistent approach via guidelines that allow for flexibility according to professional judgement and experience.

It’s this flexible consistency that produces fairness and it’s the fuel that keeps schools running. It’s how teachers aspire to treat pupils and it’s how teachers want to be treated themselves. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s also what they want from the organisation charged with inspecting them.

Failing to find the balance between consistency and flexibility is a charge that has been levelled at Ofsted for some time. It’s a complaint that dogged the former chief inspector, which was why he stopped using contracted inspectors and brought them all in-house. Much work was done, but it was never finished; Ofsted never hit the sweet spot of consistency.

The reasons for that are manifold, but key was that the work he was doing waned after his departure. It was mundane, unglamorous operational work for which there is little to show except the fact that things have got more streamlined, judgements are more consistent and there are fewer complaints. It’s akin to putting a new roof on your house. No one is really going to see it and you’re not going to get the “oohs and ahs” you’d get if you’d spent the money on doing up the front room and buying a new three-piece suite.

The new chief inspector, by contrast, shifted Ofsted’s focus by doing up the front room instead. She ignored the little leaks coming through the ceiling and instead gave schools a shiny new curriculum inspection to look at. Never mind that many of the inspectors were still the same old ones who struggled with the easy option of looking at the data; now they had to judge schools on their curriculum, in many cases out of their own field of expertise.

For many schools that had been living under the tyranny of being judged only by their results, this was a welcome ray of sunlight. Others were more cautious. The shift certainly had the power to change behaviour in schools that the inspectorate felt were chasing results rather than delivering a broad and balanced curriculum.

But is it really Ofsted’s job to dictate what goes on in schools? Isn’t that making policy? And isn’t that the job of the government?

Behind the scenes, many multi-academy trust leaders were privately very perturbed by this new direction of travel, but did not speak out. However, when inspectors began marking down schools for teaching the new GCSE syllabus in three years rather than two, this proved to be the thin end of the wedge.

Now Ofsted was meddling in what should be a decision for heads to make for their pupils in their schools. This perceived “over-reach” is causing such a rift in the sector between MAT leaders and the inspectorate that the DfE has had to step in to try to resolve it.

It’s certainly an unusual position for a chief inspector to find themselves in, and while ministerial attempts at restorative practice continue, one could have assumed it might have provided both parties with a period for quiet reflection and contemplation. What one would not expect to hear is the HMCI accuse schools of having “squandered” cash in a neat echo of a newly departed minister’s constant refrain.

When the new HMCI was appointed three years ago, those who criticised the appointment of someone with no teaching experience and no experience of leading a school were told that Ofsted was just a regulator.

Does it look like a regulator now?

@AnnMroz

This article originally appeared in the 28 February 2020 issue under the headline “Flexibility vs consistency: why can’t Ofsted balance the two?”