Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has been urged to put Ofsted inspections on hold until after the February half term to allow schools to focus on the likely fall out of the Omicron variant of Covid.

General secretaries of the National Education Union and the NASUWT teaching union have written a joint letter calling for the government to pause the inspectorate’s routine inspections of schools until after the first half term of 2022.

It comes after schools were told today that there would be no Ofsted inspections next week to give headteachers time to prepare contingency plans for coping with the Omicron variant from January.

Prime minister Boris Johnson announced yesterday that the country was moving to a Plan B to cope with rising cases of the new variant but schools have been told to carry on delivering in-person teaching.

The two major teaching unions have highlighted that 200,000 pupils were absent for Covid-related reasons on 25 November and, since then, infection rates among school-age children have risen further. They warn that as Omicron spreads this disruption is likely to increase rapidly.

‘Ofsted has no useful contribution to make’

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “School staff are working so hard to keep education for our young people going. It is stressful and many are facing burnout.

“Now is simply not the right time to return to Ofsted inspections, either before Christmas - as the Government rightly recognises - or in the weeks following.

“Of course, schools must be accountable, but on the current evidence, inspections show little or no concession to the disruption of Covid.

“This is foolish in the extreme and is leading to many good staff leaving or considering their position. Ofsted has no useful contribution to make to schools in this current situation.

“They need to get out of the way and let schools and colleges concentrate on their essential work.

“We know that many heads are refusing to work as inspectors at the moment because of this stress - and we congratulate them in taking that stance.” 

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: “The pressures on schools and their staff currently remain exceptional and extreme.

“It is clear that the resumption of routine inspection has, in many cases, resulted in significant additional workload for teachers and school leaders and has distracted them from focusing on addressing the impacts of the pandemic on their learning and wider wellbeing.

“Pausing inspection will not only address some of these pressures but would also allow for a plan to be developed to resume inspection in a way that takes account of these extraordinary circumstances and has the support and confidence of the profession”.​ 

A school leaders’ union has reiterated its call for schools to be able to defer inspections on request because they are coping with the demands of the Covid pandemic.

Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “We have repeatedly asked for Ofsted to show more empathy in its approach to inspections given the extreme pressures currently being experienced by schools and colleges in light of the continuing disruption being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are pleased to see that the chief inspector has agreed that there will be no routine inspections next week in order to allow for the contingency planning indicated by the Government.”

But she added: “It is our strong view that Ofsted should go further and agree in general to grant the deferral of routine inspections to a later date upon request while schools and colleges continue to experience the disruption being caused by the virus.”