Academy trusts should not sack the headteacher if a school gets a poor Ofsted judgement, according to a sector leader.
The chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), Leora Cruddas, said trusts should know their schools and heads, and not be reliant upon Ofsted to alert them to issues.
Speaking at the CST CEO Leadership Summit in Birmingham today, Ms Cruddas added that leaders should think about their trust as a “protective” structure, and that this is “powerful”.
Addressing CEOs, Ms Cruddas said: “We should know our schools. We should know our headteachers and possibly we should never sack a headteacher for a poor Ofsted. Provocative? We should know about it. Why are we waiting for Ofsted to tell us about it?”
Ms Cruddas also said that while trusts “do need to own the problem around the way that our staff are feeling”, Ofsted “definitely plays its role” in affecting wellbeing, for heads in particular.
She warned that the “high-stakes nature of accountability can add to people feeling stressed and anxious”.
MATs ‘can protect staff wellbeing’
And she asked leaders to consider how trusts can be “mobilised” as a “protective structure” to “keep those very heavy burdens of high-stakes accountability out of the way”.
The newly elected Labour government has pledged to consult on replacing single-word Ofsted judgements with a report card system and to introduce an annual safeguarding check, which would also look at attendance and off-rolling.
The move followed a national outcry after the death of headteacher Ruth Perry last year and increased concern over the wellbeing of school leaders.
During the event today, Ms Cruddas also stressed the importance of support staff, such as teaching assistants, arguing that “we have paid almost no attention to our support staff”.
She said that “we have not put the same level of rigour into thinking about their professional development”.
A survey published by the union Unison earlier this year revealed that almost half of school support staff were looking for better-paid work amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Leaders at the summit also reflected on what the new Labour government will mean for the teaching profession.
Labour government setting ‘new tone’
Professor Becky Francis, chief executive officer of the Education Endowment Foundation, said that there is a “new tone being set” by the new government, with a focus on recruitment and retention.
Yesterday the new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, reiterated the party’s manifesto pledges to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers and “reset” the government’s relationship with the profession.
This year the government missed its target for the recruitment of secondary teacher trainees by 50 per cent.
And one in 10 of all qualified teachers - equal to 43,522 - left the state-funded sector in the academic year 2022-23.
Professor Francis said that “there are tough times” for the education sector but urged leaders to “avoid a cycle of negativity detrimental to recruitment and retention”.
She added that the sector needs to “take pride in” the profession and support the “professionalisation” of teaching.
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