Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman will warn against using schools as ”the first lever to pull in the face of any social challenge” in a speech at the Festival of Education today.
She is also expected to tell her audience that there are reasons to be optimistic about the country’s education recovery effort.
But Ms Spielman will warn that piling roles and agendas onto schools risks overloading them and losing sight of their “core mission” of education.
Ms Spielman is expected to say: “Some of the worst fears about the impact on education are beginning to wane. Inspections are showing that the vast majority of schools are providing a good education and helping all children get the best start they can.
“The same is true in early years and in further education. Thanks to everyone working in education, we can start to be optimistic again.”
However, she will describe the signs of recovery as “fragile”.
Her speech will add: ”We need to avoid the temptation to overload schools, by seeing them as the first lever to pull in the face of any social challenge.
”‘Teach it in schools’ is a common refrain, but the pressure of treating schools as the solution to everything puts education at risk.
“We need teachers to concentrate on the real substance of what they are teaching. It’s what they do best and it’s working.”
Last month, Tes revealed that the Department for Education is considering a direct role for Ofsted in a new “national action plan” to tackle the ongoing impact of the Covid pandemic on learning loss.
Ofsted said Ms Spielman’s speech today will also revisit themes of curriculum and the substance of education, which she spoke about in her first speech to the Festival of Education in 2017, after taking on the role of chief inspector.
Under Ms Spielman’s leadership, Ofsted launched a new curriculum-focused inspection framework for use in schools in 2019.
Her term was extended for two years in 2021 as a result of the disruption caused to inspection by the Covid pandemic but will come to an end this year.
Ofsted has faced criticism and calls for reform this year following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry. Her family said she took her own life following an Ofsted inspection visit, which subsequently resulted in her school being downgraded from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
In response to a subsequent outpouring of concerns from the schools sector, the inspectorate last month announced a series of changes to inspection, including consulting on a new complaints process and depersonalising language describing perceived areas of weakness in school inspection reports.
