Ofsted “does not care about learning”, and England’s education system rewards schools that “do not have the best learning environment”, a leading educationalist has claimed.
Professor John Hattie, the world-renowned author of Visible Learning, criticised England’s schools inspectorate while speaking today at the virtual World Education Summit about yet-to-be published findings from an international learning survey of 87 schools worldwide and 29,000 people.
Professor Hattie has worked on the survey with global school improvement specialist Osiris Educational.
Talking about the survey, he said: “We took out the English schools and we looked at their Ofsted rankings…Ofsted doesn’t care about learning. In fact, the ‘outstanding’ schools have at times the lowest profile on learning.”
Around half of the schools involved in the survey were in England.
Professor Hattie, former director of Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, said: “My hunch is that [the ‘outstanding’ schools] are very compliant, very rule-governed and, sadly, that is not a good predictor for students’ futures.”
Ofsted ‘doesn’t look at pupils’ experience of education’
Professor Hattie also raised concerns that inspection reports do not include enough information about pupils’ experience of their education.
He said: “I have a hunch that when you look through those reports, hardly ever do they say anything other than, ‘Oh, the learning was great in that school’ - there was virtually nothing from the students’ perspective of what it means to be a learner.
“It was through these inspectors’ eyes, they go into classrooms and they look at teachers and they see what they do and they assume the experience of the students.”
During a question and answer session at the summit, Prof Hattie went on to question the value of inspectors observing teachers’ lessons.
He said: “How can I, a 70-year-old, a 50-year-old, a 30-year-old, how can I stand in the shoes of a five-year-old and a 15-year-old and do that?
“We need to pause and include asking the student’s voice about what it means to be a learner as part of that equation.
“I think there are some pretty serious problems there that we are - well, you are in your country - reinforcing and rewarding schools that do not have the best learning environment.”
Ofsted declined to comment.
Findings from the learning survey - described by Osiris as the world’s largest student survey focused purely on learning - are expected to be published in May.
In 2008, Professor Hattie published his influential study Visible Learning: a synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.
