Ofsted inspections of multi-academy trusts are “inevitable” but will be “complex” and potentially carry “huge risks”, MPs have heard today.
Experts from organisations including the Confederation of School Trusts, the Association of School and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the NEU teaching union were speaking at a Commons Education Select Committee inquiry into Ofsted’s work with schools.
The committee also asked the experts about a range of other issues relating to Ofsted, including single-word inspection judgements, inspector expertise, whether the 2019 inspection framework needs to be slimmed down, and the stress of waiting for an inspection.
The inquiry comes as the watchdog plans a shake-up of inspections and its complaints process.
1. MAT inspections are ‘inevitable’ but carry ‘risk’
Ofsted does not currently have the power to inspect multi-academy trusts but instead provides summary evaluations. Both Labour and incoming Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver have expressed a desire for this to change.
Steve Rollett, deputy chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, told the committee that Ofsted would need to create a separate system for inspecting MATs because there are “huge risks of layering it over the existing inspection system”.
Both he and Sam Henson, director of policy and communications at the National Governance Association, agreed that Ofsted lacked the skills and expertise to inspect trusts, which were previously deemed “too young” to face inspection.
There was also a question over how the inspectorate would grade MATs without “running the risk of an individual school within the trust being penalised”, according to Mr Henson. “We don’t want MAT inspections to be something that stops trusts taking on schools that are struggling,” he said.
In seeking to bring in sector expertise, Ofsted faces a practical issue of whether it would be able to “match salaries that those execs would be able to earn in the field”, Mr Henson added.
2. Scrapping one-word judgments would have ‘biggest impact’
Removing single-phrase judgements would be the “biggest change and impact Ofsted could have on workload and wellbeing of school and college leaders”, Tom Middlehurst, assessment and inspection specialist at the ASCL, told the committee.
Both NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede and Ian Hartwright, NAHT head of policy, were open to the idea of a report card system for inspection judgements if it also brought with it “lower stakes”. This idea has been floated by Labour.
Mr Kebede also raised the impact that one-word judgements have on recruitment: a lower Ofsted rating made it “less attractive” for teachers to join a school or college, he said.
These judgements leave schools “stuck in a cycle of decline”, Mr Kebede stated, with a judgement becoming a “self-fulfilling prophesy”.
He added that it also “perpetuates an idea that there are good and bad schools” and “good and bad teachers”.
3. Curriculum is ‘overstuffed’
Mr Hartwright said it was “time for a different style of reporting and inspection” that has “a stronger focus on supporting schools to develop”.
The curriculum has become “overstuffed”, he added, saying there is a need to “thin out and slim down the inspection framework”.
And inspectors lacked time to gather evidence, he said. “Where an inspection goes wrong, typically it’s because an inspector can’t gather the evidence and then schools start to worry about the security of the judgments,” he added.
He said he had heard “terrible stories” of inspectors “holding their hands up and telling people to stop because they haven’t got time”.
4. Inspector expertise is a real ‘weakness’
“We are not at all convinced that many inspectors have the expertise when talking about that subject level in the primary sector,” Mr Hartwright said.
There was also the “problematic” issue of Ofsted inspectors who are serving school leaders having privileged access to materials and training, Mr Middlehurst told the panel.
Instead, he called for the regulated publication of Ofsted resources for all schools to access fairly.
5. Reducing the high stakes of inspection must be a ‘priority’
Removing the high-stakes nature of an Ofsted inspection is not necessarily in the inspectorate’s control but reducing the pressure on teachers has to be a “priority”, Mr Middlehurst told MPs.
He reported that ASCL members say they live their week in two halves - “Monday to Wednesday where they live in fear of the phone call [about an inspection] and Thursday to Friday where they can actually get on with leadership”.
That is “no way to run a system”, he said.
6. Easing the pressure
Mr Kebede said that “fundamental reform” is needed before the stress level of an inspection is reduced and this trickles down to the “entire school community”.
