Ofsted has been warned that its school inspection framework has diminished the role of school governance and that the reports it produces are “not fit for purpose”.
The warning is issued in a letter from Emma Knights, chief executive of the National Governance Association (NGA), who has urged the inspectorate to change the format of its school inspection reports to include more information for and about governors.
It comes as the NGA published a new report today setting out the experience of governing boards who have gone through recent inspection, which revealed that three in 10 reports analysed by the association did not mention governance at all.
The NGA also found that only just over a third (36 per cent) of governing boards said that the Ofsted inspection had helped with governance.
Ms Knights, in her letter to Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman, urges the inspectorate to alter the format of reports produced under the Education Inspection Framework (EIF), which has been in place since September 2019.
Ofsted reports ‘not helping school governors’
Ms Knights says: “While we applaud the principles that underpin the EIF, it is NGA’s view that the format of Ofsted reports are not fit for the improvement purposes to support Ofsted’s mission to raise standards.
“NGA asks for a return to a more informative format, which, in addition to the information for parents, specifically includes information targeted at those responsible for school improvement, including school leaders and those governing.”
The NGA report, School inspection: a view from the board, two years on, builds upon the NGA’s findings published in 2020 on how Ofsted’s EIF was impacting on governance.
Its key findings include:
- Inspectors appear to understand the strategic role of school governance; however, this is not consistently the case for every inspection.
- The role and impact of governance continues to be diminished by the reports, with 31 per cent of analysed reports not mentioning governance.
- Where schools are graded below “good”, often the published reports do not refer to governance at all.
- While nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of respondents reported positively about their Ofsted feedback meeting and said it was valuable to their governing board and school leadership, almost one-fifth of respondents (19 per cent) said their published Ofsted report was not an accurate reflection of what was heard in the meeting.
Sam Henson, the NGA’s director of policy and communications, said: “The inspection framework introduced in September 2019 is still finding its feet, given the disruption caused by the pandemic, but a decisive picture has now emerged of the declining visibility of governance through the way inspections are reported.”
He added: “This study reveals an increasing trend towards Ofsted inspection reports more generally lacking sufficient depth. NGA is therefore calling on Ofsted to return to a format that works for everyone, including school leaders and those governing.”
An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Ofsted values the role governors play in schools, and it is an area that is looked at during inspections and evaluated as part of the leadership and management judgement.
“We welcome the NGA’s report and will reflect on its findings, which show that most governors are satisfied with the inspection process.”
