Ofsted’s one-word judgements should be replaced with a more “nuanced” inspection report, Sir Michael Wilshaw has told Tes.
The former chief inspector said that he had changed his mind on these judgements following a period of reflection after the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.
And Sir Michael said he now supports Labour’s plan to replace headline inspection grades with a scorecard.
His intervention comes in the week that Ofsted announced a raft of changes to its inspections after Ms Perry’s death earlier this year, and after the Commons Education Select Committee launched an inquiry into school inspections.
Ms Perry’s family said she died by suicide after an Ofsted inspection that she was told would downgrade her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
Ofsted under pressure over school inspections
Asked by Tes whether one-word judgements have had their day, Sir Michael, who was chief inspector from 2012 to 2016, said: ”I think it’s inevitable,” adding that the whole ratings system “needs to change”.
He said: “I’ve thought about it since this whole tragic episode took place. This is a woman who had the confidence of parents, raised achievement - educational provision was good - who fell down on one judgement.”
A narrative report on the school inspection setting out what needed to be addressed urgently, while making it clear that everything else was fine, “would have been much better than calling somebody ‘inadequate’”, he added.
Sir Michael confirmed, when asked, that he was calling for an overhaul of the entire grading system - not just Ofsted’s approach to safeguarding, which the inspectorate has already committed to changing.
His comments come after he previously appeared to defend the current inspections system on the basis that parents want a “summary judgement” of whether a school is “good” or not.
And the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, quoted Sir Michael in Parliament, during a debate in April about Ofsted following the death of Ms Perry, as saying that Labour reform plans “risk lowering standards and [creating] a distraction”.
But he has now told Tes that, while one-word judgements had ”been a lever for government to intervene in schools”, the time has come for change. “I just think you can do it in a more nuanced way now,” he said.
Expanding on how the debate following Ms Perry’s death had changed his perspective, Sir Michael said: ”I think this made everyone think, and it’s made me think. And it’s made me change my mind.”
He said he had listened to “respected people in the profession”, union leaders and former inspectors who wanted inspection reports to be “more narrative-based” while still being “quite hard-hitting and challenging”.
The narrative report could, he said, point out strengths and weaknesses and make it clear where inspectors were unhappy.
Where concerns had been raised by inspectors, the end of the narrative judgement could recommend an early reinspection of the school, he suggested.
There have been widespread calls for similar plans, including by Labour, which wants to ditch headline inspection grades and replace them with “report cards”.
When Labour’s policy was announced in March, Sir Michael - known as a tough, outspoken chief inspector in his time who made no apologies for Ofsted’s demanding approach - called it a “distraction” that ”risks lowering standards in schools”.
However, he told Tes this week that he supported Labour’s plan as long as it was piloted first.
He said: “I’ve reflected on it. And I’ve changed my mind. I think it is a good idea, as long as they run quite a lot of pilot inspections where they learn the lessons and make sure that inspection is as challenging as it’s always been.”
The future of Ofsted has been hotly debated in Parliament in the wake of Ms Perry’s death, with both main political parties quoting the current and former chief inspectors in their arguments.
The current Ofsted chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, defended one-word judgements earlier this week after the watchdog announced its planned changes.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, she said the consequences associated with single-word inspection ratings are “part of the wider school accountability system”.
“It’s not for me to decide that there will or won’t be judgements in this system,” she said.
“We could write a sentence but if the significance is the same and the consequences are the same, then it wouldn’t really solve that underlying discomfort [of headteachers].
“The choice is the wider accountability system, which sets consequences for different overall outcomes.
“That is what drives the world’s focus on those overall grades for us.”
Responding to Sir Michael’s comments, Labour’s shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said: “Sir Michael Wilshaw’s endorsement of Labour’s plans to reform Ofsted shows, yet again, that Labour is leading the way in education while the Conservatives offer nothing but drift.
“We need better than a system of accountability that’s high stakes for staff but low information for parents. That is why Labour, the party of high and rising standards, will reform Ofsted and introduce a new report card system that makes parents and teachers partners in the push for better in our classrooms.”
