Ofsted has been criticised for telling its inspectors that teaching children to speak standard English is a matter of social justice.
The instruction is contained in Ofsted training materials that have been circulating on social media. Despite calls for the watchdog to share these materials with all schools, amid fears that schools that have seen them online will have an unfair advantage in their inspections, it has declined to do so.
The content of one its documents - designed to support inspectors carrying out deep dives into English teaching in primary schools - has been criticised for its approach to pupils learning to speak standard English.
The inspector training material, which is marked as confidential and for training purposes only, gives examples of what a school might say during an inspection. In one section, it raises concerns about schools not teaching children to speak standard English.
The document highlights how to respond to a school that says: “Teaching pupils to speak standard English is not our priority because it is elitist and pupils should not be forced to adopt
middle-class ways of speaking.”
Ofsted under fire over inspection materials
Ofsted’s document then tells its inspectors: “This and similar attitudes are not in keeping with the NC [national curriculum], which specifies that pupils are taught standard English, a term for accurate grammar use which has nothing to do with accents.
“If pupils cannot speak grammatically correct language, they are often excluded from certain jobs and universities. Teaching standard English is a matter of social justice.”
This has been criticised by linguistics experts.
Dr Rob Drummond, a reader of sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “The ‘teaching standard English is a matter of social justice’ argument is actually quite weak.
“I think teaching young people effective oral communication skills is a matter of social justice, but there is absolutely no reason why those skills have to be developed within the artificial confines of ‘standard English’.
“Insisting on that link simply reinforces the inequalities and linguistic injustices that are already in play in wider society. We need to be encouraging teachers and young people to be challenging those inequalities through developing linguistic fluency that does not depend on inconsistent use of half-remembered rules that belong on the page, and not in the voice.”
He also questioned Ofsted’s assertion that: “If pupils cannot speak grammatically correct language, they are often excluded from certain jobs and universities.”
Dr Drummond said: “I’d like to see some evidence of this. Both in terms of what grammatically correct standard English speech does and doesn’t sound like, and in terms of exclusion from jobs and universities.”
The training instruction that Ofsted has given its inspectors has also been criticised on social media.
Ian Cushing, senior lecturer in English and education at Edge Hill University, said: “This is how Ofsted inspectors are trained to respond to teachers who resist standard language ideologies.
“Note how they use guises of ‘social justice’ to do this, perpetuating the myth that if marginalised people would just modify their voice, this will solve social inequalities.”
Ofsted declined to comment on this criticism.
The watchdog has faced ongoing criticism for not sharing its training inspection materials with all schools, despite calls for it to do so from both the Association of School and College Leaders and the Confederation of School Trusts.
In a letter sent to ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton, Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said: “Our policy is not to publish our training materials. As they are intended for inspectors, they lack the necessary context for a wider audience.
“The ‘aide memoires’ are summaries of a very detailed inspector training programme. They do not include any new ideas or approaches to methodology.
“All of the content is in the public domain in our published research reviews, subject videos and other materials.
“Our concern is that releasing these documents separately, without the accompanying context and detail, could lead to people misinterpreting their purpose or messages. In particular, we are concerned that schools could use them as simple checklists, leading to increased and unnecessary workload.”
