Ofsted should be reformed to carry out fewer full inspections of schools and instead focus on safeguarding checks, according to a group of former senior inspectors.
The group want to see “much reduced” inspections for the majority of schools, and question whether the current system is adding value.
In an article for Tes, they call for Ofsted to be refocused on safeguarding, and for schools to share their own performance assessments.
The call is being made by former HMIs (Her Majesty’s inspectors) Adrian Lyons, Frank Norris, David Brown, Julie Price-Grimshaw, Mark Williams, and Stan Johnson, a former additional inspector.
‘Better use of resources’
They write: “With resources for education very tight and with the vast majority of schools being judged to be effective, why is Ofsted not focusing specifically on safeguarding to weed out the ‘wheat from the chaff’?”
The inspectors added: “It is time to deploy an inspector of safeguarding on a fairly regular basis to each school with the task of determining whether current arrangements appear safe, and the school culture is positive.”
They suggest this review could be undertaken by trained experts, as suggested by the Headteachers’ Roundtable, and would be viewed as a possible precursor to a full inspection undertaken by HMI, should serious problems be detected.
The letter says this should happen alongside ”much reduced inspection activity for the majority of schools”.
The former inspectors say they “do not believe Ofsted should be disbanded, but we do feel it needs to focus more sharply on the most important aspects and provide a vehicle for schools to share their own evaluations of their effectiveness”.
Speaking to Tes, Mr Norris, a former Ofsted director, said: “We are suggesting reforming Ofsted so that more time is given to regular safeguarding checks of schools and less time is spent carrying out routine education inspection of schools.
“We think this would be a better and more efficient use of resources and we are concerned that currently, the burden of routine school inspection is one of the things that is putting people off going into leadership roles. It is affecting the recruitment of heads.”
Ofsted declined to comment.
Yearly audits would ‘add burden’
In June this year, MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee were told by headteacher Keziah Featherstone, a member of the Headteachers’ Roundtable group, that schools should have a yearly safeguarding audit, separate from routine Ofsted inspections.
But the inspectorate appeared to dismiss this suggestion at a meeting of the committee last week.
Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director of social care, said: “We are passionate that you cannot disaggregate safeguarding from the cultural leadership of the school…we do not think that it is right to separate those two things and do them in two separate places. It could end up with a competition of inspectorates and judgments, and add a burden.”
Ofsted currently does not give a graded judgement to schools on safeguarding, but it does assess whether a school’s safeguarding arrangements are effective.
Its inspection handbook says: “Inspectors will go beyond simply reviewing documents in order to evaluate the safeguarding culture of the school.”
An Ofsted decision that a school’s safeguarding arrangements are ineffective leads to an “inadequate” rating of its leadership and management, as well as its overall judgement.
