Ofsted should carry out ungraded inspections on schools for an interim period while the watchdog works on making major changes, according to headteachers’ leaders.
The NAHT school leaders’ union is also calling for the inspectorate to immediately give schools a mechanism to halt an inspection where inspector conduct or practice fails to meet required standards.
The union published a new report today following the inquest into the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.
In it, the NAHT warns that Ofsted inspection stress is driving a national “mental-health crisis” in schools and describes the current inspection model as “unsafe, unreliable and inhumane”.
The NAHT’s survey of its members shows that almost all respondents (97 per cent) do not think the watchdog should continue to use single-word or single-phrase judgements.
And school leaders are also sceptical about the idea of replacing inspection grades with report cards - an idea being suggested by the Labour party - with only 14 per cent of respondents supporting this.
The report shows the majority of respondents (64 per cent) believe that single-word judgements should be replaced with a “short written summary of strengths and weaknesses”.
It also recommends that Ofsted reforms its complaint procedure and commits to publishing all training materials.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said: “The tragic case of Ruth Perry last year shone a bright light on the desperate need for Ofsted reform.”
The watchdog’s new chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, has been working with school leaders’ unions and the Confederation of School Trusts to “provide challenge” as it works on its response to the coroner’s report from Ms Perry’s inquest.
Mr Whiteman said: “NAHT’s report today includes some immediate actions Ofsted needs to take, some of which Sir Martyn is already considering. But more is needed, urgently, and NAHT will continue to work with Ofsted to build a safe inspection system that is fit for purpose.”
The calls for reform follow a coroner’s finding that an Ofsted inspection at Ms Perry’s school “likely contributed” to her death.
Here are seven key findings from NAHT’s Rethinking School Inspection report.
1. Ofsted should carry out ungraded inspections only when it resumes
At the start of this year, Ofsted announced that school inspections would be paused until 22 January to ensure that all lead inspectors received mental health awareness training in response to concerns raised by the coroner.
The NAHT says Ofsted should revert to a model of interim ungraded inspections for all schools except those identified as causing concern.
It says this could be similar to those conducted during the Covid pandemic period, focused on evaluating and reporting a school’s strengths and weaknesses through a short letter.
2. School leaders do not believe Ofsted’s reports are useful
The report finds that most school leaders do not agree that Ofsted’s current approach to reporting provides useful information for the general public, pupils, parents or schools.
More than three-quarters (76 per cent) say inspection reports do not provide useful information for schools.
Both the “headline overall effectiveness” and “supporting grades” should be removed, the report recommends, and replaced with a “diagnostic analysis”.
3. Improve inspector expertise and experience
A large majority (85 per cent) of leaders disagree that inspectors have “sufficient experience to reliably inspect schools of different phases, types and sizes”.
The report says that schools should only be inspected by a team with “extensive and relevant phase experience”.
The NAHT report also says that all school inspections should be led by an HMI who is employed directly by Ofsted, and that efforts should be made to turn this role an “attractive option” for late-career leaders.
4. New inspection framework should not enforce any ‘pedagogical viewpoint’
The report criticises the current inspection framework, which it says has “very significantly overstepped the role of an inspectorate”.
“Ofsted’s role is to inspect what a school does, not test a school’s adherence to a pre-defined approach to teaching and learning,” the report adds.
It goes further to say that a new inspection framework must not be used to “prescribe or define specific approaches to curriculum planning or delivery, as the current one does”, or be used to enforce any “particular pedagogical viewpoint”.
The current inspection framework was introduced by former chief inspector Amanda Spielman in 2019, with an increased focus on the content and delivery of subject curriculums.
5. Extend the notice period for inspection
The NAHT report says that the current inspection notice period of half a day is not long enough, with a large majority of school leaders (85 per cent) supporting a longer notification period.
Instead, it recommends that each school has a notice of approximately 48 hours, which should not be over a weekend.
Almost all leaders (93 per cent) believe that schools should know the window for their next inspection within a school year.
6. Separate safeguarding checks from inspection
Almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of leaders say that removing the evaluation of safeguarding arrangements from routine Ofsted inspections and replacing it with an annual assessment would deliver improvements.
Meanwhile, more than four in 10 school leaders (44 per cent) say they consider Ofsted’s current safeguarding judgement unreliable.
The report instead recommends that separate safeguarding checks be conducted by local authority safeguarding experts.
Labour is planning to introduce a separate annual safeguarding check, but this would still be carried out by Ofsted. Routine school inspections would still be able to look at safeguarding concerns, according to its proposals.
7. ‘Urgent’ need to inspect trusts
The NAHT believes there is an “urgent requirement” for Ofsted to inspect at academy trust level, but recognises that there is “much to be considered” in developing trust inspection.
Ofsted does not currently have the power to inspect trusts but instead provides summary evaluations. Both Labour and Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn have expressed a desire for this to change.
In an interview with Tes earlier this month, Sir Martyn said that multi-academy trusts should be inspected at group level by the watchdog, but said his main priority on starting his new role was school-level inspections.
Ofsted is expected to publish its response to the coroner’s Regulation 28 report into future deaths on Friday, just before inspections are set to resume.
