Ofsted inspection grades should be scrapped to prevent “over-simplistic” judgements resulting in “brutal” leadership changes that create a “football-manager culture” in schools, according to a report published today.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report says an over-reliance on punitive control is driving teachers out of the profession and distracting schools from responding to their communities’ needs.
It adds that changes in school governance should be based on regional leaders’ local knowledge and not “unreliable” one-word judgements by inspectors.
The report calls for a new three-tier regulatory response system of support and intervention in schools instead, involving either school-led development, enhanced support or immediate action.
It also calls for new inspections of chains that run groups of schools to help decide who is best placed to improve struggling schools.
The report, Improvement Through Empowerment, has been written by Loic Menzies, a visiting fellow at the Sheffield Institute of Education, former teacher and founder of the Centre for Education and Youth think tank.
It makes six key recommendations to “move away from high-stakes, top-down accountability, towards a system that empowers schools and teachers to innovate and excel”.
1. Scrap ‘overly simplistic’ inspection grades
The report calls on the government to abolish overarching Ofsted judgements of schools.
It says that a judgement should only be made as to whether expected standards have been met, or whether action is needed in each separate area of the school inspection framework.
The IPPR report said that “overly simplistic inspection judgements - ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ - often trigger brutal changes to management, fueling a ‘football manager culture’”.
It adds that this conflates the role of Ofsted as an inspectorate with the regulatory role of the Department for Education regional directors, whose job is to work locally, supporting excellence across schools, children’s social care and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
2. Create new two-tier Ofsted reports
It also says Ofsted should split its school inspection reports into two, with a narrative version for parents and a technical improvement report aimed at school leaders and the DfE as regulator.
It suggests the narrative reports for parents should be in a “clear, accessible format and be accompanied by a data dashboard”. Ofsted should comment on any considerations about the context of the school, the IPPR report says.
It adds that detailed reports to the school and the DfE should focus on the nature, extent and urgency of improvement required.
3. Introduce MAT Inspections
The IPPR report adds to the calls for multi-academy trusts (MATs) to be inspected by Ofsted.
It says these inspections should provide an independent assessment of the effectiveness of support provided by a trust.
It says that the DfE’s regional directors should then combine this information with their local insight to make decisions about the most appropriate route to improvement for schools.
It also says a new MAT inspection framework should consider trusts’ contribution to teachers’ professional development.
The Beyond Ofsted inquiry report, also published today, includes a recommendation that the inspectorate be reformed to focus on school group inspections, including MATs.
4. Three-tier system of school support
Currently, Ofsted inspection outcomes of ‘inadequate’ or two consecutive outcomes of less than ‘good’ can trigger intervention from the DfE.
The report says that inspection judgements should no longer act as an automatic trigger to intervention. Instead, the DfE should work with schools as an “enabling centre to ensure that the right leadership is trusted and supported to pursue continuous improvement”.
The IPPR report recommends a new, three-tier regulatory response involving either “school-led development”, “enhanced support” or “immediate action”.
It also says that national leaders of education (NLEs) should be trained to coordinate the new approach to enhanced support.
NLEs’ primary role should be to support schools in developing school improvement plans and signing these off.
5. Move towards world-class CPD
The report also calls on the government to make progress towards an ambitious long-term goal of teachers accessing 100 hours of professional development a year.
It said this should be achieved by “investing in the infrastructure of evidence-led professional development” and should begin with a commitment to 35 hours per teacher, per year
It also calls for the Education Endowment Foundation, in consultation with the Chartered College for Teaching, to revise the current professional development standards for teachers.
6. Updated ‘teacher curriculum’
The report says an updated curriculum should set out what all teachers should learn in the first few years of their career, accompanied by a new set of standards for high-quality, ongoing professional development.
And the IPPR calls for the government to ensure that all trainees and early career teacher mentors are released from the teaching timetable. It adds that new teachers should be given space to build foundations that allow them to stay in the profession and contribute to the system.
The report says: “The next government should support schools to prioritise mentoring with additional funding on a per-teacher basis for all ECTs (early career teachers).”
On publication of the report, Mr Menzies said: “A football-manager culture, driven by one-dimensional judgements, dominates our education system. Today’s report charts a path to a future in which high standards are combined with a supportive and empowering infrastructure that helps teachers and schools to be the best they can be.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “At a time when so much in education feels so bleakly dispiriting, this report offers not just optimism but actual solutions: ideas designed to help address the eyewatering teacher recruitment and retention crisis; ideas to rebalance the punitive system by which schools are measured; ideas to make our education system work better for parents, teachers and leaders; and, most importantly, children and young people.”
Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, also welcomed the report, saying it makes “a very important contribution to the future of the school system in England”.
She added: “It is important that we reset the dial on the relationship between the state and the public sector. We must build the resilience of our school system and build and create a stronger institutional architecture in education in England.”
