A former Ofsted chief inspector has said longer inspections would be needed for the watchdog to be able to assess schools across 10 areas, after report card proposals were leaked last week.
Tes has revealed that sector leaders had been shown plans to inspect schools across a wide range of areas, which included separating out teaching and curriculum - and looking at other areas including attendance, opportunities to thrive and preparation for next steps.
A report in the Financial Times said that in total there were ten inspection areas for schools in these proposals, and Ofsted is suggesting introducing a new five-point scale.
Longer inspections needed ‘for it to work effectively’
Sir Michael Wilshaw told Tes that he is sceptical about Ofsted being able to inspect all proposed categories in the current timeframe in which inspectors visit schools.
“Ofsted will have to increase the inspection timeframe for it to work effectively,” Sir Michael, who led the inspectorate from 2012 to 2016, said.
He added: ”Inspectors need to spend more time in school to deal with the issues raised within those categories.”
Ofsted has not yet commented publicly on the leaked proposals. It is set to launch a formal consultation on its inspection plans in the new year.
An Ofsted inspection will usually take two days, according to guidance published by the school watchdog.
Other categories understood to be included in the new report card proposals include behaviour, leadership and inclusion, which Ofsted had already announced will be a key focus of its new inspections.
New report card may not have ‘sufficient validity’
The Ofsted draft proposals have sparked debate online among school leaders.
Writing on Bluesky, Advantage Schools trust CEO Stuart Lock said: “With ten categories and five headings made in two days, there will always be something an inspector can find to impose their unavoidable bias onto, even if they don’t intend to,” he said.
“I can’t see it ever having sufficient validity,” Mr Lock, who leads a trust of ten schools in the East of England, said of the new draft proposals.
Sir Michael also warned that inspecting more areas also “comes back to the issue of money”.
Ofsted has previously said that calls for “deeper and richer” inspections could cost an extra £8.5 million a year. In her independent review, Dame Christine Gilbert warned that the inspectorate’s funding was “challenging” and may impact the volume of inspections it carries out.
Inspecting teaching ‘worked well’, says former Ofsted chief
Sir Michael told Tes he agreed with the idea of having teaching as a separate inspection category.
During his time in charge of Ofsted, “teaching, learning and assessment” was one of the sub-judgements that schools were measured on - something he said “worked quite well”.
In September 2019, this and the “outcomes for pupils” category were replaced by the “quality of education” judgement in the Education Inspection Framework introduced by former chief inspector Amanda Spielman.
“Teaching is the most important factor in improving standards,” he added. Last year, he told MPs that Ofsted inspectors were “not focusing enough on teaching quality”.
The idea of Ofsted returning to giving schools a rating or score for their teaching has provoked debate and concern in the sector.
Writing for Tes, former Ofsted subject lead Zoe Enser said that inspecting teaching was an ”area fraught with difficulty”.
“It risks distortion of practices and the creation of policies that are written to include tick-box compliance to half-formed ideas,” Ms Enser warned.
An Ofsted source told Tes last week that the proposed changes were not about Ofsted conducting lesson observations, and that the focus would be on how teachers are being supported.
Ofsted has ‘learnt nothing’ if proposals go ahead
Ofsted’s plans for a new inspection framework come after the government announced that overall single-word judgements were being immediately scrapped and that the inspectorate would move to a report card system from September 2025.
It also follows the watchdog carrying out a major public consultation exercise - The Big Listen - earlier this year.
Last year, there were widespread calls for reform of Ofsted after a coroner found that inspection had contributed to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life after an Ofsted inspection downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
Ms Perry’s sister, Professor Julia Waters, told Tes that if the proposed plans, which emerged last week, go ahead then she fears that Ofsted “will have learnt nothing”.
“More judgements have the danger of opening up different ways teaching staff can be penalised,” she warned.
She is also concerned that single-word judgements are still in place for the categories Ofsted would be inspecting, in the proposals which have been leaked.
“It appears that Ofsted has done the work themself,” Professor Waters continued, echoing similar concerns by headteachers’ leaders that the inspectorate has been drawing up report card “behind closed doors”.
Ofsted has been approached for comment.
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