Every day, it seems, another local school caves in and installs a giant outdoor PVC banner. Most commonly it will tell us that Ofsted judges it to be a “GOOD SCHOOL” with “outstanding” leadership, safety procedures, water features or whatever. The wording on that banner is now, it seems, our raison d’etre.  Nothing really seems to count for anything until it is written down on plastic and displayed in font size 704. 

Any school brave enough to resist this trend has begun to look distinctly barren in comparison. Gone are the days when a typical school entrance merely featured a metallic sign displaying the name of the school followed by the name and academic credentials claimed by its headteacher.

Sadly for the head, no one seems to care about that hard-earned BA, BEd or NPQH anymore. They don’t even care about that wretched MA that put paid to the first marriage. That kind of sign is old-school now. It is completely overshadowed by the adjacent plastic hoarding. 

The preferred design appears to be a sober white font on dark blue background, presumably evoking the desired image of rigour and depth. Ofsted is quoted reverentially in the same way in which a local church displays verses from the Bible. The deified Ofsted summary judgment is normally in large capitals. Elsewhere, in a more italicised flourish, will come the Ofsted references to love, care, harmony or happiness. Sometimes there’s also an image of a selection of the young children standing together and supposedly declaring “Ofsted says we are OUTSTANDING”.  (Though when things descend to this level I generally have to pull off the road for a few minutes.) 

Apart from the questionable taste, this shameless parading of Ofsted feedback does seem hypocritical. At a time when Ofsted, in its present form, has all the credibility of a deluded, over-aged boxing pro - still capable of a knock-out blow but not to be taken too seriously - it seems distinctly odd that schools are rushing to publicise such thinly-based judgements on so broadly-based a banner. 

Meanwhile, the banner framing and printing businesses have been raking it in. Every time another school gets a “good” or “outstanding” they must know another booking is coming their way. Out comes their own celebratory banner. 

But what will they do when every successful school has ordered one? The banner-updating business will not make enough money to keep those profits soaring.  Where next for the relentless march of the banner? Maybe they can next target the supposedly “less successful” Ofsted-inspected schools? Perhaps there’s an opportunity for these schools to reap their revenge on those blinkered inspectors: WE’RE SPECIAL HERE - ‘SPECIAL MEASURES’. (OFSTED KNOBHEAD, 2017)  Though I am not sure that enough headteachers would go for this. 

There is, however, a vast and much wealthier market for those banner barons to move into - those many overly-proud parents who love to tell the world how brilliant their children are, given the slightest chance. What could be better for this sector of parent than a suitably-worded banner on the outside wall of their house or looming above the garden hedge?

The prototypes will surely be online soon. From the lavish “The Tompkins Children live here: YOU MUST BE SO PROUD OF THEM BOTH (Mrs Harris, Olly and Millie’s headteacher, Parents’ Evening 2017)” to the cheap and simple “Our Danny: DEFINITELY IMPROVING, Mr Clarke, Form Tutor”). 

A preferable vision, though, is that schools all pull down their Ofsted quotes as part of the move to turn this organisation into something more supportive, advisory and helpful to schools.

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire. For more from Stephen, see his back catalogue

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