Ofsted insists that it believes that teachers in so-called “failing” schools aren’t putting in any less effort than their peers elsewhere.  

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman has said, on the record, that leadership in these schools can be just as good as in high-performing schools. And I’m sure she’d say the same about behaviour and pastoral provision.

She would be right. As I’ve said before, I would wager my savings that if you swapped the entire staff from a “requires improvement” school with the staff from an “outstanding” one for a few years, you’d only ever see a marginal change in the performance of students and, therefore, the inspection grade.

That last one is the key phrase - “the performance of students and, therefore, the inspection grade”. I’ve been banging on for ages about two things: 1) Ofsted grades are undeniably (and Ofsted is unapologetic about this) linked to “outcomes” of students; and 2) Student outcomes are mostly dictated by environmental and hereditary factors (something I outline in more detail here).

Teaching and learning can only ever have a marginal impact on actual test outcomes. The sooner everyone - the inspectorate, government, school leadership teams - swallow that, the better for everyone. Until that time, many schools will continue to push staff to the limits, and, in many cases, it will never be good enough. Senior leaders will continue with book reviews, set unachievable performance management targets and insist on excessive and regular “pupil premium reporting” to “drive up standards”, but often more so to create a “body of evidence” for the inspectorate to prove they have been “intervening”. And thus creating a stream of burnout-inducing workload issues.

Schools will always want their students to do as well as they can, so will support them in doing so, but we’ve now got to a point where we are, in many cases, asking for the impossible. This isn’t defeatist, it’s just a fact. Schools should be able to focus on getting everything they possibly can out of their students and this should always be enough.

The burning injustice of Ofsted

So, how can Ofsted ensure that its outcomes reflect the qualities of the school and not the qualities of the students? This, for me, should be the key question for the inspectorate to ask itself over the coming years; otherwise it will simply continue to exacerbate the injustice so rampant in its decision-making process.

What reforms should be on the table?

Outcomes shouldn’t trump everything else in the inspection framework. If everything is “good” apart from outcomes, then the school should be “good” overall. At the moment, no matter what incredible work has gone on in the school, the results can tear the school down. This is why, in areas where environmental factors play such a key role in student attainment and progress, these schools are much more likely to be rated “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. This is unfair but quite easily changeable. By treating each element of the Ofsted framework with equal weighting, it levels the playing field for all schools.

Of the 735 schools inspected between September 2016 and August 2017, only 3 per cent with low Progress 8 scores received a “good” or “outstanding” rating from Ofsted. Further, up to November 2016, there were only eight secondary schools out of 588 inspected that achieved a “good” rating where outcomes were “requires improvement”. So, in other words, at the moment, “outcomes for pupils” currently dictates the “overall effectiveness” grade. This has to change.

Teacher wellbeing should be an important aspect of inspection. Exit interviews should be looked at for those teachers who do depart - why are they leaving? To save time, this should all be done electronically through a portal on the DfE website (or a non-partisan alternative) This data would, of course, be kept between government and Ofsted but could play a role in inspection (perhaps being available to schools anonymously on request). I’d also like to see yearly teacher retention data collected and published. This will enable teachers to at least be able to ask the school key questions about staff retention and potentially avoid a toxic environment.

Listen to parents. A DfE survey this year found that parents’ top three concerns about a school would be the quality of teaching and staff, the happiness of children and how the school deals with bullying. In the survey of 1,128 parents, only small percentages mentioned the progress and attainment of students in maths (32 per cent), reading (30 per cent) and writing (29 per cent) as most important. Behaviour featured much more heavily in the feedback from parents as a key area for the schools to be inspected on.

I am sure most school leaders in deprived areas would be much more comfortable being inspected on the quality of the teachers they have, the happiness of the children and how the school deals with bullying (as well as general behaviour across the school) than predominantly on outcomes. There’s some incredibly strong leadership and teaching teams in some ridiculously tough areas, many dominated by gangs, who are creating an incredibly safe and secure environment for students to learn in, and getting zero credit for it. So, actually, listen to the parents and let them inform how schools are inspected more.

My final suggestion is much more radical than the others, and the one I most like. That is to follow the lead of other countries, like Finland and Australia, and abolish the inspectorate completely. Press restart on the whole thing. Wales has recently suspended inspections for a year, stating in rather Trumpist terms that they want time to figure out what the hell is going on.

There are other options. One is to expand peer-to-peer support. Many UK schools already regularly visit each other. Personally, I’d like to see a much deeper, funded version of this (using the defunct Ofsted budget of £138 million), where different staff members (including classroom teachers) from each school take part in a much more regular exchange over the course of a year to share best practice and get a much deeper take on what might work or not work in each institution.

This would end random inspectors who have never set foot in the community (and have possibly not taught for years) making judgements on a school based on data. More importantly, it would mean peers of the same stature helping each other along. And with no gradings stamped on foreheads, there would be no pre-emptive judgements made between leaders before discussion has even taken place. Whether subtly or otherwise, this kind of message does rear its head with grading still in place.

It would be possible to characterise this position as one with minimal accountability for schools. That’s not true. What I’m calling for is a system where schools are held to account for what they can ultimately control.

But I am also calling for something even better: a system where responsibility trumps accountability - I trust teachers as a body, as a collective. They will get the job done if you let them.   

Thomas Rogers is a teacher who runs rogershistory.com and tweets @RogersHistory

For more columns by Tom, view his back catalogue