Do you remember the bright confident claims that Ofsted made as it launched its new inspection framework?

Do you recollect Ofsted’s argument that its new focus on curriculum would break the cycle of awarding negative judgements to schools serving deprived pupils?

Can you recall Ofsted’s confidence that its downgrading of data would free inspectors to make more nuanced, evidenced judgements of school quality, and reward schools in challenging areas for the quality of their work?

Fast forward to the present day. The unpalatable truth is that, as many of us suspected, Ofsted has promised far more than it can possibly deliver.  

Disappointing truth

In a blog post published yesterday, Sean Harford, Ofsted’s national director of education, admitted that schools with more deprived pupil intakes are still, disproportionately, being given negative Ofsted judgements.

Mr Harford attempts to justify this disappointing truth in three ways:

1. Inspectors have to expect the same high standards for all schools.
2. Schools in the poorest areas face a steeper path to providing a good quality of education for their pupils. More of the pupils in these schools are lagging behind their more advantaged peers when they start school.
3. Schools serving disadvantaged pupils have greater teacher recruitment and retention problems.

Poorly thought through

I find Mr Harford’s arguments to be poorly thought through.  

Let’s start with his “high standards” argument. The simple truth of the matter is that Ofsted does not provide a level playing field for schools to be judged fairly.    

Research by the Education Policy Institute reveals that, based on a robust value-added (VA) performance, the number of schools with advantaged pupil intakes given an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted grading would be halved. On the same VA criteria, the number of schools with disadvantaged pupils rated “outstanding” would be doubled.  

So it is simply not the case that inspectors have high standards for all schools. 

Rather, the evidence indicates that schools in leafy suburbs with a high percentage of middle-class children are graded “good” and “outstanding”, even when the quality of the education they provide is declining significantly. 

Conversely, schools with disadvantaged pupil intakes are more likely to receive negative Ofsted judgements, even if the quality of the education they provide improves significantly.

Scaling the steepest slopes

Mr Harford’s second argument is that schools serving deprived pupils face a “steeper path” to providing good quality of education, because more of these pupils are “lagging behind”. 

But why should this be a justification for these schools being awarded negative Ofsted judgements? A good school starts from where the children are in their learning and develops them from there. 

Mountain climbers are feted if they scale the steepest slopes. But schools facing the greatest challenges, educating the poorest pupils, are criticised and downgraded by Ofsted, because they have the highest mountain to climb. They must compensate for their pupils’ poverty, while they strain every nerve to educate them and to close the attainment gap.

Mr Harford’s third argument is that disadvantaged schools have greater teacher recruitment and retention problems. 

This is undoubtedly the case. OECD data shows that beginning teachers with less than three years’ experience are more likely to teach in schools with higher levels of child poverty. Research also shows that poor pupils are more often taught by unqualified teachers. 

The biggest barrier

But Mr Harford fails to ask the obvious question: why do schools in deprived areas find it harder to recruit and retain teachers? 

Could the answer be Ofsted? Is it not the case that the very real prospect of a negative Ofsted judgement is a huge disincentive for more experienced teachers and leaders to work in challenging schools?

In which case, can we do anything other than conclude that Ofsted itself is the biggest barrier to poor children’s educational progress and achievement?

The fear that Ofsted engenders in teachers and school leaders makes it so much more difficult for them to commit their professional careers, and reputations, to serve the pupils who need them most. Which is a shocking state of affairs, is it not?

Mary Bousted is joint general secretary of the NEU