Headteachers approached by consultants trying to sell an “Ofsted inspection curriculum” should “tell them where to go”, the head of the inspectorate has said.
Amanda Spielman said that she hoped Ofsted’s new inspection framework - which it officially unveiled last week - would “sound the death knell” of a “school improvement industry” divorced from real learning.
The Ofsted chief inspector was speaking this morning in London at the ‘Wonder Years’ knowledge-rich curriculum conference organised by Parents and Teachers for Excellence.
In her speech, Ms Spielman said: “I do not want to see schools rushing to quick solutions - such as hiring consultants to help them prepare in some way for the new framework.
“No school should have to spend a single penny on consultants to prepare for it.
“That is why we have put out so much explanatory material, and why we continue to run events on the proposals across the country.
“You already have enough demands on tighter budgets without the supposed necessity of preparing for a new Ofsted framework adding more.”
Ms Spielman said she hoped that “once embedded, this framework will help to sound the death knell of a school improvement industry that has too often pushed approaches to improvement that are designed to push results without necessarily making any improvement to real standards”.
And she added: “If anyone tries to sell you the ‘Ofsted inspection curriculum’ - and I think they’re already onto it - I hope that you will - politely - tell them where to go.”
Ofsted has previously criticised “mocksteds”, which aim to prepare schools for an inspection, labelling those who sell them as “vampiric” “voodoo consultants”.