There has been considerable speculation about the effect that the current crisis will have on children.

However, the truth is that, until all pupils return to school and their needs have been properly assessed, no one can be quite sure of the true impact of lost education and lockdown on this nation’s young people. 

To support schools properly during the autumn term and beyond, it is vitally important that the government has a clear picture of the specific challenges that different pupil groups and communities face, as they emerge from lockdown. One of the biggest barriers to good decision-making from the government is a lack of insight.

And it is here that Ofsted could play a role, by helping the government to fill in some of those blanks.

No beauty parade for inspectors

We were supportive of Ofsted’s early plans to do precisely that, by visiting a sample of schools in the autumn term. The aim of these visits was to provide accurate insight to the government of what is happening on the ground, while treading lightly enough not to distract schools from the task in hand: returning all pupils successfully to full-time education. 

However, this clarity of purpose has been lost from plans announced this week.

Providing insight to government at system level and providing reassurance to parents at school level are both important endeavours. But conflating the two purposes is likely to mean that neither is done well. In an attempt to please everyone, it appears that Ofsted will satisfy no one. 

The government had already concluded that, in the current circumstances, it would do more harm than good for individual schools to face inspection this term, as they should be focused entirely on reopening schools for all, not arranging a beauty parade for inspectors. 

A quasi-inspection

Unfortunately, the fact that Ofsted has decided to publish individual letters following each visit will make this feel like a quasi-inspection. If you know the visit will be reported on to parents, you will inevitably look to present your best self, rather than feeling able to be honest about the challenges faced as a result of the pandemic.

Given parental anxiety, it is understandable how the suggestion to publish a “reassuring” letter to parents came about. However, from the drafts we’ve seen so far, these letters - which will be published nearly two months after the visit takes place - are unlikely to provide any real reassurance to those who receive them. 

Moreover, the vast majority of parents in this country will receive no such reassurance. Ofsted plans to visit around 1,200 schools in the autumn, That means that around 95 per cent of schools will not be visited, and therefore fewer than one in 20 parents will receive a letter.

If the problem is wider parental concern about the impact of lockdown on their children, these Ofsted visits are clearly not the answer.

Either an opportunity or a threat

There are far more effective ways of meeting the objective of engaging with parents if that is what Ofsted felt it was necessary to do.

Alongside a programme of school visits, Ofsted could have started a separate conversation with parents, using their existing Parent View platform to collate views of parents of their experience of lockdown and the challenges faced. The results of these surveys could be used to provide reassurance of what schools are doing, and could do, in response to particular concerns.

From the school perspective, a letter to parents from Ofsted will be seen as either an opportunity or a threat. Some will view this as their chance to paint a positive picture of how their school has responded to the crisis, while others will see it as something to be feared. 

Meanwhile, for everyone, Ofsted has created a perverse incentive: to waste time preparing the story you want told. Whichever way you look at this, it is a distraction from the important business of returning all pupils successfully to full-time education.

Ofsted has managed to lose the clarity of purpose behind these visits and has come up with something that is instead overloaded and confused. It is a missed opportunity to do something genuinely useful. 

Nick Brook is the deputy general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union