In September we were informed that Education Scotland’s school inspections will restart this school year. For some schools this will be a re-engagement following inspections that occurred before lockdown; there will also be some national thematic reviews focusing on school recovery.

From January 2022 onwards, however, the intention is for the full “normal” school inspection process to begin again.

It is theoretically possible that external scrutiny bodies understand schools as we are right now. After all, inspectors are highly skilled and well-attuned to how schools normally work - I know this with certainty, from first-hand experience.

But to put it bluntly, how can anyone outside of schools understand what is happening now when they have not set foot inside our buildings for over 18 months?

Background: Scottish school inspections to return in January

Return of school inspections: Over 200 school inspections planned in Scotland this academic year

Union view: Return of school inspections a ‘retrograde step’

Consultation on Scottish education: Seven major barriers to improving Scottish education

Post-Covid education reform: It’s easy to get reform wrong, says Education Scotland

Leadership: Six essentials for school leaders in a time of Covid flux

If school inspections do go ahead this year as planned, one wonders how the inspectorate will calibrate its evaluations. Will quality indicator values be assigned according to pre-pandemic expectations? If so, how could this possibly be a fair reflection of how schools are doing right now?

How will school inspections during Covid be fair?

If, however, expectations are to be adjusted to reflect the additional pressures that schools are facing (which would be fairer), how exactly has the bar been adjusted, and who has been involved in that decision? If expectations have been adjusted and inspections go ahead, how valid will inspection reports be once we have moved out of this Covid recovery phase? Will relative school performance during a pandemic be the same as performance in normal times? How do we know?

Local scrutiny systems

Information from around the country indicates that local authorities are also beginning to reintroduce scrutiny of schools. Again, one questions the level of understanding of the immense (and immensely different) demands on schools right now and the constantly shifting nature of those demands.

Neither the inspectorate nor council quality-improvement teams want to make teachers’ work more difficult. Support and challenge, in the right order and in the right proportions, are affirmative and informative. But timing is of the essence.

The picture inside schools

Schools are in an in-between phase, where we vacillate wildly between our natural human longing to return to normality and realising that normality in our buildings would both endanger people around us and break government rules.

We have, so far, come through multiple new and hybrid pedagogical models, reinvented our exams system, restructured timetabling and adapted our curriculum priorities. (These are just the most obvious adaptations - there have been and continue to be many many others.) The people who have done this continue to be inspired by young people and by each other, but we are tired and still unsure of what is around every corner.

Scrutinising us right now would be a bit like judging a marathon runner who has fallen over a bump in the road and is trying to get back up. Is challenge needed, or is support more useful?

So what should happen?

Quite rightly, school inspectors have a natural propensity to inspect schools, and quality-improvement officers have a natural propensity to improve quality. In normal circumstances, their work helps to raise standards in Scotland’s schools, through support and challenge. But now is not the time for challenge.

Authority teams should focus on providing maximum support this year as we move slowly through this long recovery phase. Levels of trust and long-term working relationships would improve immensely. Relationship rebuilding would be invaluable after being physically cut off from each other for so long, and would provide a solid base from which to move forward and do great things together.

The inspectorate should focus on thematic reviews for this school session, delaying the inspection programme until such time as it has established a secure understanding of the new realities of Scotland’s schools. This would ensure that evaluations are better informed, more valid and more credible.

The platform for system-wide improvement would be thus reestablished - benefiting all who work in education.

The writer is a headteacher in a state school in Scotland