Untold damage will be inflicted on education if Ofsted continues its culture of attacking good school leaders rather than working with them, says Brian Lightman.

Heavyweight tactics?

The announcements surrounding Ofsted’s consultation paper A Good Education for All have sparked intense anger from ASCL members and provoked a strong response from the association. A tirade of derogatory comments really is no way to motivate hard-working school and college leaders who have been doing so much to try to raise standards.

This – combined with the continuing emphasis from the Department for Education and Number 10 on ‘coasting schools’, sacking teachers and encouraging a culture which seems to blame the teaching profession for everything that has yet to be achieved – makes the aspiration in the January 2011 white paper of a ‘high status profession’ seem empty or hollow. The cumulative effect of these messages on the morale of the profession are at the top of the agenda for our annual conference this month.

Untold damage will be caused to our education service if this toxic rhetoric is allowed to continue. It will prevent the government and its agencies from engaging in the reasoned debate about the best way to raise standards. This debate is vital and it can only benefit from drawing upon the extensive experience of ASCL members and harnessing our commitment to improve our education service further.

ASCL Council had a vociferous debate about Ofsted which will inform our response to the latest consultation. First though it is worth stepping back for a moment and reflecting on the purpose and role of inspection in our school system.

Credible accountability

Any credible accountability system needs an external element and ASCL recognises that inspection, conducted by suitably qualified and experienced professionals according to clear and consistent criteria, is a way of achieving this. We have always said that inspection should be an external validation of the school’s or college’s self-evaluation and improvement process.

ASCL has therefore done everything it can to support the inspection process by providing training for members and liaising closely with Ofsted to head off problems and clarify issues. Jan Webber, our inspections specialist, has been collecting and following up feedback from the most recent inspections and assisting schools to challenge unfair or incorrect judgements.

At their very best inspections are an opportunity to engage in mature, professional dialogue with experienced and respected professionals who understand the reality of leading a complex institution and can provide a fresh view. Such a dialogue will lead to clear judgements and pointers towards the further development.

What I am not describing is a cosy chat – far from it. The process needs to be evidence-based, probing and challenging and it needs to be founded on a relationship of trust and honesty between the school/college leaders and the team. It is ridiculous and wholly unrealistic to expect every school or college to be perfect in every respect. The most effective leaders are aware of areas for development and are putting in place measures to address them.

The views of an external inspection can strengthen the hand of school and college leaders when implementing necessary but challenging changes. But that is only true if the process takes place in a climate in which acknowledging areas for development is viewed as a strength not a weakness. An inspector should be far more concerned about a school or college which does not know its weaknesses than one that does.

The culture of Ofsted

The latest announcements from Ofsted are deeply flawed on three levels:

• the culture of Ofsted
• the evidence base and its interpretation
• rhetoric and reality

In the past, ASCL’s feedback on the inspection system has been predicated on a relationship of professional dialogue with Ofsted staff. However, if the concept of a high status profession implies trust, respect, and openness, then recent announcements have placed inspections on a trajectory which is heading in exactly the opposite direction.

The implication from the statements which have so incensed ASCL members is that school leaders are satisfied with mediocrity, are lazy and even incompetent, and therefore need to be caught unawares. That is the thinking behind the low trust model of no-notice inspections. If it is not, then what on Earth is the point?

The idea that schools can somehow hide things from inspectors is quite derisory. If that really is the case then Ofsted must have some serious weaknesses in its own inspection teams and procedures. An inspection system which tries to catch schools out will introduce perverse incentives to play the system and create an adversarial relationship which will do nothing to support improvement.

Interpreting the evidence

Inspection is about far more than checking compliance with statutory requirements. In recent years the focus on safeguarding has vividly demonstrated the need for inspection to avoid becoming a tool for micromanagement.

Inspection is not an audit and, with the limited time-scale of the average inspection, cannot ever aspire to be one. The inspection framework encompasses judgements about a wide range of aspects of a school’s or college’s operation. The evidence base is absolutely crucial for this.

It is simplistic to suggest that such a detailed professional assessment is a matter of desktop analysis of data and a spot-check on site. The tried and tested methodology of inspection, in which a pre-inspection commentary tests out initial hypotheses, requires detailed discussion with key personnel and students in addition to first-hand observation in the classroom and around the building.

Having been a trained inspector myself I know how demanding it is in such a short visit to ensure that conclusions reached are valid. For a long time I have been concerned about the accuracy of the evidence that can be gathered in a brief inspection. I doubt it would have any credibility if used as the basis of academic research.

There is an inherent contradiction between the stated aims of the new framework, which ASCL supports, of greater emphasis on professional judgement and more time spent in lessons, and its implementation.

Rhetoric and reality

Much of the language we have heard in recent weeks has been about schools which are allegedly ‘stuck’ at the ‘satisfactory’ grade, with no recognition that the bar has been raised in successive inspection frameworks.

This is a reflection of the improvement in our schools and the continuing rise in our collective expectations. We should be celebrating this improvement and striving to build upon it.

Experience of the early weeks of the latest framework has already shown that it is more demanding than the previous one. It therefore makes no sense to compare grades between inspection frameworks.

Many schools which were graded ‘satisfactory’ before may have improved substantially but not enough to be graded ‘good’ under the current framework. To describe them as ‘stuck’ or ‘coasting’ is insulting and completely ignores the hard work and improvements that have been made. It also demoralises committed staff.

If the culture of Ofsted is to be a ‘done to’ one, providing a stick to beat school and college leaders with, it will inevitably create an adversarial relationship, undermining any potential for inspections to be the basis of improvement.

the last thing our education service needs is a situation where those very people who are the key to further improvement find themselves in such serious conflict with the government that they question whether the rewards of being a school or college leader are worth the risk.

At the very least it means their efforts are diverted from the all-important task in hand and that the further improvement of our education system is in jeopardy. This is not political posturing – it is a message the government will ignore at its peril.

• Brian Lightman is ASCL general secretary

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