by Ben Stanley (BSc Business Economics)
[This essay was written for the Government, Welfare and Policy third-year undergraduate module. Students were tasked with writing a blog-style essay on a topic linked to a group poster project. Topics were chosen by students and reflect their own interests. The essay gave them experience of writing content in an engaging style for a non-expert audience. What you see below is one of this year’s top-marked blog-style essays. Christa Brunnschweiler]
The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) was established in the 1992 Education Act as a government organised inspectorate for UK state schools, investigating areas such as education quality, behaviour, personal development, leadership and overall effectiveness. Their judgement is then based upon a one-word rating: outstanding, good, requires improvement, or inadequate.
Ruth Perry, headteacher of Caversham Primary School in Reading, committed suicide on January 8th 2023 whilst waiting for her Ofsted result to be published – aware her school was moving from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’. The family statement has placed direct blame towards Ofsted for her suicide. This has prompted two leading education unions to call for an abolition of Ofsted’s ‘reign of terror,’ whilst a headteacher of a neighbouring school refused entry and tweeted in support for others to follow. Crowdfunding has also been set up to finance a full investigation and judicial review of the current Ofsted framework, raising over £41,000 already. Whilst Ofsted’s chief has acknowledged a culture of fear, significant direction for change, if any, is yet to be established. This prompts the question: Does Ofsted help in improving educational outcomes? Is an overhaul needed, and if so, what needs to change?
Why is an education inspectorate important?
Ensuring that the education provided to children is effective is naturally very important. Education establishes vital skills for children which are needed for both day-to-day and working life. Whilst full-time education in the UK is compulsory until 18, if the time spent during these years are from high-quality providers, they will likely receive a higher human capital, defined as one’s stock of skills, knowledge and productivity, when compared to another student from a low-quality provider. Arguably, if all educational institutions work at the ‘outstanding’ level, the current generation of students will enter the workforce in the future with a plethora of skills and high human capital compared to that of previous generations. This would create long-term economic benefits as a more productive workforce can achieve more for the economy. Effective education is also important in improving intergenerational mobility – defined as the change in a family’s social position between generations such as a labourer father having a lawyer son. The UK has one of the worst levels of intergenerational mobility in the developed world. With one ONS report finding that someone is 7.5x more likely to have a low educational outcome if their father obtained a low level too. Whilst other factors such as home environment play a role, ensuring that educational quality is maximised should help improve outcomes for deprived students. This improves social mobility and redistributes income from rich to poor. This is beneficial as equity is a key economic aim for the government.
By introducing an inspectorate, bad education can be scrutinised so that it can improve, helping both its pupils and the greater economy. Meanwhile, creating a ranking and encouraging schools to achieve the prestigious ‘outstanding’ bracket means school management will likely aim to ensure their standards are always high so their hard work will be recognised – to the benefit of its pupils’ outcomes.
Is Ofsted fulfilling its purpose?
Whilst the importance and benefits of an inspectorate are clear, Ofsted’s effectiveness in fulfilling this task is debateable. Ofsted is one of many players within the UK’s complex education system, so it’s challenging to assume that any impacts are as a result of just Ofsted alone. Despite being established for 31 years; Ofsted is yet to publish research themselves which proves their inspections are purposeful. However, other studies suggest their effectiveness is limited and recommends change.
One 2020 study concluded that a school’s Ofsted rating doesn’t play a significant impact on pupil’s experiences and outcomes. Survey feedback found that pupils from ‘inadequate’ and ‘outstanding’ secondary schools reported similar levels of school satisfaction, future ambitions, bullying and happiness. This challenges the usefulness of parents using Ofsted ratings when selecting secondary schools. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the surveyed pupils school performance concluded that Ofsted ratings account for only around 4% of the variance in educational achievement – reducing to 1% when accounting for family socioeconomic status. This means around one tenth of the difference between an A grade student at a ‘good’ school and a B grade student at a ‘requires improvement’ school can be attributed to the Ofsted rating. The study finally criticised the financial commitment towards Ofsted. The bill averages at £7,200 per school visit so this could arguably be better spent elsewhere within the notoriously underfunded education sector.
Another study from 2004 measured GCSE examination results over a 10-year period against Ofsted ratings and frequency of visits. It found that whilst higher rated schools typically had better examination results, there was no defining evidence which proved inspections helped achieve this or improve these schools further. However, the study scathes Ofsted by finding significant evidence that a school’s examination performance decreases on the inspection year – blaming this on schools focusing more on Ofsted preparation than teaching.
“Raising Standards, (not) Improving Lives”
Poor knock-on effects from preparing for an Ofsted inspection is unsurprising, however. Ofsted inspections are bound by a lot of red tape, so schools must dedicate time to ensure Ofsted’s regulations and compliances are met – which typically involves excessive and arguably unavailing paperwork. Whilst time consuming, failure to adhere to this can be detrimental and result in the dreaded ‘inadequate’ rating, as was the case with Ruth Perry’s school as they received good in all other areas but inadequate overall due to safeguarding records not meeting the most recent requirements, despite stating no children were put in harm. Constantly adhering is challenging as in the last nine years Ofsted has changed their framework five times. Therefore, schools must divert time and resources on compliance, where this could be better spent on maximising lesson plans and improving student performance. Another study which looked at concerns over China’s education inspectorate board had similar findings – reinforcing this argument. Overall, this demonstrates that Ofsted’s bureaucracy is more of a hindrance than help to educational outcomes.
Providing that a school can still be an effective educational provider yet receive the ‘inadequate’ label. An inadequate judgement could create a vicious cycle of negative effects for the school in the long run. A 2017 survey found Ofsted judgement was the second most important factor when deciding a school (behind proximity to home). Consequentially, an inadequate school will appear undesirable for applicants, damaging future intake statistics. In 2021, the Education Policy institute examined this problem, coining the phrase ‘stuck schools.’ The research found that after the initial negative inspection; school intake becomes more disadvantaged, spaces may not fill which decreases funding, and teacher and pupil turnover increases. Consequentially, this creates more challenges for the school to address on top of Ofsted pressure, making it hard to escape continued poor ratings. These issues, especially high teacher turnover, will prevent schools from providing an effective education, even though these issues were catalysed by an inspectorate who was meant to help. A 2023 study advised parents not to place emphasis on these Ofsted ratings, as the average time between an inspection taking place and a parent selecting their child’s school is three years, so senior management and school culture would have likely changed by then. However, it’s vain to assume this advice will be adhered to.
Ofsted thereby reinforces national inequality issues. Stuck schools are rife amongst deprived areas, who face more challenges with funding and pastoral support (yet typically disregarded by inspectors,) against prestigious schools that can purchase advisors to ensure continued good ratings. A 2017 government report found that a student from one of England’s most deprived areas is 10 times more likely to go to a below ‘good’ secondary school than one from the least deprived. This means educational disadvantages from attending a ‘stuck school’ are absorbed by already deprived children. Consequentially, this prevents education from being an effective remedy for improving social and intergenerational mobility issues. Instead, these issues worsen as continued bad education creates gaps in knowledge and thus employability between wealthy and deprived students. This is bad from both an economical and humanitarian standpoint. It contradicts the government’s aim for equity, indicating that Ofsted is unfit for purpose.
Evaluation
In the aftermath of Ruth Perry’s death, an Ofsted statement proposed changes such as making the complaints process more responsive and quick re-inspections on schools with ‘safeguarding issues’ that otherwise performed well. However, whilst it’s undeniable that an inspectorate for schools is needed to some degree, an overhaul of Ofsted is strongly recommended. The focal issue is that Ofsted has created a culture of fear which provides slander to schools yet with no decision or intervention on what should happen next, leaving matters in the hands of already struggling schools. The toxic culture perhaps contributes to the fact that 44% of England’s state-school teachers plan to quit by 2027.
Firstly, shifting the culture from fear to positive reinforcement is recommended. This should improve teacher wellbeing, potentially lower the resignation rate, and lead to greater productivity meaning better lessons for students. Furthermore, moving to a more decentralised system where local governments have greater awareness of local societal issues can prevent classism from centralised inspectors and unnecessary negative ratings.
The labour government have proposed a ‘report card’ system if they assume power in the next election. Different from the “high stakes but low information” Ofsted system in that it will be more informative and removes the current grading system which has become too stigmatised.
Another popular proposal is an ‘Education Improvement Agency.’ This new inspectorate would have local inspectors, drop the Ofsted grading scheme, use appreciative inquiry instead of blame, restore trust in staff and create a detailed narrative for improvement. Whilst this change may incur initially high set-up costs, the long-run economic and social benefits which should stem from this, plus a new positive image to a currently disliked system, steer me to believe that this would be the best future policy.
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