Amount of teachers that think Ofsted is reliable falls

The amount of teachers that think Ofsted 'acts as a reliable and trusted arbiter' has fallen from 35% in 2018 to 18% this year, according to the annual teachers’ survey on perceptions of the schools watchdog.

For the most part, teachers choose neither agree nor disagree with the statement on Ofsted's reliability and trustworthiness. Those who were most recently inspected were less likely to disagree than those who were inspected one to two years ago.

Seven in 10 (71%) continue to feel that their last inspection was pretty much in line with what they expected. Half (52%) still feel that the inspection team were ‘professional but detached’.

Six out of 10 (61%) teachers whose school has been inspected by Ofsted feel that the final judgement reached by the inspection team was a fair and accurate assessment, this has remained the same since last year.

The amount of teachers believing that inspections are important and necessary to monitor performance and hold schools to account has fallen (38% agree compared with 50% in 2018). While agreement has fallen, disagreement remains the same with teachers having less of an opinion on this issue.

Only 27% of teachers feel inspections help individual schools improve (27% compared with 31% in 2018) but there has been an increase in perception that Ofsted inspectors have relevant frontline experience.

41% of teachers currently feel that their school places a greater emphasis on getting good results than the content of the learning. This is significantly higher than parents’ perception, which shows 24% feel this. Of those who work in a school that places a greater emphasis on getting good results than the content of the learning, seven in 10 (70%) teachers disagree with this focus being taken in their school.

70% of primary school teachers state that their school has a strategy for improving and teaching reading. 91% use at least one of the outlined approaches to develop children's literacy.