Leaders say Ofsted requires improvement

Nearly nine out of ten school leaders believe that the current Ofsted inspection system fails to consistently, fairly and accurately judge the performance of schools and colleges.

A new survey, from the Association of School and College Leaders, has found that dissatisfaction with Ofsted inspections remains high, even though three-quarters of school and college leaders believe the organisation’s new approach to inspections is an improvement on previous frameworks.

Introduced in September 2019, the new inspection framework focuses more on the quality of the curriculum and less on data from exams and tests.

However, despite the majority of respondents supporting this move, there is significant disquiet over the perception that Ofsted is favouring a specific curriculum model of a two-year Key Stage 4 during which pupils study for GCSEs, and that schools which successfully run a three-year programme will be downgraded.

Speaking at the ASCL annual conference, Geoff Barton called on Ofsted to provide greater clarity, reassurance and consistency.

The association’s general secretary said: “The great shame is that this one topic risks overshadowing the generally positive reception of the new framework. So our message to Ofsted is this. You have to grasp this issue, and provide schools with greater clarity, reassurance and consistency. We have to know exactly where we stand.”