More than nine in ten school leaders (92 percent) are opposed to plans from Ofsted to introduce a report card system for inspecting schools, according to a snap poll by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).
The plans would see schools assessed on several different metrics, such as curriculum and achievement, using a colour-coded system from red for “causing concern” to orange for “attention needed,” and shades of green for “secure,” “strong,” and “exemplary.” These grades will be accompanied by short summaries of the inspectors’ findings.
They would replace the four single-phrase inspection outcomes—outstanding, good, requires improvement, and inadequate—and an overall grade would not be awarded.
‘Rushed Through’
The previous system was unpopular with educators and came under significant criticism after a coroner’s inquest had found that the Ofsted inspection process had contributed to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry, who committed suicide in January 2023 after her school was downgraded from “outstanding” to “inadequate.”
Ofsted said that the new report card will replace the simplistic overall judgements, giving parents more information and helping schools to better identify their strengths and areas for improvement in their schools.
However, according to responses from the survey, one school leader said that the new system would “increase inconsistency, drive up workload and create exponentially more stress on headteachers and leaders.”
“It has been done with haste, has not taken sufficient voice from the profession and, along with other changes is being rushed through, will be disastrous,” they said.
Another described the proposed inspection tools as “like lengthening the stick to beat us with.”
NAHT General Secretary Paul Whiteman said, “Ofsted needs to go back to the drawing board, urgently reconsider these ill-thought-through plans, and listen to the profession.”
An Ofsted spokesperson responded to the polling figures, telling reporters: “We want our inspections to raise standards for all children and provide better information for parents.
Reforms Don’t Tackle ‘Real Issue’
On Tuesday during an evidence session of the Education Committee for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Sam Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said he had “quite a lot of worries about this new model.”Freedman said the problem with the old model was not single-word judgements—which he said parents found helpful—but was the reliability of Ofsted’s inspections, something which the proposals do not solve.
He said that the system is now harder because there are now 11 different metrics for Ofsted inspectors to give sub-judgements on, instead of one overarching grade.
“If you have two teams of inspectors going into a school, they are more likely to say that it is the same overall than that one of 11 different things is the same. I am worried that this makes it harder for Ofsted to tackle its real issue, which is reliability and consistency of inspection, and does not actually deal with any of the concerns that schools have,” Freedman said.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, agreed, saying that his union has “long-established questions about Ofsted’s reliability.”
Kebede noted: “We now have eight areas of measurement on a five-grade scale. That is 40 potential areas of judgment. Ofsted was tasked with bringing about a system of inspection that reduced pressure on the school system, and in quite tragic circumstances. It is our view that this will make things worse, not better.”
Ofsted has said it will publish a report on the outcome of the consultation, running between Feb. 3 and March 28, in the summer. The final agreed reforms will be piloted before being fully implemented in autumn 2025.
