The watchdog responsible for monitoring the quality of education in England has downgraded hundreds of schools that were previously classed as “outstanding” after they were reinspected for the first time in years.
The
report, published by Ofsted, states that only 17 percent of the 370 schools that held the top ranking retained the grade following reinspection. The report shows that 62 percent of schools were downgraded to “good,” while 21 percent were either dropped to “required improvement” or the bottom tier, “inadequate.”
Schools have accused the watchdog of unfair treatment, with several headteachers believing Ofsted deliberately targeted grammar schools.
Clare Wagner, the headmistress of the Henrietta Barnett School in London, which was downgraded to “good,”
told The Telegraph that the inspection was “unfair” and that one of the inspectors had told her that her pupils would do well no matter which school they attended.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the
Association of School and College Leaders has said the current inspection framework is now different to when the schools were last inspected, resulting in the changes. Barton accused the Ofsted judgement as a “woefully blunt tool” and said that negative grading stigmatises the school, making improvements harder to secure. He has called for more support and a “less punitive inspection system,” which would consider the best interests of the pupils who attend the schools.
Change of Regulations
Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, has dismissed the idea that the downgrades were to prove the relevance of inspections, which were first introduced back in 1993.
Speaking at the Commons Education Committee, Spielman said that “any suggestion from the top of Ofsted that there should be any kind of quota or sort of push on a particular kind of school would be met with absolute horror.”
Unions have also been critical of the report, with the National Education Union (NEU), which has long campaigned to scrap the idea of inspections, calling the findings “frequently unreliable and invalid.”
Speaking to the BBC, the NEU’s joint General Secretary Kevin Courtney said the report made “no material positive difference to schools” and accused the watchdog of driving good teachers away.
In 2012, the British government introduced legislation that made schools which achieved the top level exempt from regular inspections, but this was removed in 2020. Spielman
said that the latest report showed “removing a school from scrutiny does not make it better.”
When introducing the legislation, Ofsted initially believed that once high standards were achieved, schools would have the freedom to drive them even higher.
