The Education select committee this week published its inquiry report into Ofsted.

The Education select committee this week published its inquiry report into Ofsted.   School Zone carried out some research on teacher's thoughts about the Committee's suggestions for changes to Ofsted and they received over 1200 responses overnight.

The headline findings were:

• Teachers were unconvinced by Ofsted’s announced changes following Ruth Perry’s death a year ago.

• They do not want more in-depth inspections, especially primary teachers.

• Less frequent inspections of Good and Outstanding schools are to be welcomed – probably because it would mean an overall decrease.

• Extending the notice period would improve the fairness of inspections, though impact on workload is less clear.

• Staff need better opportunities to contribute their views to Ofsted as part of the inspection process.

• Lack of relevant expertise among inspectors is an issue for most schools, especially (as the Committee notes) for primary.

• Reports are not very good at identifying areas that need to be addressed and are even worse at supporting schools in addressing them. 

• The current single-word grade very clearly needs to be replaced.

There were some notable differences between primary and secondary schools, but on the whole it's clear that schools are not happy with the current regime.

Philip Collie
Schoolzone

Click here for the School Zone's report on teacher responses

Click here for the inquiry report- The Education select committee report on its inquiry into Ofsted work with schools