Sir Michael Wilshaw Signs Off Claiming Schooling Has Never Been Better
A convenient thing to report for someone who came into the job vowing to help to improve schools, but does the data hold up?
- by Mick Waters
Apparently 78% of secondary schools are now rated good or better, and primary schools are pulling ahead with a 90% figure.
The accuracy of these figures, though, is debatable given there have been two new frameworks for inspection since many were last inspected. But it is a positive story which might show the impact of Ofsted, a sort of super Self Evaluation Form that is a bit suspect when the data is examined.
Given that careers education in secondary schools is described as a ‘shambles’, it is hard to see how the overall judgement for secondary schools generally can be so positive. If we add to this the inspection criticism over recent years of PSHE, geography, music, PE and other subjects, the whole edifice falls into question; but then again, Ofsted have stopped doing surveys of subjects for fear of finding things that they didn’t want to see.
In this latest report, Sir Michael went beyond judgement into conjecture. His view was that the prevalence of failing schools in the North and Midlands led to such disillusion in communities that it might have contributed to the vote to leave Europe.
He forgets that over the last couple of years hardly a month has passed without him pointing out that particular local authorities are the worst examples of schooling. Indeed he has pointed out that failure cannot be explained by poverty or by ethnicity because comparators offer a different picture.
He concludes that the failure lies in local politicians not playing their part effectively. Well, it might be the case but it is hard to find evidence through inspection that this is the case.
Sir Michael draws a line between the Wash and the Severn and notes that school failure lies to the north of that. Again, fine as conjecture but why draw the line there? Why not draw the line from Berwick to Worthing?
In this case most failure lies to the west of the line, including the very southerly Isle of Wight that was described by Wilshaw’s ‘boss’ as a ghetto. Perhaps school failure is to do with wetter weather in the west.
Urban areas, provincial cities, coastal towns, market towns, coasting rural authorities, satellite towns; they have all suffered the wrath of Ofsted as failure spread around the country like foot and mouth.
With every change of framework came a fresh promise of ‘consistency’, avoiding the sort of inconsistency that moved schools from outstanding to special measures in Birmingham when a Trojan horse was discovered after being overlooked by data-driven inspectors.
But inspections can never be truly consistent in a process that is enacted by humans, however much we reduce schools to fragments of practice to categorise.
Even Sir Michael has started to talk things up. As the Prime Minister announced her wish to bring back secondary modern schools, Sir Michael insisted that comprehensive schools are working, but it sounded a little as though he ‘protest too much’, given several years of his public criticism.
Let’s hope his successor makes inspection straightforward.
Is a school good enough or not? Do we need to bother with nuance? Do inspectors need to visit if they are simply going to evaluate data?
What might the education system write in a report on Ofsted? Tries hard but needs to do better?
Mick Waters Professor of Education at the University of Wolverhampton and there is a chapter about Ofsted in his book, Thinking Allowed on Schooling
