Our accountability system for schools needs urgent reform
Our accountability system is certainly flawed at the moment – but if we don’t want to risk letting our children down, we need to look at reform, not abolition, says Fiona Millar…
- by Fiona Millar
We need to talk about Ofsted. Its value, purpose and very existence have been called into question in the run up to the General Election, unsurprisingly provoking a mixed response.
For many heads and teachers, Ofsted has become untrusted and toxic. It is widely believed to be the source of unnecessary pressure in schools and was allowed to become, mistakenly in my view, too closely linked to the process of forced academisation.
This inevitably led to fears that inspection was being politicised in order to facilitate the closure of maintained schools and the expansion of academy chains (which paradoxically Ofsted still can’t inspect).
The bad old days
On the other side of the argument are others like me, with memories extending back to life before parent choice and accountability.
We worry that, without an entitlement to basic national standards across the country, we could slip back to an era when primary schools like the one my children attended were allowed to fall through the net and offer what was a shockingly poor standard of education.
Our school was one of the first to be condemned by Ofsted and when the inaugural league tables were published, fewer than 40% of the children reached the basic level in mathematics at 11, barely more in English.
It was the poorest children who were most let down and it is unquestionably a huge advance that those levels of underachievement would be unheard of today, partly because of the spotlight public accountability shone on failure.
We can’t risk going back there. Naturally some teachers relish the idea of an inspection free world and we all know the downside of high stakes accountability: chronic workload, off rolling the most difficult, needy pupils, teaching to the test, gaming the curriculum.
But parents have got used to information and exercising a degree of choice. They have a right to know that their children can get a good enough education in their local schools. The taxpayer also has a right to know that money spent on schools is being productively used.
No alternative
The flaw in the idea of abolishing Ofsted is that no one has yet come up with a watertight alternative which would guarantee standards and give parents what they have come to expect. Does such a thing exist?
Ofsted’s new framework, which aims to move away from results and data and towards a broader definition of education quality appears to be a step in the right direction.
But could that go further? People tend to forget that Ofsted should in theory be there to ensure that schools deliver the priorities and vision for education set out by the government.
But what if that vision changed, towards a broader curriculum encompassing vocational and academic, personal wellbeing and inclusion?
Personally, I would like to see inclusion writ large across any new framework, so that schools that admit and keep the widest cross section of children from their local community, especially those with SEND and from the most disadvantaged homes, are celebrated rather than too often demonised, and those that exclude and select are judged more harshly.
Arbitrary distinctions
The current Ofsted grading system has outlived its usefulness. Ranking schools by a number belongs to an era when government couldn’t really trust school leaders to do their best or trust parents to make subtle distinctions based on what is best for their children.
The distinction between good and outstanding is often arbitrary. Most parents want to know if their local schools are good enough, or not.
What is wrong with simpler qualitative judgements and room for narrative description of ethos, culture, what schools do very well, or not well enough?
This might also take the heat out of the angst that typified the current parental arms race.
How you then support those schools that aren’t good enough is a subject for another day.
Keeping Ofsted, which is still a trusted brand for many parents, doesn’t preclude (radical) reform and that, rather than risking a drift back to the bad old days, should be the priority now.
Fiona Millar is a columnist for Guardian Education and a co-founder of the Local Schools Network. Her latest book The Best For My Child: Did the Market Deliver? is published by John Catt Educational (£14).
