To wonder if the Economist's claim about school inspections is true?

I picked up the Economist a few days ago out shopping: I couldn't buy it, but I wanted to read the articles about education.

Sorry, I know this is a bit OT but your first sentence intrigued me. If you didn't buy it what did you do with it? Shoplift? Stand in the shop and read the bits you were interested in them put it back? Photograph the articles then put it back?

I am surprised someone who works at the shop didn't object. In the Tesco I sometimes go in there is an elderly man who is often there trying to read the papers without buying them and sometimes a member of staff moves him along.

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'
Wikipedia.

It’s obviously a good outcome if the U.K. education system has better outcomes, however as the old adage says there are lies and there are statistics (something like that). Surely Ofsted should go back to being a critical friend? When I first started teaching inspectors would come in, make their observations and if negative would suggest ways to improve. They were all ex teachers with recent classroom experience.

Ofsted inspections are stressful.

i’ve been through a few.

i don’t think an inspection regime is the main driver in any improvement in educational results.

when I was teaching (roughly 2005-2022) many schools that had previously been rated outstanding could go ten years between inspections. That’s a long time.

yes, some level of inspection is needed (as it’s surprising how often senior leaders are out of touch with what is happening n their school) but an inspection regime by itself will never drive improvement.

in the time I was teaching there was also curriculum reform, new GCSEs, new a levels, introduction of maths hubs, English hubs, computing hubs, London challenge, and frankly I can’t remember how many other initiatives.

the changes at secondary have caused problems for the less able and now a much higher number of students do entry level qualifications or BTECs alongside GCSEs as for a minority the new GCSEs are just massively out of reach.

(certainly in my school this minority was almost exclusively kids with severe disabilities so they were less included as a result).

Didn't a woman have a heart attack just the other day, when Ofsted were at her school?
There used to be far fewer problems with schools before Ofsted-in our grandparents' time, teachers were never attacked, and kids didn't disrupt things as much. Some parents are sick of their kids being attacked by others at school, or about lessons being stopped or cancelled due to this. Never seemed to happen pre-Ofsted (I'm not saying they are the only problem, my parents would have supported the teachers if we'd misbehaved unlike many parents who seem to argue with everything teachers do now, but the point is Ofsted clearly don't help, and most private schools don't use Ofsted, and they would if they were useful).

Ididnt realise we had risen up the rankings in comparison to other countries.

In terms of what measurement?

Half of people leaving university cant spell that well if new graduates I work with are anything to go by!

Gove’s curriculum may well have raised some measures of attainment.

But standards?
That depends entirely on what we value.

The system is obsessed with what can be measured, ticked, tested and compared. And when the measure becomes the goal, the curriculum inevitably narrows around it.

Michael Rosen’s satire about children learning the “special test way of thinking” feels uncomfortably relevant and very pertinent, sadly.

Education should surely be about creating learners: curious, interested, thoughtful, questioning, creative young people who can think beyond the box, who can problem solve, are resilient, who perseve and do not give up. Children and young people who are emotionally intelligent and good citizens. Hard to measure of course.

We should value a system where children know how to tick a box or answer a test, just because it is measurable.

I think that Michael Gove’s reforms were the primary driver of improved standards, and the inspection regime ensured that the higher standards were adhered to. I understood “more rigorous” to refer to the comparison with other countries, rather than saying that Ofsted became more rigorous over the past 15 years.

Ruth Perry’s suicide was very sad, but a single event of this sort, no matter how tragic, isn’t a reason to change a whole system that has been delivering good results.

It’s interesting that you don’t think that it’s necessarily positive that British children are doing better than previously and better by international comparison than 15 years ago.

I get that this may make life harder for less able children, but it seems to me preferable to be improving educational standards - which should filter through into the economy, making more money available to support less able children (assuming it is directed at them…)

I think ofsted have helped. They are very rigorous. They leave no stone unturned. They have very high expectations and it’s good schools aim and meet those high expectations. My school recently had an ofsted. It was a very positive experience.

There is a lot of evidence that the increase in network schools has improved education not ofsted. The areas which have increased the most are ones with active school hub networks.

I agree. The inspection system is not responsible for the rise up the rankings, if anything it’s held back the education system and meant a lot of time has been spent trying to please the inspectors instead of meaningful improvements. I also rue the impact of Gove’s curriculum on children and, while it is clear that it has meant an improvement in ‘standards’ compared to other countries, I’m not sure that the trade off has been worth it - particularly for those children who spend years working towards qualifications they simply can’t succeed at.