Ofsted’s inspection process and the pressures placed on staff by single-word judgments have come under criticism following the death of a Berkshire headteacher.
Ruth Perry, the headteacher of Caversham Primary School, took her own life while awaiting the publication of an Ofsted inspection report that downgraded her school from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’.
Though it was rated good in all other areas, its overall rating was dragged down by Ofsted grading the school as ‘inadequate’ in leadership and management because of failures in relation to safeguarding procedures.
Perry’s death has now reignited an old debate about the appropriateness of Ofsted’s single-word grading system in education.
Last week, Suffolk Primary Headteachers' Association wrote an open letter calling for an end to one-word judgments, recommending instead that inspectors “outline areas for schools to work on”.
However, Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, has defended the current system, saying that, while the debate was legitimate, grades gave parents “a simple and accessible summary of a school’s strengths and weaknesses” and helped government decide when to intervene in struggling schools.
Single-word grading system ‘leading to retention problems’
As in schools, local authority children’s services receive an overall grade based on the same scale - outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate.
This has long been opposed by children’s services leaders. Last year, directors and academics criticised Ofsted’s assessment system for perpetuating the sector’s retention problems.
“Ofsted’s ultimate purpose is to improve services, not just to inspect them,” said David Wilkins, then senior lecturer (now reader) in social work at Cardiff University.
“So, I think you have to then ask, ‘is the current mechanism of inspection a good way of improving services?’. If it is leading to things like retention problems in councils that are already struggling, then maybe not.”
At the same time, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services said that Ofsted’s single-word judgment “for a complex set of services and differing local contexts tells at best a partial story and even risks weakening the very services the inspectorate seeks to improve”.
CQC assessments will include single-word judgments
Councils’ adults’ social services will also receive single-word judgments, when the Care Quality Commission (CQC) starts assessing them under a new system starting in September this year.
The CQC said last month that the Department of Health and Social Care had asked it to deliver single-word ratings, despite many directors favouring a 'narrative' judgment instead.
Responding to the news, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services warned that “a single-word rating alone wouldn’t show the public how good different parts of the service are” and it should be presented “very clearly alongside narrative and potentially sub-ratings across the seven theme areas” assessed.
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