School leaders respond to Ofsted's statement on calls for inspection reform

Responding to a statement from His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, on calls for Ofsted reform, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said:

"It would appear that Ofsted is now beginning to respond to some of the issues that we have been raising following recent tragic events. It should never have taken something like this to bring about such a response, but the change in tone is helpful.

"A more proportionate approach to safeguarding issues and greater clarity that school leaders can share provisional outcomes are helpful developments. However, on their own, these will not go far enough to address either the concerns school leaders have or the strength of feeling amongst the profession.

"What we need to see is a firm commitment to work with us to agree a set of meaningful actions that will relieve some of the pressures that inspection currently places on school leaders. There are a number of quite simple things we could do right now that would signal a step in the right direction.

"In the longer-term we want to see a more fundamental review of how inspection works. It is becoming very clear that overarching judgements have had their day and a fundamentally different approach is required."