Education Policy Institute comments on ending of single headline Ofsted grades for schools

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) welcomes the government's announcement today to move towards a more nuanced and transparent approach to school accountability.  
 
Jon Andrews, Head of Analysis and Director of School Performance at EPI said: 

“The end of one-word judgements is a positive first step in reforming a school accountability system that has made leadership of some of the most challenging schools even more difficult. Schools with low levels of disadvantage and high prior attainment are more likely to receive positive judgements from Ofsted and our own research shows that when schools consistently receive ratings that are less than good it is associated with an increase in teacher turnover, and an increasingly disadvantaged intake, both of which make it more difficult to reverse the negative judgement. 

 “The current accountability system creates perverse incentives, including narrowing curriculum reducing the inclusiveness of admissions practices, and removing pupils from school rolls. The government is therefore right to be looking more broadly at how school performance is measured. Our own benchmarking tool for multi-academy trusts and local authorities, which includes measures of attainment, progress, inclusion, the school workforce, and school finances could provide a blueprint for the new school report card.”