Responding to the publication of plans to change the
accountability system in England, Pepe Di'Iasio, General
Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:
“Ofsted and the government appear to have learned nothing from
the death of headteacher Ruth Perry and have instead devised an
accountability system which will subject a beleaguered profession
to yet more misery.
“Rather than securing high and rising standards – something we
all want to see – this is a sure-fire way of doing the exact
opposite. People will vote with their feet by leaving teaching
which will worsen an already severe recruitment and retention
crisis.
“We will end up without teachers to teach children and leaders to
lead schools.
“Astonishingly, Ofsted's proposed school report cards appear to
be even worse than the single-word judgements they replace. The
introduction of five new judgements that can be applied across at
least eight performance areas creates a set of hurdles which will
be bewildering for teachers and leaders, never mind the parents
whose choices these reports are supposedly intended to guide.
“We would question whether it is possible to reach with any
degree of validity, in the course of an inspection, such a large
number of conclusions – all of which are critical to those being
inspected and where judgements may be finely balanced between
categories. It is certainly a recipe for systemic inconsistency.
“Rather than reducing the pressures on teachers and leaders – a
situation so serious that it is unsafe – this system will
introduce a de facto new league table based on the sum of Ofsted
judgements across at least 40 points of comparison.
“The schools with the greatest challenges will continue to be
stigmatised by the application of the labels ‘attention needed'
and ‘causing concern' in exactly the same way as the previous
system. This will in turn make it harder to secure improvement.
“And the vast majority of schools which are providing a high
standard of education will continue to feel that this is not good
enough if they don't achieve a prized ‘strong' or ‘exemplary'
grade.
“It seems that the government will then add to the chaos with a
support system administered by its planned regional improvement
for standards and excellence teams which is so muddled as to be
barely comprehensible and is unlikely to have anything like the
capacity required to be effective.
“All of this will have a devastating impact on the wellbeing of
teachers and leaders and will be intensely demoralising for
parents and children. We are extremely disappointed with these
proposals and will do everything possible to persuade Ofsted and
the government to see sense.
“School and college leaders had high hopes that an approach to
inspection based on report cards might be more nuanced and
humane. Sadly, the way in which Ofsted and the government are
going about this suggests that the opposite will be the case.
“It is essential that the inspection system is clear to parents
and has the confidence of the profession. These plans achieve
neither objective.”
