Over the last week or so school leaders have been studying Ofsted’s proposals to reform school inspection.
And they have delivered a damning verdict: must do much better.
More than 3,000 members of the National Association of Head Teachers took part in our 48-hour snap poll, demonstrating their strength of feeling (see NAHT, 2025).
A resounding 92% disagreed with the inspectorate’s proposal to introduce five-point colour-coded judgements across up to 10 different areas.
Meanwhile, 96% do not trust Ofsted to make meaningful changes in response to feedback from the profession during the 12-week consultation launched last week.
It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of the plans. But what lies behind this?
For years, the NAHT has been calling for far-reaching reform of Ofsted. This was brought into even sharper focus by the tragic death of Berkshire headteacher Ruth Perry following a critical inspection of her school. An inspection which the coroner ruled contributed to her death.
We welcomed the commitment to reform set out last year by Ofsted’s new chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver. This was followed by the government’s move to scrap crude high-stakes single-phrase judgements. Other welcome changes have included notification of an inspection in any particular week by the end of Monday, and the abolition of “deep dive” inspections.
But much more fundamental reform is needed, and we continue to hear reports of inappropriate, insensitive inspections.
Unfortunately, these deeply flawed proposals show things are veering in completely the wrong direction.
The NAHT and school leaders are not opposed to inspection and accountability – but we believe it should be done with schools, not to them, and in a fairer, more humane way. The proposed new framework does not come close to delivering on that.
It not only retains grading but expands it to cover more areas. This would increase already intolerable, dangerous levels of pressure on leaders and their staff, fuelling the crippling recruitment and retention crisis facing the profession.
Under the current system, far too often, inspection produces unreliable or insecure judgements. Adding further granular evaluations to the two-day inspection will make it even harder for inspectors to be accurate, while our members’ experiences suggest an overloaded inspection schedule may be a significant driver of poor inspector conduct.
The proposed colour-coding of grades perpetuates the same kind of simplistic judgements about a school as was the case with overarching single-phrase judgements.
A five-point scale means cliff-edge judgements which drive unnecessary, excessive workload, and risk the health and wellbeing of leaders and their staff.
Inspectors will be unable to make reliable judgements based on the marginal differences between “secure” and “strong” grades, for example.
How would you differentiate between an “accurate, informed understanding of the quality of teaching” and a “nuanced understanding of the quality of teaching across subjects, phases and year groups”? It is extremely subjective and will only lead to unreliable and insecure judgements. It is this sort of criteria that will lead to huge inconsistencies.
Ofsted is trying to inject a level of granularity and precision into the system that it simply will not be able to achieve in the time allocated for inspection.
Some of the proposed evaluation areas are simply not appropriate. For instance, while developing teaching is important, reporting on it with a published grade is unhelpful and unnecessary. Schools with more resources have a distinct advantage and this risks discriminating against smaller schools or those with tighter budgets.
When it comes to what students are taught, Ofsted’s judgement should be limited to determining whether a school is meeting its statutory duties, rather than compliance with its preferred model.
Attendance is another problematic judgement area. Schools should do everything in their power to improve attendance, but too often judgements do not recognise that much lies beyond their direct control.
The new inspection “toolkits” that would be used as criteria to judge the areas proposed by Ofsted will drive further unsustainable levels of workload.
The continuation of a high-stakes adversarial framework means many schools will gather evidence to demonstrate that they meet the toolkits’ demands. This is entirely rational in the context of a system with career-defining consequences, but it will represent a dangerous threat to staff wellbeing and rob school leaders and their teams of agency and autonomy.
Inspectors should evaluate schools as they find them, not require them to jump through the hoops set by Ofsted.
Furthermore, the toolkits are generic and continue the failed one-size-fits-all approach of the damaging 2019 inspection framework. They do not differentiate between primary, secondary, special and alternative education, with inspectors still not required to have experience of the school phase they are inspecting.
The narrow and contested research which underpinned the previous failed framework is still being used to justify these proposals, showing that Ofsted is not serious about real change.
These are just some of the many issues with these proposals. Both Ofsted and the education secretary have stressed the importance of this consultation in shaping the final framework, but our members suspect that this all amounts to a fait accompli.
This is understandable looking at the discussion of other grading “options” in the consultation. There is no proper examination of the proposal for graded judgements, and no discussion of alternatives.
Ofsted’s Big Listen showed considerable support for bullet point evaluations, but these appear to have been dismissed, suggesting an inherent assumption that numbered grades are essential.
In our view, a narrative or bullet-point evaluation of a school, which sets out strengths and areas for improvement, and offers constructive support, would work far better.
It would be clear for schools and parents, providing more reliable, nuanced information, without subjecting school leaders and their staff to unacceptable levels of stress.
Existing legislation would still allow the government to intervene in the small number of cases where school performance is a cause for significant concern.
Our polling (see NAHT, 2024) has shown that this approach has the support of a majority of school leaders. There is precedent for a different approach – this system is now in place in Northern Ireland and Wales.
Labelling schools which face the most significant challenges with different ratings has helped no-one. We desperately need proper reform that promotes collaboration and ensures that schools have the resources and support needed to succeed.
It is vital that Ofsted changes direction. Our survey findings must not be ignored. Ofsted must listen to leaders and act upon the feedback it receives. If it fails to do so, the government must intervene.
An inspection system which fails to fairly identify good practice or help schools improve – and drives despairing teachers and leaders from the profession – only makes it harder to provide a first-rate education.
That needs to change, and it is crucial that Ofsted and the government do not let this opportunity to bring about that change slip through their fingers.
- Ian Hartwright is head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers.
Further information & resources
- NAHT: Rethinking school inspection, 2024: Click here.
- NAHT: School leaders reject Ofsted proposals within 48 hours, February 2025: Click here.