DfE standards must guide the sector, not tell us what to do

The Department for Education is currently engaged in important standard-setting exercises, developing both the national inclusion standards and new school trust standards.

In doing so, it has a rare opportunity to set out a clear statement of principles for these areas, and to work with the sector to build shared frameworks for the future.

But it seems to me that its approach seems a bit at sea, without a theory of what standards are or why we have them.

What are standards for?

Instead we have started talking about standards as though they are synonymous with compliance. We ask whether they have been met. We collect evidence against them. We inspect them. We assure them.

But somewhere along the way, we have forgotten a more important question: what are standards actually for?

If standards become nothing more than increasingly detailed lists of things that the state requires institutions to do, they cease to be standards at all. They become instructions. And instructions are a poor way to govern complex institutions.

Schools and trusts do not operate in predictable environments where every circumstance can be anticipated and every decision codified. They lead in complexity. They exercise judgement. They balance competing priorities every day.

That is precisely why we need standards - not to replace judgement, but to strengthen it.

This is not simply an educational argument. It is one that runs through decades of thinking about professions and regulation.

The impact of standards in everyday life

Eliot Freidson argued that professionalism rests on society’s willingness to trust expertise.

Michael Eraut showed that professional work is defined by judgement exercised in situations of uncertainty. Richard and Sylvia Cruess describe professionalism as a social contract between a profession and the public.

This is why the Teacher Standards are so important. Or indeed, the Standards of Public Life.

Modern regulatory theory reaches remarkably similar conclusions. Julia Black demonstrates that principles regulate complexity better than detailed rules because they leave room for judgement while maintaining accountability.

Cary Coglianese argues that the best regulatory systems build organisational capability rather than dependence. Malcolm Sparrow reminds us that regulators should reduce harm, not simply detect technical breaches.

Michael Power warns that audit can become an end in itself, rewarding the appearance of compliance over the reality of improvement.

Good regulation depends upon good standards. But only if we understand what a standard is.

So here are five tests that we should apply to standard-setting work.

1. Standards are principles, not prescriptions

Standards state the objective while trusting professionals and institutions to determine how best to realise it in their context.

They define what matters without attempting to specify every contributory action in advance. Prescription belongs to guidance. Rules belong to regulation. Standards should articulate enduring expectations that require judgement rather than replace it.

2. Standards offer stability over time

They should be revised rarely and deliberately. Institutions improve through sustained learning, not continual adjustment to changing frameworks.

If standards change every few years, they cannot provide the fixed point against which improvement can be understood. Stability creates confidence. It allows leadership, culture and professional practice to mature.

3. Standards are few in number and link to statutory or contractual obligations

The Teacher Standards have eight constitutive parts. The Standards in Public Life have seven. They set out respectively what teachers or holders of public office must do. And they are enduring.

4. Standards derive their authority from professional ownership

Standards imposed upon a profession will always feel external. Standards developed with a profession become part of its identity. They express shared values and shared responsibility. Their legitimacy comes not only from statutory authority but from the consent of those who live them every day.

That is why consultation matters - not because it is procedurally required, but because it is constitutionally important.

The strongest standards are not written for the sector; they are developed with the sector. They emerge through dialogue. They are tested against practice. They command confidence because leaders and professionals recognise themselves in them. Co-construction is not a concession. It is the source of legitimacy.

5. Standards describe purpose

A genuine standard should describe what an institution or profession exists to achieve, not simply how it should operate.

The best standards begin with public purpose, defined in law and through the contract between the state and the profession. Everything else flows from that.

The most sophisticated regulatory systems understand that autonomy and accountability are mutually reinforcing. Institutions that are trusted with greater discretion require stronger standards.

But those standards should define purpose rather than process, capability rather than compliance, stewardship rather than bureaucracy.

A focus on trusts

That is especially true for trusts.

Trust quality cannot be reduced to whether they have complied with a prescribed list of actions. It lies in whether they exercise wise judgement and continually advance education and improve the lives of the children they serve.

Perhaps, then, we need to recover the true meaning of standards. Not as checklists. Not as inspection frameworks. Not as another layer of compliance.

But as enduring statements of public purpose, owned by the profession, stable over time, and rooted in principle rather than prescription.

Standards should never tell great institutions exactly what to do. They should help them be the kind of institutions society can trust.

Leora Cruddas CBE is chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts