The NEU teaching union and the Association of School and College Leaders will provide formal support to the NAHT school leaders’ union’s legal action against Ofsted.
The NEU and ASCL have agreed to provide witness statements and will support the NAHT’s judicial review going forward, it has been announced today.
The legal action against Ofsted was launched over the potential impact of its new inspections on the mental health of school leaders and staff.
The NAHT begun its legal challenge earlier this year, warning that “adequate consultation has not been conducted regarding the plan for a new five-point scale to grade schools”.
The union also said that Ofsted had not properly considered the wellbeing of school staff in its development of the new inspection framework.
Ofsted is pushing ahead with its plan to judge schools using a five-point grading scale from November, despite “grave concerns” raised by unions representing leaders and teachers.
Overall single-word effectiveness grades for schools have been scrapped, but Ofsted’s new report-card inspection system will involve inspectors giving graded judgements for schools in at least six evaluation areas.
Warning over new Ofsted inspections
The NAHT is currently waiting for the court to determine whether permission will be granted for a judicial review case to proceed.
Paul Whiteman (pictured, centre), the union’s general secretary, said that the support of fellow unions sent a “clear message that the sector is united in its view that...the revised framework represents a clear risk to the health and wellbeing of those we represent”.
Daniel Kebede (pictured, left), general secretary of the NEU, said that his union’s members have “deep concerns” about the impact of Ofsted’s reforms.
“It is not inevitable that school inspection should be so high-stakes, so punitive and so burdensome for schools. It is certainly not the solution to recruit and retain a motivated and successful school workforce,” he said.
ASCL general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio (pictured, right) said it was a “sorry state of affairs” that legal action was the only avenue available for unions to get Ofsted to reconsider its plans.
“We have spent months trying to persuade the inspectorate to understand that its five-point grading scale will certainly not improve stress levels, which experts already describe as ‘concerningly high’, and that it is likely to make matters worse in many cases,” he added.
However, Mr Di’Iasio said that the schools watchdog remained “resolutely intransigent”. “We have to turn to other means to protect the education workforce,” he added.
In a speech to the Confederation of School Trusts conference earlier this month, Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver rejected the suggestion that the watchdog had not considered headteacher stress when developing its new inspection framework, which he said “couldn’t be further from the truth”.
He added: “This is the biggest change to how Ofsted grades in 30 years. But for some, it will never be enough because we won’t lessen accountability or remove grading altogether.”
The unions’ legal action announcement comes after Tes revealed that there are major concerns about Ofsted’s plan to ask headteachers where they believe their school “currently sits” on Ofsted’s new five-point grading scale across each evaluation area.
An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We have every confidence that our new-look reports will be better for parents and their children - because they provide more detailed and useful information. We also believe our revised inspections will be fairer for schools, because they will highlight strengths and areas for improvement, and not come to a single overall judgement.
“It’s really disappointing that these unions have taken this stance - even after months of genuine discussions between us. Our pilot inspections have gone very well, which makes us confident that headteachers will recognise a positive change when inspections begin.”
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