As a chair of governors and an Office for Standards in Education lay inspector, I am surprised by the comments of the anonymous primary headteacher (TES, Letters, November 17) who was amazed that documents which found favour with his or her OFSTED inspectors were not so well received when passed to a colleague and resubmitted unchanged to a different inspection team at another school.
Every school is different and a school’s documentation needs to relate to its specific and individual circumstances. The process of developing its policies as a whole school, rather than being handed them ready written, is commonly reflected in the extent to which policies are appropriate for a school, and the consistency of their application. I therefore find it difficult to share the headteacher’s amazement that an OFSTED team at a different school, in different circumstances, should arrive at different conclusions.
The headteacher felt that this was evidence of OFSTED’s lack of objectivity, but surely this is evidence (if secondhand information is evidence of anything) supporting entirely the opposite conclusion?
DENNIS JENNER 6 Driffield Road Bow, London
