There is no doubt that the NAHT heads’ union’s much-heralded report Improving School Accountability makes some valuable criticisms, though as a former inspector I believe these might carry more weight if more of the “expert” panel that produced it had in-depth experience as inspectors.

All of the “five problems for Ofsted” outlined in John Roberts’ Tes article are pertinent but non-contentious after 25 years or more of the Ofsted inspection regime.

Ofsted inspections have played a major, though not the only, part in the workload issue affecting both recruitment and retention of staff. Equally, the report’s charge that the prospect of an adverse, seemingly authoritative judgement has contributed to a feeling of near panic and vulnerability on the part of headteachers and other staff has been amply borne out by bitter experience and a spate of early resignations.

The “tick-box culture” is all too evident - not only in the extensive documentation schools have felt obliged to provide but also in the formulaic content of inspection reports which inspectors have felt constrained to provide - to the detriment of giving a vivid, convincing picture of the school in question.

The limitations of Ofsted

But there is a much more fundamental criticism that can be levelled at both Ofsted and the NAHT report itself. Ironically, the authors of the report are as much victims of Ofsted’s rhetoric as schools have been. This so-called “heavyweight” report argues that without radically reformed inspection procedures and greatly increased funding, Ofsted cannot “assure” the quality of education in the nation’s schools, as the rhetoric of the organisation claims it can.

But it never has, never could and never will.

Whether the report’s recommendations are acted upon or not, the idea of an objective, value-free evaluation of policy and practice is never going to be realised. This is thanks to the complex reality of value judgements and the human fallibility inevitably involved in the inspection process. An Ofsted inspection can never provide certainty or complete assurance. It can provide valuable insights and be the stimulus for professional dialogue, but that’s all. 

All it can do at its best is to offer a subjective, professionally rigorous but suitably tentative judgement of the quality of education in individual schools. That, in itself, can be (though isn’t always) beneficial to individual institutions and indirectly to the system as a whole. The Commons Public Accounts Committee also recently evaluated Ofsted against its rhetoric and found it wanting. In comparison between rhetoric and reality, Ofsted has indeed underperformed. But that’s been inevitable given the current limitations of the inspection process, thanks to drastic funding cuts and the professional haemorrhaging it is experiencing.

What is needed is a fundamental reappraisal of what school inspection can realistically offer. Neither of the two reports cited here provide that, even though the NAHT recognises the need as one of the lessons it identifies. Both are working with a mindset similar to that of the institution they are criticising. That mindset needs changing and changing fast.

We need to aim for a subjective but rigorous evaluation of policy and practice by experienced and expert inspectors operating without fear or favour, offering professional dialogue and reflection, but doing so in a culture where the future of schools and their staff is not on the line. 

Ofsted itself is becoming increasingly aware of the rhetoric/reality gap and is taking encouraging steps to address it. Time, the promised inspection framework of 2019 and perhaps future committees’ reports, will tell.

Professor Colin Richards was formerly HM Inspectorate’s staff inspector for the school curriculum. He describes himself as a former “old-fashioned HMI”