I WELCOME the suggestion that teachers should become temporary inspectors and that inspectors should work between inspections as supply teachers.
Too many local education authority and OFSTED inspectors display a crippling lack of familiarity with the everyday reality of teaching in contemporary state schools.
But inspectors need more than the occasional flirtation with teaching if they are to possess the competences required to inspect the work of teachers and command their respect. They really need to be practising teachers themselves.
Every post in an inspectorate should be paired with a post, at a suitable level, in a school. The teaching and inspection jobs would be shared by two people. The same principle should be applied to teacher-trainers in university departments of education.
Clifford A Walker
49 Fleming Way London
