A petition has been launched by a leading education professor calling on Ofsted to drop its “damaging” four-point grading scale for schools and colleges.
Within days of its launch, the petition set up by Frank Coffield, emeritus professor of education at the UCL Institute of Education, has garnered more than 750 signatures.
The petition states: “Today we launch a national campaign calling on Ofsted to drop its damaging four-point grades. Labelling schools and colleges ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ is an example of unintelligent accountability.”
Professor Coffield lists 10 arguments against Ofsted’s current grading system, including that the claim that the grades matter so much that they “add substantially to teachers’ workloads so that many leave the profession”.
He added: “Inspectors could produce a more detailed narrative about each institution, celebrating its strengths and how they could be built on; and identifying weaknesses and a plan to deal with them.”
Read more: Coffield: ‘7 problems with inspections Ofsted must fix’
Further reading: The secret to improving Ofsted? Get rid of grades, says Coffield
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Ofsted consultation
Professor Coffield has called on “parents, governors, students, teachers, academics and concerned citizens” to sign the petition as part of the campaign.
Ofsted has put its new education inspection framework out to public consultation. Professor Coffield said the grading scale must be reviewed as part of this. However, Ofsted’s consultation document states that “all judgements will still be awarded under the current four-point grading scale.”
In 2017, a book written by Professor Coffield entitled Will the Leopard Change its Spots? set out an argument for the inspectorate to scrap its grading system.
A spokesperson for Ofsted said: “Ofsted exists first and foremost to serve the public and to report to them on the state of our schools and colleges. Parents tell us they like the clarity of four grades to help make informed choices, and as a marker of how well their child’s school is performing. Alongside grading, our reports identify strengths and areas for improvement. Under our proposed new framework, this narrative will focus on the quality of education provided, with more emphasis on what it is like to be a pupil at the school.”
