To continue the tone of Mike Kent’s great back page articles regarding Ofsted, I would add that during my “best” interactive, all-singingdancing maths lesson the inspector actually nodded off for a short time. The blame apparently lay at the door of long nights having meetings and writing reports. The pupils managed to do well despite the man with his eyes closed in the corner.

More seriously though, the whole area of lesson observation is a joke. Different inspectors will see and grade the same lesson differently. The results of lesson observation are unreliable, inconsistent, invalid, and unfair.

Let Ofsted and other inspection bodies look at books and talk to pupils, parents, teachers and management. Let’s stop this stupid and damaging extrapolation from 30 minutes of lottery lesson observation.

Will Barber, Woodchester, Stroud, Gloucestershire.