This Friday, Ofsted’s consultation on changes to its inspection framework closes.

The changes have been much lauded by the watchdog itself, which claims that it will trigger a shift away from the culture of narrowly focused inspections that heap pressure onto teachers beforehand.

However, the reaction from the profession has understandably been more lukewarm. There is a fear that the reality of the proposals won’t match the rhetoric: that they’ll do nothing to “reduce stress or increase the reliability of judgements.”

I completely agree.

Simply put, these reforms do not go nearly far enough. At best, they are tinkering around the edges of a system that is fundamentally broken. Ofsted lost the faith of the teaching profession long ago.

I hear it all the time from teachers - the fear of inspections in no way spurs improvements in lessons. Instead, the fear detracts from time to prepare and eats into life.

Instead, Ofsted makes teachers obsess over the accuracy of paperwork and the security of their jobs. That is to say nothing of the days and weeks of stress that are an unhelpful distraction for a school’s senior leadership team.

Ofsted does more harm than good

Ofsted was once supposed to support educators to improve, but it’s become something that strikes genuine fear into the hearts of even the most capable and dedicated teachers. Something has gone terribly wrong here and I don’t think such a harmful culture can be easily unpicked.

It is important that we ensure high standards in our schools, but often Ofsted causes much more harm than good. It is far from clear that these proposals will improve matters.

One of the proposals, for instance, is that teachers will be given much less notice of an impending inspection.

It may cut weeks of wasted time that teachers and school leaders currently spend preparing for an upcoming inspection, but it will do nothing to reduce the sense of dread that teachers feel.

The fear that an inspection could always be right around the corner could be even worse for teachers, with schools finding themselves in a permanent state of “preparing for inspection”.

I’m also concerned about the emphasis on cracking down on low-level disruption - schools in which children are found to be swinging on chairs or checking their phones are to be marked down. Now, don’t get me wrong - as a former teacher, I know how frustrating this kind of behaviour can be. But it does not determine whether or not a school is providing a high-quality education. More often than not, these are students being failed by the cuts to children’s and youth services or to universal credit. Happy kids don’t generally misbehave.

Placing an undue focus on whether a teacher - who may be single-handedly overseeing a room of 30 pupils - chooses to stop the class and crack down on every one of these instances, is the exact opposite of taking a broader view of school performance, as these reforms aim to do.

What would I do differently? The Liberal Democrats and I believe we need a complete overhaul, which replaces this inspections regime altogether. If it was up to me, we would scrap Ofsted and start again.

We would build an inspections system which looks at the culture of a school and focuses on the wellbeing of teachers and pupils, as much as on academic results.

Supporting school improvement

Where a school is struggling, an inspection system should support the school to improve, not punish it. This system should be led by teachers, for teachers - with peer-to-peer support to help schools where they need to do better.

But that’s not to say we shouldn’t fight to improve the system we have now, too.

So, during this consultation process, Liberal Democrats will be making the case for change.

Firstly, let’s abandon the single overall grade in favour of a report card approach where several areas of a school’s work are graded separately. Exam results should no longer be allowed to dominate an inspection grade, with separate judgements on areas such as provision for pupils with SEND, curriculum breadth and appropriateness, feedback from pupils and parents and personal development.

Secondly, we need to ensure that regular inspections for good schools do not lead to an increase in stress and workload for staff - the stakes associated with an Ofsted inspection need to be lowered. The government must end the assumption that a poor inspection result will automatically lead to changes in governance arrangements for a school. Ofsted should instead focus on identifying the areas in which schools require improvement or support and help the school to make lasting change.

Teachers and pupils have been let down by our inadequate inspections system for too long. Whatever comes out of this consultation, I sincerely hope that it will deliver a fairer and less distressing experience for educators.

If you are a teacher or school leader, I urge you to respond to the consultation by tomorrow - which you can do here.

Layla Moran is the education spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats and a former teacher