This not only represents a shameful waste of resources but is tantamount to cheating since, as you well know, exam results are readily accessible to all and sundry. You mean to tell me that, throughout the last 28 years, instead of assessing schools for the quality of their teaching, staff dedication and competence, you have merely focused on exam results? Disgraceful. Well, Ofsted? What have you got to say for yourself? Speak up. ( Former university senior lecturer in education), Stroud, Gloucestershire The only way to reverse this malaise is to replace Ofsted with a supportive inspectorate that empowers, rather than punishes, bullies and publicly humiliates. The psyche of the whole schooling system has been comprehensively colonised by decades of this Gradgrindism, and even if Ofsted’s mooted changes come to reality, they can never reverse the damage that’s been done to the subtle, delicate pedagogical experience of teaching and learning. #HIGHER GRADE FIXATION SOFTWARE PROFESSIONAL#For approaching three decades, the professional identity and autonomy of teachers have been under concerted assault from Ofsted and the noxious “audit and accountability culture” and the impact on the morale and mental health of teachers and children alike has been catastrophic.Īnyone teaching in universities has also seen the appalling fallout – students less able to think critically and exercise their own learning autonomy, having been fed on a relentless diet of narrow, unimaginative test-driven teaching and the examination, and the accompanying tyranny of being governed by numbers. Whether or not there is any substance to Ofsted’s apparent volte-face on its inspection regime – and based on experience, I’m certainly not holding my breath – the damage has already been done, and is now irreversible. Prof Colin Richards Spark Bridge, Prof Frank Coffield London, Prof Peter Earley London, Prof John Bynner London, Prof Bernard Barker Leicester, Mark Quinn London, Dr Helena McVeigh London, Titus Alexander Kings Langley, David Godfrey London, Glynis Bradley-Peat London, David Powell Huddersfield We appeal to the chief inspector to transform Ofsted into a force for genuine improvement by dropping the grades. There is no educational justification for reducing the complexity of a school or college to a single grade, and overwhelming evidence that it causes harm. Ofsted should give parents a well-written paragraph, summarising strengths and areas for improvement, with a bespoke report to give a sense of what it is like to be a pupil/student/teacher in that school or college. Ofsted claims grades are wanted by parents, but where is the evidence? We asked Ofsted and there is none. The fraught relationship between Ofsted and teachers will remain and there will be no reduction in teacher workload. The overwhelming power of a single number will continue to create personal and professional casualties. Schools “requiring improvement” or dubbed “inadequate” will lose pupils, staff, funds and morale, undermining their ability to improve. Institutions labelled “outstanding” will obsess with keeping it, stifling innovation. Schools and colleges will remain fixated on fear-inspiring grades. While we welcome most of Ofsted’s new inspection framework, it is doomed to fail unless Ofsted drops its flawed four-point grading system. The chief inspector has launched a consultation on the new framework for the inspection of schools and colleges ( Ofsted plans overhaul of inspections to look beyond exam results, 16 January).
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