By Chris Ingate, ASCL Conditions of Employment Specialist: Pay 

The first Ofsted framework was in introduced in 1993.  This was also the year I went into senior leadership, so I’ve always had this slight sense of paranoia that Ofsted was ‘invented’ just to keep an eye on me! 

During my time as a headteacher I received gradings ranging from ‘requiring improvement’ to ‘outstanding', averaging out at ‘good'.  I always took these personally, although looking back the judgements, they were more a reflection of school context and sometimes misguided reductionism.  

Over a third of a century, education’s watchdog has ruled the roost.  Whether it has been a force for good is often a subject of debate. Officially, Ofsted states its core mission is to be "a force for improvement through intelligent, responsible and focused inspection and regulation to protect and advance children's education.”  

However, Ofsted does not measure school improvement.  It is an effectiveness measure.  And in terms of regulation, it is essential that schools and colleges are safe places for children and young people and that policies are compliant.  But is turning up every few years a good way to measure these key nuts and bolts?  

As I continued my rollercoaster relationship with the inspection process, I trained as an additional inspector.  I imagined that I would discover the elixir of education.  Sadly not.  Each education inspection framework (EIF) seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction to a serious case review or political whim. Moreover, I never inspected a school in a tough, deprived area which achieved better than good or a school in a leafy suburb that got less than good.  

But we need to be held accountable, don’t we?  And things have changed, right?  A new HMCI. A new inspection framework. No single measures. But mindlessly complicated.
  
Interestingly, if you ask a group of school and college leaders to design an inspection system, they would firstly detach safeguarding from accountability.  After all, local authorities retain the overall co-ordinating responsibility for safeguarding and would be best placed to oversee annual audits.   In terms of accountability, education leaders would then agree upon a common self-evaluation framework which Ofsted would validate or challenge. Every school would then have an equal opportunity to shine with the headline ‘school/college leaders are accurate in their judgements and have implemented the correct strategies to bring about further improvement.’  

But what do we know?