School leaders have lambasted new Ofsted inspection toolkits as “cobbled together” and “a nonsense”.
Under plans for new report cards, schools would be rated one of five, colour-coded judgments: exemplary (dark green), strong, secure, attention needed, or causing concern (red).
Ofsted has published rubrics – which it has called “toolkits” – to “describe the quality we would expect to see at each point on the scale” for each judgment area.
It wants to provide schools “clear guidance” on what inspectors will be looking at.
Sir Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector, said the toolkits would mean leaders “no longer have to guess what’s in inspectors’ minds”.
But many in the sector say the descriptors for different grades are too similar.
‘Cobbled together’
Frank Norris, a former HMI, told Schools Week: “The draft grade descriptors look as though they have been cobbled together with insufficient consideration of how they will play out during inspections”.
He highlighted vague phrases such as “broadly in line with national average” which were “open to wide interpretation”.
Michael Fordham, the principal of Thetford Academy in Norfolk, is among sector leaders who have criticised the descriptors on social media. “Anyone with half an ounce of sense will see that it is a nonsense that one of these is better than the other,” he wrote on Bluesky.
Teacher Mike Hobbiss said the descriptors “cut to the heart of the absolute incoherence of the new Ofsted grade criteria”.
Many have pointed out that the toolkits echo the national curriculum levels, which were ditched more than ten years ago.
Most failed blind survey
To put the toolkits to the test, Schools Week ran a blind online survey asking readers to distinguish between the criteria for ‘strong’ and ‘secure’ ratings.
More than 3,000 respondents, primarily teachers and school leaders, on average got two out of five wrong.
One question on ‘inclusive attendance culture and practices’ proved particularly confusing. Just 36 per cent of respondents successfully chose the higher grade descriptor.
One of the descriptors reads: “Leaders build a culture of community and belonging, promoting positive relationships and attitudes between teachers, parents and pupils so that every pupil feels valued, safe and understood.”
The other reads: “Leaders pay close attention to every element of the school’s work to make sure that the school is a place that pupils want to attend. They make careful adjustments to pupils’ provision, when necessary.”
Can you work out which is ‘strong’ and which ‘secure’? Do the quiz here
