Ofsted stands accused of “running away” with the development of new report cards, with union leaders calling for the Department for Education to take charge amid fears the watchdog is “reforming itself”.
Labour made the new report cards a key manifesto pledge ahead of this year’s general election. But Ofsted is leading on their design.
The watchdog announced its plans to develop and consult on the policy, aided by reference groups, earlier this month. Ministers scrapped headline Ofsted grades at the beginning of term.
Unions are uneasy for several reasons. They are not represented on the reference groups, which formed before the general election. At the time, the previous government’s policy was to oppose scrapping headline grades.
Ofsted is also moving at pace. It aims to have the report cards drawn up in time for a formal consultation in January. They will come into force next September.
‘Schools have had enough of things being done to them’
Daniel Kebede, the head of the National Education Union, told Schools Week the DfE “should be developing the report cards in dialogue with the wider profession”, adding that the “key concern” was “the regulator reforming itself”.
He pointed to a recent signal from the government that they will work more closely with unions.
“The impression we’re getting is one of the first things up for discussion is accountability.
“That’s completely undermined by the chief inspector running away, developing his own report cards and then telling the profession what’s going to happen. Schools have had enough of things being done to them.”
While Ofsted, which is independent and answers directly to Parliament, is responsible for setting its approach to inspection, overall accountability policy is set by government.
‘Don’t try to make cards fit existing model’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT leaders’ union, acknowledged a “genuine intention from Ofsted to achieve change quickly, and for good reasons”, but said the election result meant we now had a government “that wants a different relationship between inspection and wider accountability”.
“And what we are frightened of right now is that Ofsted are continuing with that pace without really understanding that actually what’s being demanded now by government and the sector is that complete redesign, rather than trying to make a report card fit an inspection model that’s already in place.
“If they do that, that would be a huge mistake, and it will let the sector down.”
He agreed with Kebede that the government “should be leading on it…it’s for the government to outline its policy towards inspection, rather than the inspectorate, and then the inspectorate build a model that meets that policy”.
“I think Ofsted is getting ahead of itself.”
A DfE spokesperson said it was “working closely with Ofsted on developing the report cards over the next year, with extensive engagement and consultation with parents and the education sector to ensure the new report card is as clear and transparent as possible”.
DfE should issue report cards
Some sector leaders believe it should be the DfE – not Ofsted – that issues the report cards when they are rolled out.
The intention is for the report cards to provide wider “insights” into schools beyond what inspectors observe, though what data parents might be presented with has not been set out.
“If what we’re doing is giving a kind of a much broader reflection of the school that should come from DfE and the Ofsted inspection part of that should be just contained within it,” said Whiteman.
Dame Christine Gilbert, a former chief inspector who led a lessons learned review of Ofsted’s response to the death last year of headteacher Ruth Perry, told Schools Week earlier this month that “done well, school report cards tell the real story of a school”.
Gilbert said existing approaches to report cards involved Ofsted reports “located as an additional piece of information within the report card, but it loses its primacy.
“Ofsted should definitely contribute to them and indeed, could use its data to support the development of some the priorities they identify, but it is hard to see how Ofsted itself has the authority, knowledge or resources to assume responsibility for rolling them out.”
Fears over ‘arbitrary’ 2025 deadline
Ofsted has pledged informal consultation this term as it develops the report cards.
“We have committed to a formal consultation on the report card and framework early in the new year. And we have informal engagement planned throughout the coming term”, including a meeting with unions and the Confederation of School Trusts on Thursday.
But union leaders remain nervous about the timescales involved.
“I think pace is a real problem,” said Kebede. “I don’t know why we’ve got this arbitrary date of September 1 2025. I think it’s more important to get it right than do it quickly.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, leader of the ASCL leaders’ union, said he had heard from his members “that we would rather go slower over the course of this next year and not rush to a deadline…to put something in place for a framework for September”.
‘It should not be a fait accompli’
He added that it would be the “worst case scenario” if Ofsted simply presented its final ideas to the sector for consultation in January.
“What we want is real collaboration. We want people to feel that they’ve all had their voices heard, and what we then see is a real moment of ‘you said this, we did this’. It should not be a fait accompli at all.”
However, he said he had “some sympathy” with chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver “because for many years now, we’ve been saying to him, we want change, and we’re desperate for change”.
Whiteman criticised the constitution of the reference groups, which “were selected even before the election was taking place” and before the new government signalled greater collaboration with unions.
“They were selected to undertake a completely different role, a different job. The reference panel that talks about health and wellbeing of school leaders doesn’t have a single trade union official on it that I can identify.”
He said implementation in September 2025 “gives us a year to do it”.
“I think the problem is, Ofsted are moving even faster than that, or it feels like they are.”
