Launched today, every aspect of Ofsted’s consultation on its revised inspection arrangements is already causing controversy. One of those aspects is getting less attention, but perhaps best typifies the problem the inspectorate faces: its use of language.
As an initial response to the scathing criticism levelled at its previous arrangements, Ofsted and the Labour government did away with overall inspection grades. As an interim step to the new arrangements, however, they have kept the use of summative terms for each of an inspection’s (currently four, soon to be eight or more) sub-judgments.
It is clear, however, that the inspectorate has finally recognised that ‘Inadequate’, ‘Requires Improvement’, ‘Good’ and ‘Outstanding’, all come with enormous baggage.
More than that though, they were disputed from the outset. Indeed, it’s not so long ago that the term ‘Satisfactory’ was replaced by ‘Requires Improvement’ in a linguistic effort to convey a new, tougher approach to raising standards.
Such is the weight of our collective professional memory that the word does not look set to make a comeback. Nevertheless, the new set of terms will doubtless come under considerable scrutiny, and rightly so.
‘Exemplary’ may not seem as exclusive as ‘outstanding’ but will exert just as much pressure on schools who will vie to achieve and broadcast the number of ‘Exemplaries’ in their profile.
Likewise, ‘Causing Concern’ sounds friendlier than ‘Inadequate’ (an interesting reversal of the ‘Satisfactory’-to-‘Requires Improvement’ linguistic switch), but will it be any less of a cause of stress for all that, given it will be colour-coded in red?
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” wrote Shakespeare, but what’s fair in love may not be fair in school inspection. While replacing the words Ofsted uses for judgment is an important acknowledgment of the toxicity the current set has acquired, it’s more than likely the new terms will suffer the same fate.
Journalists, policy makers and parents (and Ofsted itself) will use them for over–simplistic comparisons, in continued denial of the complexity of school contexts. Some school leaders will continue to parade their top grades, while others will continue to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Inspectors need the freedom to report as idiosyncratically as the schools they inspect
But is it necessary or even desirable to have a common set of grades?
Inspection is qualitative by nature. All of the proposed core areas of inspection need interpreting. That interpretation inevitably involves value judgments, and those judgments invariably require broad evaluative terms.
But why the same five in every context? Can they even be applied consistently? And can enough evidence about each area be collected to sustain their grading within the confines of a two-day inspection?
Surely, inspectors’ command of language should be such that they can find just the right ones to fit their perceptions of the activities they evaluate.
Over-simplistic categorisation fails to take into account the varied and complex reality of schools. This can only be captured (and then only in part) in well-crafted, nuanced prose with evaluative terms that fit the purpose. For that, inspection teams need the freedom to report as idiosyncratically as the schools they inspect.
Leadership and governance might be exceptionally good, or even inspiring. Behaviour and attitudes might be poor or positive or supportive. Achievement might be sound or unequal or exceptional for certain groups. Curriculum might be well sequenced but unrepresentative, or inclusive but poorly sequenced. And attendance might very well be satisfactory.
Bespoke language used to be a characteristic of reports published by HM Inspectorate in the 1980s. It can be again, leading to more discriminating judgments, more nuanced information for parents and governors and more constructive comparisons between like schools. And all without depriving the DfE of the information it needs to decide where intervention is necessary.
As long as report cards pursue the standardised and formulaic model Ofsted has imposed on schools since its inception, it will continue to breed stress in schools. Worse, it will continue to fail to account for the reality of our schools – all for little more than the inspectorate’s own convenience.
