Displaying items by tag: Ofsted

England's education watchdog, Ofsted, has warned of a significant deterioration in the 'social contract' between families and schools, a situation where parents ensure their children attend school regularly and respect school policies. In her final report, Ofsted's chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, highlighted issues including lower attendance, poor behaviour, and increased friction between parents and schools. She cited a worrying shift in attitudes since the pandemic, with some parents challenging school policies more frequently. Government data show that over a fifth of pupils in England were persistently absent in the 2022/23 academic year, a notable increase from pre-pandemic levels. This trend is contributing to declining educational progress and outcomes. Additionally, schools are experiencing more disruptive behaviour, particularly low-level disruptions like backtalk and misuse of social media in class. Restoring the traditional relationship between schools and families is crucial but is expected to take years.

Dr Martin Hanbury has quit as an Ofsted inspector, saying he felt his role could cause more harm than good. Teachers in the National Education Union are also being urged to refuse to do inspections for England's regulator. But Ofsted said most school leaders found them constructive and collaborative. Last month the Department for Education said inspections were hugely important and a legal requirement. Mr Hanbury told the BBC that regulating schools was important, but the current system was ‘scrutinising’ schools without giving them support. He called the one-word grading system ‘totally unfit for purpose. It's a very simplistic way of describing a really complex system. It's like trying to measure a cloud with a ruler. An inadequate school is very rarely inadequate in everything it does and, equally, an outstanding school is never outstanding in everything it does.’

Headteacher Mrs Perry killed herself after an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her school's rating from Outstanding to Inadequate. Now a dam has burst. Her family blame her death on the Ofsted inspection pressure, and many headteachers and teachers are now speaking out about their own experiences of the Ofsted process. There are huge pressures on headteachers, bearing the responsibility of solving societal issues within schools and managing challenges like safeguarding, behaviour management, and academic performance. The stress can be overwhelming. The relationship between schools and Ofsted is particularly difficult due to numerous regulations that have evolved over the past 20 years. Policy changes regarding faith, identity, and sexuality have had a significant impact, particularly on faith schools keen to teach in line with traditional Christian beliefs. Many believe Ofsted inspectors approach these issues with their own ideological bias, adding to the challenge. See

Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre is privately run, by MTC, on the same site as two prisons. MPs want the Government to take over this detention centre, where children are kept in their cells for all but thirty minutes a day. MTC had previously been told to improve. The House of Commons justice committee said the Government should act by June 2020 if conditions tantamount to solitary confinement are not addressed. MP Sir Bob Neill said, ‘The experience of the inspectors over the past year has shown that some of the promises made by MTC are worth less than the paper they are written on. The ministry of justice has failed in its oversight of this private contractor.’ The centre holds 87 boys and girls convicted or awaiting trial for serious offences. They have complex behavioural problems or other vulnerabilities, such as self-harming.

Ofsted wrongly tried to force Cornerstone Adoption and Fostering Service to work with non-evangelical Christian carers. The High Court has ruled that England’s only evangelical Christian fostering agency can continue to work only with evangelical Christian carers, stating, ‘Cornerstone is permitted to exclusively recruit evangelical Christian carers because of the exemption in the Equality Act 2010 for religious organisations’.

Campaigners for better RE say the new school inspection framework will put more pressure on schools to prioritise the subject. It is understood that two-day-long inspections will now put greater emphasis on the broad curriculum while a small number of subjects will also be chosen as a focus for examination. These subjects could include religious education. Ben Wood from the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education said, ‘Ofsted are really pushing the sense that they want a curriculum to be broad. And that means that while English, Maths and Science are important so is RE, history, geography, art, music, and PE. They are all important, they all have a role to play. It is very heartening to hear Ofsted saying that within the curriculum, RE has a crucial role to play.’ Schools must now ensure pupils can reflect their own religious beliefs as well as having knowledge and respect for others.

In a recent speech, Ofsted claimed that extremists are using religion to pervert education and indoctrinate young people. Singling out the Christian Institute, which was wrongly labelled Anglican, it condemned ideological indoctrination by Christian extremists, and said that schools have a responsibility to ‘tackle those who actively undermine fundamental British values or equalities law’. However, under the Equality Act 2010, religion is listed as a protected characteristic, alongside such things as sex, gender reassignment, pregnancy, age, and race. Ofsted’s apparent prioritisation of LGBT rights over other protected characteristics not only denies this but, by extension, seeks to alter or oppose the law. An Ofsted spokesperson said, ‘We must tackle those who actively undermine fundamental British values or equalities law.’ Ofsted appears to believe that expressing religious belief is not endorsing British values. Pray for parents to continue to have their children educated in line with their own religious and / or philosophical beliefs.

Amanda Spielman, who in January became head of schools’ regulator Ofsted, has vowed to continue promoting ‘British values’. Citing the recent terror attacks as evidence that a greater crackdown on different forms of extremism is needed, she said that the promotion of British values will be determined by individual inspectors, adding, ‘There isn’t a prescribed translation of it, so schools will have to work it out’. John Denning of the Christian Institute, which has consistently questioned the vague and subjective nature of ‘British values’, said Spielman’s assertions would be particularly concerning for head teachers of faith schools. He said: ‘This might encourage Ofsted inspectors to pressurise or even fail schools, based on their own subjective opinions of what British values are. Schools will remain vulnerable to inspectors’ personal biases.’ Since the Government introduced the requirement to ‘actively promote’ British values in schools in 2014, Ofsted inspectors have caused widespread problems for religious liberty in England, with aggressive questioning of teachers and pupils over their beliefs on same-sex marriage and transsexualism.

An outcry by Christians over plans to register and inspect Sunday schools is forcing the Government to ‘tread carefully’ over the matter. A recent consultation of this matter received 18,000 responses. The Christian Institute, CARE, Christian Concern, Evangelical Alliance and Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship have been raising awareness about the proposals, and urged supporters to respond to the consultation when it was announced. The Government’s controversial plans were engineered by former education secretary Nicky Morgan in the wake of the Trojan Horse affair, and are part of a wider counter-extremism strategy. They propose giving Ofsted the legal power to investigate any setting in England that provides instruction to children for more than 6 to 8 hours in any week. This could include Sunday schools, youth groups, or one-off events such as holiday Bible clubs. They would also apply to a whole host of secular settings such as music lessons and drama groups.