Times Joanna Sugden
Parents will have the power to trigger school inspections in a shake up of Ofsted that gives pupils as young as five influence over the verdicts of inspectors.
Teachers’ leaders and parents groups criticised the introduction of annual parent surveys, announced today which they say betray a lack of trust in schools and are a waste of money. The results of the questionnaires will be used to determine when inspectors should move in to schools and pupil surveys will contribute to whether a school is judged inadequate, satisfactory, good or outstanding. Christine Gilbert, chief inspector of schools, said the new inspection powers will put great weight on parents’ perceptions of the school. “If there is a trend of declining satisfaction of the school over two years, that would ring alarm bells and make us go into schools sooner rather than later.” Schools that are judged good or outstanding will only be inspected every five years rather than every three under the new rules, unless parents raise concerns in the intervening period. Those that are deemed inadequate or only satisfactory will be subject to more and surprise visits from inspectors.
Currently parents can write to Ofsted if they have concerns about a school but blanket surveying will enable every parent to raise the alarm. Parents could fill in the survey anonymously online, Ms Gilbert added. “Parents have told me that they want a confidential way of saying that they aren’t happy.” But campaign groups said the new inspection rules will not help parents. Margaret Morrisey, from Parents Outloud, said: “It’s a sop to parents and it’s time that Government departments had more respect for parents and didn’t treat them like primary school pupils.”
When the new inspection framework is introduced in September, there will also be a greater focus on classroom observation with double the amount of time spent observing teachers in lessons. John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said increasing parent power over inspections was the wrong approach. “Schools already do their own parent surveys, separate Ofsted survey would indicate a lack of trust in schools. “Where the surveys indicate grave dissatisfaction with schools this should trigger support for the school to put the problem right rather than more inspection.” Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the rules would add to the vulnerability that heads already feel because of inspections. Schools will now be judged on the wellbeing of their pupils and whether they have adopted a healthy lifestyle. Ofsted has also raised the bar to make it tougher for schools to be rated good or outstanding. They will now place more emphasis on exam results rather than pupil progress, effectively making it harder for schools in areas with low academic attainment to be judged better than satisfactory. The Government faced embarrassment last year when it said that more than 600 schools were failing to reach expected exam result targets – many of which had been judged outstanding by Ofsted because of the progress made by pupils.