I recently asked a long-time sector leader whether she would ever consider becoming the chief inspector of Ofsted.
“Why on earth would I do that?” she replied. “It’s an utterly impossible job.”
Those who have held the post usually come to a similar conclusion, so you tend to encounter a great deal of empathy between ex-chief inspectors. Amanda Spielman, though, showed little of that to incumbent Sir Martyn Oliver last week.
If you have not read her article, published in The Spectator, it’s an attempted demolition of the current version of Ofsted, in which she accuses Sir Martyn of having “little interest in education” and argues that the new inspection framework has removed “almost all real scrutiny” of education.
While some in the sector may share some of her sentiments, it’s worth remembering that this critique is essentially an argument that Spielman’s version of Ofsted was superior and should have been left in place. That version, of course, is the one the sector rejected en masse.
And Sir Martyn has worked in the sector for decades, holding roles at every level, so for Spielman to say he has little interest in education is frankly ridiculous.
It’s an article that the education sector should still pay attention to, though, as it exposes to a wider audience what the profession has always said about Ofsted but parents and those outside the sector are largely unaware of: that the inspectorate is not providing an evolving standardised evaluation of schools over time, but a highly subjective judgement with radically shifting goalposts.
Schools experience those shifts acutely.
Despite commendable focus on curriculum breadth, Spielman’s Ofsted was deeply theoretical, underpinned by what critics argued was a narrow research base and an idealism about what schools could achieve within the many constraints they have to operate under.
Sir Martyn’s Ofsted, meanwhile, has been criticised for being heavily performance-focused, with too much attention being paid to data and not enough to context, and a limited view of how a school should operate. This has undermined the credit he has accrued in some quarters for his more realistic view of sector workload.
Parents and others may think it was just the grading system that changed in the switch to the new regime, but for schools, so much more did, too.
And if you look back, this “revolution, not evolution” approach has always been taken as Ofsted leaders and politicians (and politics) have come and gone, with judgements being heavily dependent on a school’s ability to negotiate shifting sands of prioritisation and focus, not just to provide a good education.
When the sector has pointed this out over the years, it has frequently been criticised as being anti-accountability or accused of hyperbole. Or the message has simply not cut through. Few outside their ranks have supported or understood the position.
Now, however, Spielman has (likely unintentionally) provided a hefty bit of evidence that the sector argument is factual, and it has been distributed straight into the mainstream media conversation. For those pushing for a more informed and mature conversation about accountability, that could be very useful indeed.
Jon Severs
Editor, Tes
Bluesky: @jonsevers.bsky.social
Twitter/X: @jon_severs
