Pressure on school leaders increases as Ofsted speed up school inspections
Despite calls for inspections to be paused growing ever louder, Ofsted appear to be ramping up the pressure on school staff, with the Secretary of State for Education announcing an additional £25 million in funding for all schools to be inspected by 2025.
However a host of educational charities, unions, and professional support bodies have joined the clamour to suspend inspections until we are genuinely ‘beyond’ the pandemic, or change the focus/ role of Ofsted to be more of a support to schools in these difficult times. Headrest UK, a support service for Head Teachers, is the latest group to do so, urging the shadow education secretary to challenge the return of graded inspections during the pandemic.
Organisations such as Headrest UK are seeing a sharp increase in demand for their services from school leaders, who feel that the stress they are experiencing is becoming unbearable. Polls for Schools North East, and those of national education organisations, have indicated ever increasing stress levels amongst all school staff, but especially senior leaders and support staff, many of whom have not had a proper break since February half term 2020.
Like Schools North East, Headrest recently wrote to Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, raising concerns over the damaging impact inspections are already having on school staff and, while the government has provided an extra £25 million to speed up Ofsted inspections, it is clear that alleviating workload pressures for school staff would be more effective than any financial support for inspection.
At the Schools North East Annual Ofsted Update this week, we heard from Belita Scott, Senior HMI, and Regional Director North East, Yorkshire, and Humber Emma Ing address concerns that the return to inspection might greatly increase the pressure on school staff at a time when covid absences amongst staff and students ,as well as catch up, mean staff are under as much pressure now as at any time during the pandemic. They discussed how inspectors are approaching schools regarding the impact Covid-19 has had on their staff, students and communities. Their main message was to reassure school leaders that inspectors would definitely take into account the pandemic’s effect on a school. They reiterated that this should be a priority in the initial phone call, although they admitted that inspectors may not have explicitly addressed the covid impact issue with all staff during inspections.
Emma Ing stated “Ofsted will definitely take Covid into consideration,” before saying that it is up to the school to provide inspectors with some context and rationale. Belita Scott gave the example of reading, explaining that schools must talk inspectors through their balancing act of making extra provision for students to become better readers following their return to school and stated that school must provide firm, evidence-based reasons for other subjects to be reduced or replaced by more focus on reading and phonics.
Emma Ing also provided examples such as attendance, stating that, while Ofsted may ask the question, it is up to the school to provide an answer that may or may not include the pandemic.
While a clearer indication from Ofsted on how they will take Covid into account would be a great reassurance to schools, it is the question of whether they should be inspecting at all during a pandemic that needs to be addressed. With catch up uncertainty, working hours increasing and staff morale at a worryingly low point, schools already have enough to worry about with Ofsted increasing the pressure. Many schools are still coping with Covid anxieties and fall-out, with others citing general exhaustion and supporting students with additional needs as reasons for their potential burnout.
This term, Schools North East has conducted a ‘State of the Region’ survey, collating the most urgent issues school staff are facing; this survey includes the views of school leaders of over 200 schools. A very worrying 70% of school leaders who responded stated that Ofsted pressure is the reason for their negative wellbeing at this time.
While schools are delivering the normal curriculum, alongside disruption, educational ‘catch-up’, supporting students’ mental health and wellbeing, and addressing growing additional needs, especially among vulnerable groups, students with SEND, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds, they simply do not have the capacity to also prepare for inspection. Instead, a more useful focus for Ofsted would be on ensuring and assisting schools to safeguard their students effectively, after such a disrupted period of time.
Those surveyed also stated that a major concern was the expectations on schools to be doing ‘business as usual’. It would appear to be clear now that, rather than speed up inspections now and bring in initiatives to support schools and their staff members later, it would be more sensible to ‘de-pressurise’ the system, taking a step back and removing some of the stresses they are feeling now, with a pause of inspections being an easy win for the Department for Education.