Nando’s-style grading won’t keep pupils safe or boost good teaching, union says

An overhaul to the way Ofsted inspects schools – including report cards with colour-coded grades – will not help keep children safe, boost good teaching or motivate learning, the National Education Union has said.

A raft of changes, set to come into place in November, were announced by the education watchdog on Tuesday, but have faced criticism from unions despite an independent poll by YouGov finding that almost seven out of 10 parents surveyed preferred the new-look report cards to the current inspection reports.

Schools in England will be graded across a variety of different areas – including attendance, behaviour and inclusion – using a colour-coded five-point scale, while nurseries and childminders will be inspected more frequently and schools and colleges with identified areas for improvement will receive additional monitoring inspections.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said His Majesty’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver was asked to bring in a system that reduces pressure but this one “makes things much worse”.

He said: “More of the same. More pressure. More ranking and competition. More labels.

“We completely reject that a Nando’s style 1-5 grading scale is good for children or parents. Report cards won’t help keep children safe, boost good teaching or motivate learning.

“Ofsted try to paint the opposition to report cards as a ‘vocal, small minority’ whereas in reality, concern is widespread across the profession.

“Ofsted is leaning so heavily on a poll of parents but we know parents want stable staffing, time for relationships with their child and personalised learning – exactly what Ofsted undermines. Treating professionals like this is insulting.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said Ofsted has made “minor and cosmetic changes to a flawed rationale”.

He said: “Inspections should do two things – provide parents with an accurate reflection of a school’s performance while doing so without placing an excessive burden on staff. Ofsted’s plans achieve neither objective.

“The tweaks made to its proposals following the consultation period are just that – minor and cosmetic changes to a flawed rationale.

“To make matters worse, the planned introduction of this system is far too rushed and gives schools little time to prepare for a huge change in how they will be inspected.

“As we have warned on many occasions, it will not be possible to apply reliably a five-point grading scale across multiple evaluation areas during the course of a single inspection.

“Even with the number of evaluation areas slightly streamlined, this exercise requires inspectors to make a large number of finely balanced judgments in a very short space of time.

“Regardless of the amount of training delivered, it is unlikely that inspection teams will be able to do this consistently between different settings, and the result will be a system that is inherently unreliable.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said Ofsted is “perpetuating a high-stakes punitive regime which risks serious harm to school leaders and teachers with career-defining consequences”.

He said: “The inspectorate had the opportunity to really listen to the profession – instead it has determined to stick to a model that was overwhelming rejected when unveiled earlier this year.

“While we have achieved a number of hard-won concessions, such as a reduction in the number of separate areas being graded and a limit to the number of hours an inspector can be in school for, the fundamental problems we identified at the start of the year remain.

“What happens next will be key. To be clear, given the findings of the independent wellbeing impact assessment, NAHT believes these proposals should not go ahead in their current state. To do so would be to continue to put the wellbeing and safety of school staff at risk.

“As a bare minimum, there now must be a clear commitment to independently monitor and evaluate the impact of any new approach. The risks of not doing so are simply too high.”

Ofsted said it had “listened carefully to feedback from professionals, making a number of changes and improvements to its proposed approach following consultation” and had acted on concerns about wellbeing and workload including by adding an additional inspector to school inspections.

The body said: “Ofsted’s revisions to education inspections will support its core purpose – to inspect schools, early years and education providers objectively, in the best interests of children, their parents and carers – while taking account of the needs and wellbeing of education professionals.”

Sir Martyn said he was “excited” to introduce the plans, which he said will “help to raise standards for all children, but particularly those who are the most disadvantaged or vulnerable”.

He said: “For parents, this will give them better, more detailed information about their child’s school, nursery or college, and parents overwhelmingly have shown their support for this approach in their consultation.

“I believe that these changes will be fairer to educational professionals, for those working in schools, nurseries, colleges, because the new reports will present a set of grades describing both the strengths and areas for improvement, and not just a blunt single word judgment.”

Addressing concerns about the November start date for the new inspections, which some have said is too soon, he said there would be a “steady and assured start” after the half term, and that no inspections would take place in the week before Christmas.