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How is the new Ofsted inspection framework working out in schools? Is it an improvement on the previous one? Are the strong criticisms that have been made of Ofsted being addressed? Is it at long last fit for purpose?

We simply don’t know yet. Ofsted isn’t telling us; it may never tell us with any certainty.

It claims to be commissioning its own research on impact, but on its own terms, with its own questions and with its own ownership of which findings to disclose.

As critics, we, along with many others, are all too aware of how lacking in transparency Ofsted has been in the past over the details of responses to its recent consultations.

How well is the new Ofsted system working?

What is needed is a fully independent post-inspection survey, as recommended by Dame Christine Gilbert in her learning review following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.

To create this contribution to a much-needed independent comprehensive evaluation of the new framework, we have joined forces with three leading academics, professors Peter Tymms, Frank Coffield and Chris Pascal, to create a totally independent survey for senior leaders of schools recently inspected to share their views on the experience.

We have for the initial development work and have started by contacting 20 schools each week that have been recently inspected to gather insight and check how processes worked. We have been pleased with the response rate and the process.

We now feel confident in contacting every school and college that has been recently inspected. We intend publishing our first report in mid June.

The survey is being sent to all leaders of schools, colleges and settings that have recently received their Ofsted report.

Insights and experiences

The aim is to gauge their perceptions of the impact of the inspection on them and their institutions. There are two sections to the questionnaire. The first is a series of statements with -type responses and the second asks for open-ended commentaries.

The first gives leaders the opportunity to say whether they felt that the inspection was fair, whether the advice they were given was valuable, how their wellbeing was affected by the inspection and so on.

The second gives them the chance to share more detailed reflections on the inspection process while it is still fresh in their minds.

We believe that by contacting all schools we will see an increase in responses, and this will strengthen the quantitative and qualitative evidence for the first report.

We are also on 25 June to consider what we find. It is free to attend.

Meanwhile, anybody who wants to can and see the numbers of responses that are being given to each of the categories and read the comments. We are anonymising all the responses.

Early findings

The preliminary findings strongly suggest that the newly introduced framework is still found wanting in many respects, especially Ofsted’s failure to produce a drastically different, less pressurised framework than the previous one.

There are particular concerns, too, about the framework’s effect on leaders’ wellbeing, workload and career prospects.

We are assiduously ensuring that all comments and responses remain anonymous and because we are fully independent, we expect that we will get more honest and direct responses than Ofsted’s own post-inspection survey.

It will be very salutary for Ofsted, in particular, to compare the responses from our independent survey with those from its “official” one.

Ofsted has long avoided fully independent, detailed and forensic scrutiny. But no longer, with your help and others’.

Professor Colin Richards and Frank Norris MBE are both former senior inspectors

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