Ofsted’s inspection system is causing “harm” to teachers and making them want to quit the profession, England’s largest education union has said.
School staff do not feel that reforms to inspections are an improvement, while upcoming inspections prompt a “significant and pervasive” sense of dread, a report by the NEU suggests.
Ofsted rolled out a new report card system for grading schools in England in November, after it scrapped single-word judgements following the death of Ruth Perry in 2023.
The Caversham Primary School headteacher took her own life after an Ofsted report downgraded her primary school from its highest rating to its lowest over safeguarding concerns. An inquest into her death found the inspection was a contributory factor.
An online survey, involving more than 1,500 NEU members in England who had experienced inspection under the new framework, found that 26 per cent said their recent experience of inspection made them want to leave the profession.
Stress over Ofsted inspections
The survey, which was carried out in June, suggests that 65 per cent of respondents said the new framework felt the same as before or worse.
More than four in five NEU members surveyed reported that a recent Ofsted inspection had had a negative impact on their stress levels.
The findings come just days after the NAHT school leaders’ union called for a halt to graded Ofsted inspections amid fears that they pose a risk to life.
The NEU has called on Ofsted to introduce a narrative-based school inspection report to replace the five-point grading scale.
In the new NEU report, a senior leader in a secondary school said: “It felt like something that was done to us, not with us.
“I watched the mental health of my colleagues plummet during and after the inspection.
“During the reading of the report at the end, a deputy head teacher was visibly sobbing but the last inspector did not pause or acknowledge the distress she was in.”
A primary teacher at another school said: “I did not sleep. I cried constantly. It was a circle of stress and fear.”
‘Failure to take feedback seriously’
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said: “It is just not acceptable that the new framework is driving this amount of stress and harm to the mental and physical health of school staff.
“How can we carry on with an inspection framework that makes a quarter want to leave the profession?
“This is not the progress that the profession called for two years ago. Ofsted has failed to take feedback seriously and seems oblivious to the cost and danger to leaders and teachers’ working lives and health.”
He called on Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver to “seriously engage with the findings about the intense workload” and its impact on health, adding: “These findings show preventable harms and we can’t look away from those.”
An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Ofsted exists to raise standards for children and to provide clear reporting to parents.
“Over the last three years, we have worked closely with teaching unions to deliver significant reforms to how Ofsted inspections work, while keeping our focus on what children and parents need from us.”
