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Ofsted inspectors to stop using exam results as key mark of success Ofsted inspectors to stop using exam results as key mark of success
(about 3 hours later)
School inspectors are to move away from using exam results as a key criterion for success because of Ofsted’s concern that the current focus on test scores has reduced teachers to the status of “data managers”. Ofsted plans to overhaul the way it inspects schools in England, downgrading the influence of exam results in favour of a closer look at pupil behaviour and at the breadth of subjects being taught.
Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said the current “focus on performance data is coming at the expense of what is taught in schools”. Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools, outlined details of the new inspection regime, with the current category of “outcomes for pupils” that includes exam performance to be dropped in Ofsted’s inspection reports.
She told a schools summit in Newcastle: “A new focus on substance should change that, bringing the inspection conversation back to the substance of young people’s learning and treating teachers like the experts in their field, not just data managers.” “For a long time, our inspections have looked hardest at outcomes, placing too much weight on test and exam results when we consider the overall effectiveness of schools,” Spielman said in a speech to school leaders in Newcastle.
Spielman’s speech marked a major shift away from a results-based system championed by the former education secretary Michael Gove. She said: “For a long time, our inspections have looked hardest at outcomes, placing too much weight on test and exam results when we consider the overall effectiveness of schools.” Concentrating on exam performance “has increased the pressure on school leaders, teachers and indirectly on pupils to deliver perfect data above all else,” she said.
She added: “The cumulative impact of performance tables and inspections, and the consequences that are hung on them, has increased the pressure on school leaders, teachers and indirectly on pupils to deliver perfect data above all else. Instead, schools would be judged on “quality of education” as one of four key areas of inspection.
“Focusing too narrowly on test and exam results can often leave little time or energy for hard thinking about the curriculum, and in fact can sometimes end up making a casualty of it.” Schools would still be awarded an overall rating, and judgments would continue to use a four-point scale running from outstanding to inadequate, under proposals to be put out for consultation in January.
The changes will be implemented from September 2019. The changes were largely greeted with enthusiasm, with Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, describing the shift away from results as “a breath of fresh air”.
Amanda Spielman takes the stage at the #SNESummit18 to talk about the "reasoning behind the changes we're planning for inspection" pic.twitter.com/dtcx7OdY2M “Exams and tests will always play an important role but they have become too all-consuming in recent years, and we need a more balanced approach,” Barton said.
Before the speech she told BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme: “We want to bring the inspection conversation back to the substance of what children learn and treat teachers as experts in their fields, not just as data managers.” Spielman said the new quality section would focus on the curriculum taught within a school, rewarding those that offer pupils a broad range of subjects.
On BBC Breakfast she was asked whether the current education secretary, Damian Hinds, backed the change in emphasis. She said: “He agrees entirely with our analysis of the problem, and we are working closely with the department to make sure that these new proposed arrangements are both consistent with policy and preserve our independence to assess education standards.” “Ofsted will challenge those schools where too much time is spent on preparation for tests at the expense of teaching, where pupils’ choices are narrowed or where children are pushed into less rigorous qualifications mainly to boost league table positions,” Spielman said.
When it was pointed out that Gove had called for teachers to be sacked if exam results were inadequate, Spielman said: “What matters here is results that are achieved in the right way. What doesn’t work is where you end up with people chasing results for results’ sake, that’s the way that education can get stripped out. The rebalancing that we are proposing is getting back to looking at that substance to make sure that what is reflected in results really is the kind of education that we all want children to have.” The other major change involves looking at behaviour and pupil attitudes in a single category, signalling a more critical view to how schools deal with classroom behaviour.
Spielman said she wanted inspection reports to provide a different perspective from school league tables based on exam results. “We believe that the tough business of behaviour and the attitudes pupils bring to learning and a school’s approach to things like attendance, bullying and exclusions are best considered separately,” Spielman said.
She told Today: “We want to make sure that we concentrate on everything that isn’t readily captured [in tables]. Parents want to know the whole experience that a child will get at a school.” The changes also received a measured endorsement from Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, who said teachers had long been concerned at Ofsted’s narrow focus on collecting data.
And she suggested that schools had become too focused on exam success. “The measures in primary schools for maths and English were never intended to make schools operate as if other things didn’t matter,” Spielman said. “If implemented effectively, the NASUWT would expect these reforms to help address the problem of excessive bureaucracy which is diverting teachers from focusing on teaching and learning,” Keates said.
She added: “Unless inspection explicitly counterbalances, by default it is understandable that people will put more and more emphasis on those things that are measured and reported publicly. I want to help make sure that schools are viewed fairly, reported on fairly and have the opportunity to build on all areas of strength rather than focusing narrowly.” In a separate speech, the education secretary, Damian Hinds, appealed to school leaders for help in reforming the oversight of multi-academy trusts currently running chains of state schools in England.
Teachers welcomed the proposed overhaul. Hinds said he was convening “roundtables and meetings with trust chairs and chief executives across the country” over how to hold their trusts to account.
Well I eat my hat! 'A broad and balanced curriculum' (Ofsted). Just what teachers and Advisors have pleaded for, for 2 decades! The move follows a string of failures, such as the collapse of the Wakefield City Academies Trust, which last year announced it was giving up control of 21 schools, while tens of thousands of pupils remain at “zombie schools” unable to find a trust willing to govern them.
Ofsted Chief Inspector suddenly wakes up to what teachers have been saying for years about the damage done by league tables for schools. Better late than never. Hinds’ speech also contained attacks on Labour’s plans to re-establish local authority control of schools, with Hinds saying he wanted “honest answers” from Angela Rayner, the shadow secretary of state, over how Labour’s policy would work.
“When ministers have more to say about the opposition’s policies than their own, it is clear that they’ve run out of ideas,” Rayner said in response.
Meanwhile, the House of Lords joined recent critics of the Department for Education’s behaviour, with the Lords’ secondary legislation scrutiny committee rebuking the DfE for “inadequacies” in the timing of its consultation on teachers’ pay.
The consultation ran from 24 July, when most state schools in England had broken up for the summer, and ended on 3 September, the first day of the new academic year.
“In the committee’s view, the Department for Education prioritised its own requirements over the needs of the parties consulted,” the peers said in a statement.
On Monday the UK statistics watchdog said it had “serious concerns” over the DfE’s misuse of statistics relating to school funding and improvement, warning that the department risked losing credibility.
OfstedOfsted
Amanda SpielmanAmanda Spielman
ExamsExams
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