INAUGURAL REPORT FROM NEW THINK TANK – EDSK – A NEW ROLE FOR OFSTED AND SCHOOL INSPECTIONS

A newly launched think tank called EDSK has today released its first report  https://www.edsk.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Requires-Improvement.pdf  written by the Director Tom Richmond and is entitled “Requires Improvement” where it concludes

“Ofsted occupies an important position in our education landscape and the process of inspecting schools can, if done in an appropriate and proportionate way, have a positive effect on the quality of education being delivered. Even so, inspecting over 20,000 state schools is a considerable undertaking and our school system has also changed dramatically over the past quarter of a century. Consequently, this report seeks to answer four questions: first, can parents trust the grades given to schools by Ofsted; second, is Ofsted measuring the right things; third, what impact does Ofsted have on teachers and school leaders; and fourth, do Ofsted inspections lead to better schools?”

The report makes 7 recommendations towards improving its new inspection framework for 202o and finally concludes :

“The proposals in this report, particularly the new School Information Card, are designed to shift the attention of schools away from Ofsted and towards allowing parents to hold schools to account for a wide range of outcomes. Some of the recommendations in this report are intended to provide a basis for further discussion rather than representing definitive answers to the questions that the report has posed. Indeed, this report very much aims to start a debate rather than finish it (particularly as, for the sake of brevity, the proposals have only focused on secondary schools).”