‘YOU cannot have an improving school system whilst you are implementing austerity,’ said Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union on Monday.
Commenting on a speech delivered by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson that morning setting out a ‘new era’ on school standards, Kebede warned: ‘There is an elephant in the room here.
‘The Secretary of State is talking today about urging the education system to achieve more. At the same time, this government is gearing up to make cuts to education, and to the other services which students need to remove barriers to their learning.
‘Sir Keir Starmer will be the first Labour Prime Minister since James Callaghan to tell schools to make cuts.
‘He fudges this by calling them “efficiencies”, but they amount to reducing what schools require to meet their students’ needs properly.
‘The Prime Minister’s recommendation to the pay review body is an unfunded pay award that will also cut into already tight school budgets. It will undermine the pledge to attract more teachers and to retain the experience which our schools need, to be successful for every learner.
‘Pigs don’t get fatter as a result of weighing them more often. It’s not inspection that delivers excellence – it’s well supported, experienced leaders and education professionals – and it is investment. It’s a motivated, well valued workforce.
‘Using negative, pejorative terms like “stuck schools” is unhelpful and counter-productive. Collaboration, not ranking, is what builds a good local school for every child.
‘Quite simply, you cannot have an improving school system whilst you are implementing austerity.’
Commenting on the launch of Ofsted’s consultation on new inspection proposals, Kebede said: ‘The proposals outlined in today’s consultation will make matters worse, not better. It will not deliver better information for parents or school leaders.
‘The Secretary of State was right to remove one-word judgements, because she recognised the damage that they cause. It was made clear, following tragic circumstances, that a more supportive system was urgently required.
‘Martyn Oliver (Ofsted Chief Inspector) has failed to deliver … he has ignored the findings from the Big Listen. He has ignored the voice of the profession. He has set a course for Ofsted to remain just as out of touch as before, just as crude in its assessments.’
Kebede concluded: ‘Ofsted has failed to take seriously the enormous concerns of the profession. Even whistleblowers from within are claiming the process has been botched and rushed.
‘Ofsted is a discredited organisation with its name continually in the mud. It is incapable of introspection or change. This new consultation points only to continued disaster.’
Also commenting on Education Secretary Phillipson’s plans for accountability reform, Dr Patrick Roach, General Secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said: ‘Only by delivering an effective balance of support and challenge can we have an accountability system that works for pupils, parents and for schools.
‘There should be no compromise on the importance of securing high standards but it should also be recognised that this can only be achieved where there is a shift from punishing to supporting our teachers and headteachers.
‘The punitive approach to holding teachers and leaders to account hasn’t worked and has been deeply damaging to morale and parental confidence.
‘The development of RISE teams will be key to providing struggling schools with the additional support they need. We welcome the government’s initial additional investment in support for these schools. However, this must only be the start of delivering a more ambitious programme of investment to secure an effective support and improvement infrastructure available for every school.
‘Too many schools, pupils and staff have been denied access to the external services they need and starved of support as a consequence of the failed policies of the previous government.
‘Today’s announcement must now result in the change that schools, teachers and parents have been asking for.
‘Whilst we will be reviewing in detail the government’s plans, we also look forward to working with the government on its ambitions for improving opportunity and outcomes for all children.’
Responding to the education secretary’s speech at the Centre for Social Justice, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: ‘School leaders share the Education Secretary’s determination to ensure that all children, no matter what their background, receive a first-rate education, and they welcome fair, proportionate accountability.
‘However, we are deeply concerned that many of Ofsted’s proposals will hinder, not help in this mission.
‘The inspectorate previously struggled to offer a fair reliable and consistent single-word rating during a two-day inspection, harming teacher and leader retention and driving sky-high rates of ill health.
‘Rather than engage in fundamental reform it seems to think it can judge multiple complex areas in the same timeframe, piling more unnecessary pressure on school leaders and their staff working hard to deliver for pupils.
‘What’s needed is a constructive approach to schools facing the greatest challenges to improve, supported by significantly more investment. We urgently need to better understand how RISE teams will work alongside schools – but make no mistake, if their operation is informed by a flawed inspection framework this will undermine their effectiveness.
‘It’s important this government makes a clean break from the past and avoids using the same old tired tropes from previous administrations which focused on blaming and shaming, rather than working with schools.
‘The current accountability system unfairly penalises schools working in the most difficult circumstances. Labelling schools which face the most significant challenges has helped no-one.
‘We desperately need a new approach where everyone works together to ensure those schools have the resources and support they need to succeed.
‘The Education Secretary stressed the importance in her speech of hearing the views of everyone during the forthcoming consultation, but it will be crucial she acts upon the concerns raised to ensure these plans are redrawn to focus on a more nuanced and helpful narrative of schools’ strengths and weaknesses rather than crude sub-grades.
‘That might mean delaying implementation of reform, but for the sake of our children it’s absolutely essential we get this right.’
Responding to Ofsted’s announcement of its proposals for reform, which are now going out to consultation, Whiteman said: ‘The proposals set out today for consultation suggest an inspectorate determined to hold on to a model of inspection that is long past its sell-by date.
‘The plan to retain numbered sub-judgements risks replicating the worst aspects of the current system and will do little to reduce the enormous pressure school leaders are under.
‘Given that Ofsted previously struggled to provide reliable judgements using a 4-point scale, it is very hard to see how they will be able to do against a 5-point one.
‘Avoiding the harm to education professionals caused by an outdated approach is not going soft on standards. The opposite is true, the current system is at the root of the teacher and leader retention crisis which in itself is a threat to the education we can deliver to children.
‘School leaders do not want to see evolution of a system that has caused so much harm over many years.
‘As a public body, Ofsted must do better than this – parents and professionals should be presented with a set of genuine options. Arbitrary deadlines must not be used to push reforms through if the support is not there.’
Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, responded to the publication of plans to change the accountability system in England, saying: ‘Ofsted and the government appear to have learned nothing from the death of headteacher Ruth Perry and have instead devised an accountability system which will subject a beleaguered profession to yet more misery.
‘Rather than securing high and rising standards – something we all want to see – this is a sure-fire way of doing the exact opposite.
‘People will vote with their feet by leaving teaching which will worsen an already severe recruitment and retention crisis. We will end up without teachers to teach children and leaders to lead schools.
‘Astonishingly, Ofsted’s proposed school report cards appear to be even worse than the single-word judgements they replace.
‘Rather than reducing the pressures on teachers and leaders – a situation so serious that it is unsafe – this system will introduce a de facto new league table based on the sum of Ofsted judgements across at least 40 points of comparison.
‘The schools with the greatest challenges will continue to be stigmatised by the application of the labels “attention needed” and “causing concern” in exactly the same way as the previous system. This will in turn make it harder to secure improvement.
‘It seems that the government will then add to the chaos with a support system administered by its planned regional improvement for standards and excellence teams which is so muddled as to be barely comprehensible and is unlikely to have anything like the capacity required to be effective.
‘All of this will have a devastating impact on the wellbeing of teachers and leaders and will be intensely demoralising for parents and children.
‘We are extremely disappointed with these proposals and will do everything possible to persuade Ofsted and the government to see sense.’