Commenting as the Education Policy Institute (EPI) calls for reform of school accountability and publishes new performance data for school groups, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:
“We have long argued that the current systems of inspection and accountability fail to pay sufficient regard to schools’ unique contexts, including the communities they serve and the number of pupils who are from disadvantaged backgrounds or have special educational needs.
“There is no doubt that current performance measures are a blunt tool and fail to paint a fair and accurate picture of school effectiveness. Simplistic tools that compare school to school performance are unhelpful and at worse, misleading. A new approach would certainly be welcome. However, we should be careful not to assume that there is some form of data ‘holy grail’ out there. Data is only ever one part of the picture and should never be looked at in isolation.
“We do not support attempts to come up with measures for ‘wellbeing’ at school level as there is far too much influencing wellbeing which is beyond a school’s control. While well-intended, such a measure is fraught with dangers and the unintended consequences are significant.
“The government’s decision to move away from crude single-word Ofsted judgements has laid the foundations for a move to a more reliable, nuanced inspection system.
“With the inspectorate due to publish and consult upon its plans for reforms shortly, we can only hope it has grasped the nettle and is proposing the fundamentally different regime so desperately needed. It must be willing to listen to feedback and deliver wide-ranging changes which deliver a fairer, more reliable and humane system of accountability which truly takes into account the circumstances of each school.”
First published 21 January 2025