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Ofsted attacked over "superficial" reports

16/11/2008

A thinktank has criticised reports by education watchdog Ofsted for providing a "superficial snapshot" of the performance of English schools.

A report by Civitas criticised the approach taken to assessing the success of schools in a set of nine essays written by people involved in education.

The report entitled Inspecting the Inspectorate says the new observation technique of education institutions adopted by Ofsted, which involves shorter inspection visits, did not give a proper picture of the state of schools.

It also claims that a focus on exam results meant that non-academic teaching was not given enough importance.

Report author and Ofsted inspector Sarah Drake explained that delays in obtaining information often resulted in old data being used for reports.

She said: "Validated exam and test data are central to the inspection team's information gathering.

"Delays in getting validated statistical data about Sats, GCSE and other test results mean that what we are using can be up to 16 to 18 months out of date."

MP Barry Sheerman, chair of the Commons children, schools and families select committee, wrote that the problem of assessing performance on the basis of results and the ensuing culture of "teaching to the test" remained in education.

He added: "Many people believe that more attention should be paid to inspection reports than to the results of GCSE and A-level results - yet, as inspection reports and results become more interchangeable, many educational practitioners feel that the inspectors' minds are made up long before they observe the quality of teaching or the atmosphere within the school."

An Ofsted spokesperson said the report did not take into account the many criteria used by the watchdog to assess school performance.

"Ofsted considers the progress learners make in the school, the background of its pupils, the school's own self-evaluation and evidence from the direct observation of lessons.

"All this evidence enables school inspectors to make more than 30 judgements including safeguarding, equalities, behaviour, teaching and the effectiveness of leadership and management.

"Only one judgement relates directly to exam or test results," he added.