Jacqueline Baxter

Farewell to the tick box inspector? Ofsted and the changing regime of school inspection in England

Since its inception in 1992 Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) has inspected schools under Section 9 of the Education (Schools) Act 1992; Section 10 of the School Inspections Act 1996; and Section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Pressure on England to improve its system of education has not only emerged from the national need for all schools to serve their pupils well, but has also been prompted by an increasing emphasis on international league tables such as that produced by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). In tables such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), England is viewed as underperforming against comparable countries. As a result, Ofsted has introduced what the agency terms to be one of the most stringent and demanding inspection frameworks since its inception. This framework reduces the previous 29 inspection judgements to just four, purportedly placing a far greater emphasis on the professional judgement of the inspector and representing a major departure from the ‘tick box’ approach which characterised previous frameworks. This paper examines the paradoxical fate of inspector professional judgement and concludes that whilst this may appear to signal a rapprochement between inspectors and teaching profession, there are considerable tensions when professional judgement is considered alongside quality control within a highly complex system. The study concludes that in order that inspection attains credibility as a method by which to govern education, this shift requires a more considered approach to ways in which this professional judgement can be effective within the challenging environment of the English education system.

Professional inspector or inspecting professional? Teachers as inspectors in a new regulatory regime for education in England

The advent of a new inspection system in January 2012 has created new challenges for both the teaching profession and for the inspectors of education given the task of implementing it, as the new framework demands increased involvement by serving teachers and head teachers as part of the inspection process. This paper draws on evidence from a current funded research project to examine the implications of engaging current practitioners in the inspection role. It explores the professional values and skills that are required in order to successfully effect the new framework and considers whether these may conflict with professional teaching identities, thus raising the possibility of further tensions in the inspection – and governance – of education in England.

Inspection and the media : the media and inspection

Research on the media’s role in policy is long-established (see for example Fitzgerald & Housley 2009; Gerstl-Pepin 2007; Gewirtz et al. 2007; Wallace 2007), but there has not been so much attention to the relationship between inspectorates and media. In this chapter, we argue that inspectorates depend on the media: the capacity of the media to publicise and spread their messages about school success and failure contributes very strongly to their influence. However it also seems to be the case that as inspectorates use and exploit the media to spread their messages about school performance, and thus buttress their authority and greatly extend their reach beyond the education world, they also become vulnerable to media pressure and – to a degree – reliant on media coverage to sustain their authority. In other words, there is an interdependent relationship between inspection and the media, in which media priorities may adversely affect the image of inspection. Thus while Ofsted has become highly visible and a topic of household conversation, greatly increasing its presence in the lives of parents, pupils and teachers, this is especially the case where stories of school success and failure are presented in highly dramatic terms (as victories, defeats, struggles and disasters). There are obvious risks for Ofsted in this presentation of their work: pressure to find stories that will attract coverage undermines attention to the substantial but more mundane aspects of inspection, and creates expectations of powerful inspection effects. Indeed negative media coverage of schools ‘in crisis’ reinforces the demand for political action, and heightens the perception of inspectorates as a force for powerful, effective intervention. There is, moreover, a pre-occupation in the tabloid press with reporting ‘bad news’, so that dramatic coverage of failing schools reinforces public perception of schooling in crisis and contributes to pressure on inspectorates. Against such a background, it is apparent that the relationship with the media is complex, and that it plays a significant role in our analysis of inspection as a governing practice.

Regulatory frameworks : Shifting frameworks, shifting criteria

In recent decades, governing practices in education have become highly contradictory: deregulation and decentralisation are accompanied by re-regulation and increased centralisation, contributing t ...This chapter draws on the idea of ‘an infrastructure of rules’ in order to discuss the regulatory frameworks that guide the work of inspection in the three systems in our study. As we pointed out in our introductory chapter, embodied knowledge risks being ‘dismissed as irrelevant’ (Fourcade 2010: 571-2) unless there is a presence of an infrastructure of rules and conditions of collection and centralised reporting systems that structure personal observations so that they are not dismissed as ‘merely a mass of observations’ (Fourcade 2010). Inspection frameworks are such an infrastructure of rules. They regulate the inspectors’ practice through prescribing what and how information is to be systematically and/or deliberately collected, as well as what type of relation and distance there should be between inspectors and those inspected. The discussion of the inspection frameworks in our three countries also provides a picture of the types of knowledge that are valued and preferred when judging education quality in schools. What has to be measured and assessed, in order for the inspections to be regarded as valid and reliable and in order for the schools to improve? Assumptions about what counts as a solid basis for judging quality in schooling, of what is a reasonable process for supporting improvement, and about what provides resources for the successful governing of schooling, may be highlighted by studying inspection frameworks. Inspection frameworks may also tell us something about how neo-liberal agendas (see chapter 2) and their pre-occupation with ‘steering the future’ are operationalised in practices requiring a variety of data, information and knowledge, or as Hayek puts it: ‘this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner.’ (Hayek 1945: 520). But these projects also need the work of a nation state trying to preserve a balance between the market and the public interest (Wilkinson 2013). This balancing act directed at the future reflects a tension played out in school inspection in the three countries over time, as we illustrate through discussion of the constant change in the frameworks of inspection.

The new local: system shifts and school inspection

The governing of schooling, and the role of inspection in governing schools, is the focus of the book, and in this chapter, we are concerned with the ebb and flow in the relations between the centre and the locality in our three school systems. The idea of the school, and its place in a system, are shifting, although our cases show different directions and cultures of governing emerging as systems are reconfigured. School inspection reflects this reconfiguration and it is the focus of the change in governing in our three systems. The idea of the local school seems ubiquitous in the construction and management of education systems. While the idea of schooling is free floating, built on or around national myths and discourses, the practice of schooling has been focused historically on physical buildings, surrounding communities and urban and regional practices of administration. The school ‘in place’, in the local, is the organizing idea of this chapter. Using Gieryn’s (Gieryn 2000) definition, place is viewed as a physical and material compilation of people and objects, it is a unique spot of varying scale, it is interpreted and narrated, it is malleable over time. In the past, the school to be inspected was particular and situated in a place, it was in a street or a suburb, within a community and with a local workforce. A collective memory of that school was available in the family or through the professionals who worked in it. Its setting isolated it from some areas and choices, and encouraged them in others. The school could be many decades old and have changed its name several times, but it remained solidly in an area. Its material existence, the place of the school, was often distinguishable from other schools, even those close by, through practices derived from national and local government decisions and local politics and practices over time. Old governmental service hierarchies and communications, working with and through local government officers, produced and confirmed a strong sense of place. Each partner knew its position within a hierarchy. The place and meaning of the school had boundaries and stability. While inspectors may have been more mobile nationally, local officers were frequently travellers around the locality. In one sense schools did not move at all. The discourse of that system was about the duties and responsibilities of the place and actions were directed toward the school. The school was tied into a web, which fixed its relations and actions.

School federation governing Translation or transformation

This article examines the ways in which being a member of a federation governing body impacts upon the governor identities of individuals. Using an ideographic case study based upon a single academy federation, the investigation employs a framework for identity analysis to analyse qualitative in-depth interviews with members within governing organizations in the federation. The data reveal changing understandings around the term ‘governor’, the bifurcation of actual and perceived roles between the executive governing body and the advisory committees, and important insights into governor succession planning. The study concludes that future research into governor identities is important in terms of both governor role performance and the maturation and development of federation systems of school governance.

School governor regulation in England’s changing education landscape:

The changing education landscape in England, combined with a more rigorous form of governor regulation in the form of the Ofsted 2012 Inspection Framework, are together placing more demands than ever before on the 300,000 volunteer school governors in England. These school governors are, in many cases, directly accountable to the Secretary of State for Education. Using a form of Goffman’s frame analysis and drawing on theory which indicates that head teachers and inspection reports are highly influential regarding the ways in which governors make sense of their environment and accountability, this paper traces the development of a system which is highly specific to England, in order to evaluate to what extent present governor regulatory accountabilities can be seen as either conflicting or in harmony with head teacher and inspector understandings of the role. The paper concludes that there is considerable evidence that the current regulatory framework combined with conflicting and often contradictory head teacher and inspector understandings of governance is giving rise to what Koppell terms ‘Multiple Accountabilities Disorder’ and that this is creating tensions in the system of education governance and regulation in England.

Satisfactory Progress? Keywords in English School Inspection

In this paper, we explore some of the keywords around which the practice of school inspection is ordered in England. As part of a project that explores the role of inspection in governing schooling in England, Scotland and Sweden, we have examined some of the key sources through which Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Childrens Services and Skills) publicly announces its role and purpose. In considering these texts, we have turned to Raymond Williams’ conception of “keywords” (1988) to frame our analysis. We suggest that these sources are marked by the presence of a series of such keywords that underpin and legitimise the practice of school inspection by Ofsted. We conclude by considering some of the changing terminology that followed from the Coalition Government that took office in the UK in 2010 and which made education reform a centrepiece of its first period in power.

The Future of Online Teaching and Learning and an Invitation to Debate

This chapter opens by re-visiting the social and economic context of UK higher education, a context dominated by globalisation, new liberalism and competition, but also shaped by the opportunities associated with digital learning. It revisits theories of pedagogy and issues arising from the chapters focusing particularly on: online forums in teaching, developing a learning community through digital technology and by analysing how such technology shapes the identity of teachers. Finally, it argues that despite constraints, challenges and work intensification, technologies are an important resource within Higher Education, increasing access and broadening reach whilst also contributing to the formal and informal education of citizens and positively contributing to the creation of critical publics – publics with the capacity to challenge established social norms and centres of power.

The Context of Online Teaching and Learning: Neoliberalism, Marketization and Online Teaching

This chapter introduces the context in which online teaching takes place within Higher Education (HE). It begins with an outline of the political and economic climate, moving on to describe neo-liberal discourses that are influencing and affecting teaching staff and students. We then take a diachronic look at the ways in which new innovations have been received throughout history, before moving onto the realities of teaching and learning online. Examining the role of academics in online teaching leads into a description of the particular context of The Open University and the evolution of its teaching and place in HE.