50% of schools are below average

One of the fundamental truths in education is that for one school to be succeeding, another must be failing.

This is because if every school was able to drive their students to greater heights of progress, these would be "normalised" through statistics to ensure that a similar percentage of students pass at each grade.

This harsh reality runs akin to the fabled 'two men being chased by a lion', as schools are not competing against the lion, but against each other.

When I started teaching in 2006, revision for GCSE's started some time between the February half term and the Easter Holidays. Students were invited to optional, non-descript, sessions at the end of the school day and did past papers in their own time. I recall closeting myself in the library for my own studies back in the last millennium...

In 2023, for my students to have any hope of success, I begin their revision in September, in a rolling programme of gap analysis and intervention. I use retrieval starters from Year 7, to improve retention of information. I teach Maths Mastery, so that students grasp not only the method, but also a deeper understanding and problem solving approach to logic and reasoning. And all of this is collated on knowledge organisers.

Mission creep is endemic in schools, as we are asked to deliver an ever more broadening curriculum, and being judged by Ofsted on the Wellbeing of Students (and Staff), and simultaneously by parents and journalists on our academic results.

If a school is judged to be any less than "Good" by Ofsted, the recovery period for that school is often 10 years or more. The best and worst teachers will tend to move away from a school that is faced with additional scrutiny, because of the additional time and commitment required by the local authority or academy chain to try to raise standards. Likewise the best students are likely to find themselves moved out by parents seeking to get away from the 'bad teaching' that is clearly taking place. Therefore things often get worse before they can get better, with a final opportunity to improve and eventually gain the "Good" branding after a period of 4-12 years.

The solutions come from a top down approach, and are of such a nature that only a radical government would dare to take them.

Abolish Ofsted?

A move to replace Ofsted with giving more authority to the General Teaching Council or similar would no doubt be popular amongst head teachers as we move away from judgements and instead focus on coaching and mentoring to raise standards.

One of my favourite stories is when Ofsted were asked to evaluate whether they were needed and gave the response that they are.

Do we really need a punitive authority figure to objectively tell us that we are succeeding or failing based on a combination of prior data and a short visit to a school?

A review of the methodology used by Ofsted might be a good compromise - perhaps being given a window in which to address concerns prior to being given a rating that will do irreversible and permanent damage to school would be a more modern approach?

Success in unsustainable

As long as we continue to use normalisation of results, we can only raise standards by going above and beyond the interventions taking place at other schools, and this will never be sustainable.

The expectation of ever-increasing pass rates is damaging to students and to schools, when normalisation makes this impossible.

When teaching itself has moved away from punitive approaches to observation of teachers, and instead has adopted a coaching and mentoring approach to raising standards in teaching, why is Ofsted still operating a Big Brother approach of reward and punishment?

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