OFSTED in the line of fire

 Dissatisfaction with Ofsted and its methods has reached a peak in England. BBC reports:

Teachers and head teachers handed a petition to the government on Thursday, calling for Ofsted to be replaced.

The petition was started before head teacher Ruth Perry took her own life while waiting for an Ofsted report.

Ms Perry's family have blamed her death on the "intolerable pressure" of the inspection, which downgraded her primary school to "inadequate"

The Department and Ofsted show no sign of budging at present, though there is acceptance of the criticism of the grading structure.

By contrast

Estyn, which looks after inspections in Wales, has replaced a single overall grade with an overview of findings focusing on a school's strengths and areas for development and a separate report summary for parents.

Progressing from a crude system of classification, which could often be seen as arbitrary, to a more scientific analysis of a school's strengths and weaknesses was clearly welcome. However, I must admit that in my short experience as a primary school governor, I did find the tables and tables of stats. difficult to absorb. One wonders also about the additional burden it placed on head teachers and staff.

Ofsted was established by John Major as this apologia explains. What this does not say is that there was an element of social Darwinism in the Thatcher-Major-Blair approach to public services, introducing competition, setting school against school, hospital against hospital and so on. It is significant that only a year before Ofsted was launched, the far from socialist Education Minister Kenneth Baker replied to a question in the House:

Her Majesty's Inspector's central concern has always been with standards of teaching and learning, and it reports regularly to me on those and other such matters. The senior chief inspector is directly responsible for the performance of the inspectorate, but I study carefully the reports that are submitted to me, which are also open to public scrutiny. I am satisfied that HMI already carries out its functions effectively and diligently.

No sign of dissatisfaction with the performance or impartiality of HMI there. 

My guess is that the government will avoid another bruising contest with the teachers. They will look for a compromise. However, they will not want to abandon altogether one of the totems of the Thatcher-Major years.