Research news

As a specialist in education economics the University of Sussex’s Dr Iftikhar Hussain contributed to the Department for Education consultation which led to today’s decision to scrap single-word Ofsted judgements.

Here he explains what his research tells us about the issues with Ofsted inspections, and the lack of evidence that they improve teaching standards.

“In England we have arguably the most stringent school inspection system in the world, yet there is very little hard evidence on whether or not it helps drive up standards.

“I have been researching, alongside colleagues, the impact of Ofsted in three key areas – parent decisions on school choices, teaching standards and a school’s ability to attract skilled staff.

“As Bridget Phillipson acknowledged today there is plenty of evidence that parents like Ofsted reports, and in particular that they appreciate the simple topline judgments. Seeing a school is “good” or “requires improvement” substantially aids decisions. In addition to survey data on this we can see the market response as house prices rise and fall in line with new Ofsted results.

“However just because something is popular does not make it good policy. And the truth is we just do not know whether Ofsted inspections help or hinder school improvement. It is staggering that despite the wealth of data being collected by the Department for Education on individual children’s educational performance very wide gaps in our knowledge persist. To be sure, there is a lot of qualitative evidence, but nothing quantitative on basic questions such as whether or not children gain more from enrolling in schools rated more positively by inspectors.

I have also been researching what’s known about how Ofsted affects the teacher labour market, and it is clear Ofsted judgments have a very large impact on the careers of headteachers and other senior leaders. Today’s move to end the headline one-word judgements and all that comes with a poor result, such as automatically being turned into an academy should lift this pressure, but amid a crisis in teacher recruitment we have to ask how do inspections affect a school’s ability to hire the right people? 

Teachers have been questioning the validity of Ofsted inspections for years and it has often treated as a self-interested question, suggesting they want to shy away from accountability. But these are valid questions, especially when you consider how much taxpayers are paying to fund Ofsted and the fact that children only have one chance at an education.

It is encouraging to see the new government listening to January’s consultation and addressing the very real concerns over one-word judgments. But in the absence of more evidence, the current system relies on an assumption – that outsiders observing a school for two or three days will come to a valid and helpful conclusion. More needs to be done to put that assumption to the test.”

Back to news list