A parent who helped fight the forced academisation of King Edward VII School has had her views about the usefulness of the Ofsted inspection process shared by the Education Committee’s inquiry into Ofsted’s work with schools.
The inquiry – which was launched by an influential group of MPs in June 2023 – aims to assess how well Ofsted is fulfilling its role in inspecting schools and whether and how it could be improved, to inform the work of the incoming His Majesty’s Chief Inspector.
The inquiry is looking at the impact of Ofsted judgements on schools and pupils, including the impact on workload and wellbeing for all members of the school community, and the usefulness of Ofsted inspections for schools and parents.
The submission, made by Emma Wilkinson before the forced academy order was revoked, highlights how the initial Ofsted inspection judgement in January 2023 “was a shock to many parents” and triggered an automatic compulsory academy order that the school, parents and wider community did not want.
In her written evidence, Emma touches upon several key points that formed the crux of the KES – The Future campaign including the unhelpfulness of single-word judgements, the lack of confidence adults have in Ofsted judgements as highlighted by a YouGov survey, inconsistencies between Ofsted inspection teams, and Ofsted’s lack of independence and unsupportiveness to the school, parents and the community when academisation is forced, and the extraordinary lack of transparency about how Ofsted judgements are made.
“We were told the only way to turn a school found to be Inadequate around is for it to become part of a Multi Academy Trust. I cannot find evidence to support this position. In addition, King Edward VII leadership did in fact address the issues found and made the necessary changes in a short space of time. This whole saga raises serious questions about the validity of the initial report and consistency between inspection teams. I strongly believe a far more useful and constructive approach would be to provide schools with guidance on how they can improve and support them to
make necessary changes. The current punitive system, is not consistently applied, causes untold stress and does not appear to help anyone.”
I would like to conclude by talking about transparency. I can’t speak for the school who also said they were unclear how judgements were reached. But when parents tried to complain to Ofsted and find out more about how judgements had been made, we were told that as parents we didn’t have a close enough relationship to the school to comment, which seems extraordinary. When we tried to use freedom of information requests to learn more – for example how many pupils had been asked if they feel they can speak to an adult about problems and how that question was phrased – we were denied en masse and I don’t believe any of the requests were considered properly.
“This judgement had profound consequences for our children’s future education depending on academy trust selected (over which parents or the school had no say). It could impact everything about our children’s school day from the subjects they learn to the extra-curricular activities offered, from the budget the school had to spend and the values our children are taught yet we were not allowed any more than the briefest of information about how this judgement had been reached. With the same lack of transparency from the Department for Education, parents have been completely in the dark throughout this process. Yet we are the ones who are most invested in the future success of a school.”
Stop the academisation of King Edward VII School 