Special Measures

Here's a link to the radio 4 drama Special Measures which tells it as it is for many schools.

Ofspare

In response to last summer’s riots, the government has decided to create Ofspare (the Office for Standards in Parenting).

Parents will be regularly inspected with their standard of parenting being graded on a 7 point scale. Any parent who scores 1 will have their children immediately removed from them.  A score of 2 will result in them being placed on ‘notice to improve’ with their parenting being inspected every four weeks and their children being taken away from them if they do not rapidly improve their scores.

The strongest and most convincing complaints have come from those parents who allow their children a lot of freedom.  They are worried that while the skills of strict parents are obvious, their skills are more subtle and less easy to identify and correctly grade.  They say that they like to watch their children and allow them to make mistakes and explore the world as much as possible, intervening only when necessary and usually through subtle methods of encouraging their children to reflect on the consequences of their behaviour which a stranger would be unlikely to spot and may confuse with poor parenting.  They are arguing that the purpose of inspection should be to eliminate unacceptable behaviour and some of them think that this is best done through support rather than the immediate punishment of the confiscation of children.  They think that acceptable parenting should not be graded as the grade definitions proposed will reduce diversity of practice, freedom and innovation and enhance the likelihood of parents moving towards stricter, more overt and excessively interventionist styles of parenting which are easier to accredit.  They are also concerned that parents who do not understand the challenges associated with raising children with specific needs or raising children in difficult economic and social circumstances will negatively judge good parents who are coping with very challenging circumstances.

Parents have also complained that the schedule of high stakes inspections will force them to focus on passing those inspections rather than on their other activities which contribute to society which they feel that ultimately their children will benefit from seeing them participate in.

In response to their criticisms two concessions were made.  The first was that the definition of the highest rating has been loosened to allow it to encompass excellent parenting which allows significant freedom.  The protestors say this is not good enough as parents who allow more freedom need to progress as well (they don’t suddenly emerge as being outstanding parents) and the issue whereby not all inspectors may have they experience to assess this type of parenting has not been properly addressed. They are, however, more positive about the provision that parents should be allowed to select from accredited inspection bodies – allowing them to reject those which do not have the relevant expertise to assess their practice.

However in a last minute unexpected twist the second decision to allow parents to select their own inspection body has been reversed.  A couple of proponents of strict parenting who had been defeated during the consultation processes quietly submitted an amendment to force all parents to be assessed by one regulator.  They managed to get that amendment scheduled for debate at midnight on the night before Ascot so that it went through without anyone noticing soon enough to object.

So now Ofspare exists.  What do you think will happen next?

Ofsted: File on 4: School Inspections

Just a quick post to draw attention to this excellent program on radio 4 which is currently available on iPlayer.

Ofsted - Clearing the Fog

This post provides specific detail relevant to my previous blog: Ofsted - Clarifying the State of Affairs.

It seems that whenever the issue of improving Ofsted is raised, a substantial volume of points are raised to confuse the issue.  The purpose of this blog is to list points most commonly raised and appropriate responses to them to help to 'clear the fog' of confusion.  If anyone hears of any other points being made which create the impression that it would be unwise for Ofsted to be obligated to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) please do post them in the comments to this blog so that they can be discussed.

Point 1 - That the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act conflicts with Ofsted's prior statutes.

The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act was created to oblige regulators to apply best practice when fulfilling their duties to:

- drive improvement

- protect against bad practice and

- report to the government regarding the state of the organisations they regulate.

It challenged regulators to improve the quality of their practice as they fulfill these duties which are, of course, Ofsted's duties.

Ofsted's previous statutes allowed them to behave in ways which are now recognised and accepted as being bad practice.  Their obligation to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) should clearly override any previous legal obligations which contradict this law.  

Point 2 - The Hampton principles include references to economic progress and are therefore not suitable for the state sector

While the Hampton principles contain references to economic progress, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) does not, it only obliges regulators to act in ways which are transparent, accountable, proportionate, consistent and targeted only at cases where action is needed.  The Hampton principles sit behind this law in that they provide explanations of what good practice is which regulators can use to defend their actions but the law has been written with no reference to economic progress so that it can apply to all organisations. 

Point 3 - That obligating Ofsted to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) will lead to an avalanche of legal cases with which our legal system will not be able to cope.

This was a point made with great energy and conviction on a discussion forum (see comment by Ricky Tarr 07/06/12 7:29pm).  I'm not sure why the poster feels this will happen.  Private schools, public schools and (virtually?) all other regulated organisations already have the protection of this law.  Is it currently leading to lots of spurious claims?  

Applying for a Judicial Review (which is what you do if you're using this law - you are saying that the regulator is behaving illegally and their conduct needs to be challenged) is an expensive process and schools would need to be accountable to their governing bodies and other stakeholders for hat expenditure so I can't see it happening unless there is a clear breach of the law by the regulator, in which case surely it should be happening?

If the regulator is behaving consistently outside the law and several Judicial Reviews are granted, the legal system is configured to cope with this situation because instead of running several separate Judicial Reviews it convenes an 'Independent Commission' which investigates the behaviour of the regulator and examines the interpretation of the law by others who are obliged to it in order to rule definitively regarding what is and isn't legal behaviour for the regulator.  And then the issue should be concluded - unless the regulator continues to defy the law which is not a circumstance I would expect.

Point 4 - This has been previously consulted and the conclusion was that Ofsted should not be obligated to this law

This appears to be untrue.  This document shows that it was the clear conclusion of the last government that Ofsted should be obligated to this law for all its activities (see point 4.11).  Graham Stuart (Conservative MP and Chair of the Education Select Committee) recommended that the Ofsted directorate meet with me to discuss the salient points of my concerns during their consultations regarding their activities last year however despite agreeing readily in public, I was told firmly and absolutely that my concerns would not be discussed by Richard Brooks (Ofsted Director of Strategy).  I can't find any indication that there has been a consultation which has concluded that Ofsted should not be obliged to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform  Act (2006) for all its activities.

Point 5 - We don't need to obligate Ofsted to this law because they are already following it.

No they aren't.  Under this law the areas in which a school is behaving in an unacceptable way must be clearly and specifically identified and any action taken must be proportionate to and specific to the issue identified.  This is not what is happening at present. 

The phrase 'satisfactory is the new unsatisfactory' is deeply at odd with Hampton.  Satisfactory means there is no issue to be addressed.  Unsatisfactory means there is an issue to be addressed.  You can't say that 'satisfactory' is 'unsatisfactory'.  

There's plenty more I could write - please do feel free to get in touch or ask questions through the comments to this blog.  Thank you for reading this.

Ofsted - Clarifying the State of Affairs

In 2005 the government completed a review (the Hampton Review) of inspection and regulation with the purpose of establishing and embedding in law best practice in regulators fulfilling their duties to:

- drive improvement

- protect against bad practice

- report to the government regarding the state of the organisations they regulate.

The Hampton Principles which were established from this review were embedded in law in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006), the salient point of which is point 21 which legally obliges regulators to act in ways which are transparant, accountable, proportionate, consistent and targeted only at cases where action is needed. The Hampton Principles sit behind that law to provide explanations of the types of regulatory activity which meets these standards.

I have, for the last couple of years, been exploring why Ofsted uses methodologies which directly contradict best practice as defined by Hampton (see for example blogs her for August and September last year).  I was very shocked by the way in which those in authority refused point blank to engage in intelligent discussion about the component issues.  

In January this year I came to believe that Ofsted have in fact been obliged to these standards.   I knew that the last government had intended to get them under it as can clearly be seen in this document (see point 4.11 and onwards), I knew it made sense for them to be under it, I knew that public and private schools were under it (part 1A point 21) and Ofsted themselves had said it didn't feel it could/should run different systems for different types of school (point 4.8) and then I heard on the BBC TV news that Ofsted were subject to judicial review due to a judgement related to their behaviour at Furness Academy.  This couldn't be the case unless that academy was also covered by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act as without this law Ofsted remain unaccountable to everyone but themselves and the SoS for Education.  However it turned out that the BBC report was incorrect.

So while all other regulators are required to the principles of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (shown in green above), Ofsted have a special exemption from it in the case of State Schools.

The main consequence of this exemption from the law is that it allows Ofsted to operate in ways which serve the interests of politicians and itself rather than requiring that it works to the benefit of society and the customers of the organisations it regulates.  The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) was the mechanism by which organisations can hold their regulators accountable if they are failing to implement good practice in their own activities.  While all other organisations have the power to hold their regulator accountable, state schools do not.  They have no power at all.  This means that when the regulator behaves in ways which are clearly detrimental to education nobody can stop them.

The consequences of this on the ground are horrific.  When inappropriate regulatory behaviour occurs scapegoats have to be created in and around the school affected because everyone knows the regulator cannot be held to account.  For those of you who haven't seen what it's like when that happens and how good schools, teachers and high quality education are destroyed - all I can say is - lucky you.  Far too many people in education have experienced firsthand the extreme behaviour which is required to try to do everything possible avoid such a situation occurring and have direct experience of how ludicrous and counterproductive much of this behaviour is. 

This could be corrected so easily.  All that's needed is an order to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act which clearly makes Ofsted accountable to it for all its activities.  It could be done in just a few weeks.

Ofsted and those associated with them put forward many objections to them being obligated to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act.  They are all just smokescreen.  As soon a I get the time I will write a blog which lists them and counters each so that those who wish to pursue this issue can do so effectively and efficiently.

Notes to Tweet to Michael Gove.

In response to the invitation by the Education Select Committee to Tweet a question to Michael Gove, I have Tweeted the following (as @Cyberrhetoric).

Why is the SoS not fulfilling his duty to ensure Ofsted comply with the law it become obliged to on 10/11/09? #AskGove

These notes are provided to ensure the Secretary of State for Education can provide an appropriate answer to the question.

Legal Notes:

The Order to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006) which came into law in 1st October 2009 (part 1A (17)) obliges Ofsted to the law created by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act (2006).

This Law prescribes that “regulatory activities should be carried out in a way which is transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent” and that “regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed”.
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/51/section/21)

This Law was created to force regulators to implement the principles established by the Hampton Review (2005).
(http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/better-regulation/improving-regulatory-delivery/assessing-our-regulatory-system)

Explanation of relevant aspects of the meaning of the law in practice:

In fulfilling their duties to protect against unacceptable practice, drive quality improvement and report to government on the state of the industries they regulate and the services provided, other UK regulators obliged to the same law have worked to ensure that:

1) they seek to establish and police the boundary between unacceptable and acceptable practice and to ensure that organisations are engaged in process of effective internal communication, detailed reporting or both a qualitative and an quantitative nature and professional cycles of quality improvement but they do not pre-define categories of quality as this has been show to suppress innovation, healthy diversity and professional freedom.

2) there is an expectation that when inspectors engage with organisations, inspectors will come to understand new practice with which they were not previously familiar so that they can properly report to government regarding new best practice so that they can accurately report to government regarding the quality of products and services provided.

3) regulators constantly strive to ensure that only inspectors who are highly respected professionals are used so that the purposes of inspection can be paramount at all times and so that inspectors who focus instead on process of inspection without being able to subordinate those processes to intelligent purpose focused discussion and are therefore likely to invoke disproportionate consequences are not employed.

Comments from the author of the question:

Having researched this issue extensively I have found significant evidence to suggest that Ofsted are seriously misrepresenting their legal obligations.
(http://mathseducationandallthat.blogspot.com/2011/08/ofsted-part-2-journey-to-heart-of.html)

Certainly it would not be in the personal interests of many currently in senior positions at Ofsted to see it enforced.

The actions the Secretary of State for Education has taken to reform Ofsted do not seem to understand this law. I therefore wonder if perhaps the Secretary of State for Education is unaware of his duties to enforce this law which will substantially improve the degree of appropriate professional freedom all schools are allowed?

Ofsted Part 2: A journey to the heart of matters.

Why do Ofsted grade the quality of education where a strong floor standard is clearly met when other regulators consider this to be bad practice which damages innovation, diversity and prevents them clearly seeing and understanding practice with which they are not familiar?

I took this question to the Westminster Education Forum Consultation:
Accountability in Education – the future of governance, Ofsted and league tables on the 5^th of July 2011.

I put it first to Graham Stuart MP who has recently chaired a review of Ofsted.

He agreed with my observations that Ofsted clearly had a duty to establish and police a high floor standard for educational services and that it had a duty to scrutinise and audit schools detailed self-reports regarding their provision of services.  In response to my question regarding the grading of the quality of services, he said that he felt that there was an opportunity for me to contribute to the Ofsted’s current internal consultation regarding their framework to try and make sure the Ofsted fitted more with what I thought it should do compared to what it does now.

I was satisfied with this response and then addressed the question in a more succinct form to Richard Brooks, the Ofsted Director present at the consultation:

“Where you are inspecting an area of service in an institution and there are no concerns about it, why is better to grade is on a single scale rather than for there to be a qualitative report on it, provided by the school, which is a basis for professional dialogue and on which the inspector comments with any concerns or qualifications?”

His reply was (subject to possible transcript errors):

“I mean of course, there are epistemological attractions from having essentially a single judgment to make about which side of a line do you fall on, satisfactory/unsatisfactory. But you have a real problem about deciding where that line is, and what you taken into account when you think about whether people are

which side of it. So if you think about the overall effectiveness judgment, would we be making essentially a judgment analogous to inadequacy, where all of the other information was lost, where 90% of schools were essentially passing? You would lose a great deal of the richness about the discussion at the boundary between ‘is this practice satisfactory, or is it better than satisfactory? Is it good? If it’s good what can we do to make it excellent? What are the improvements points at a school which actually is not worried about being found inadequate, but really wants to strive to be

outstanding? What are the things that we think institutionally we should focus on?’ All of that would go. It would be a simpler inspection system in some ways, but I think you would lose a lot. Perhaps I have not understood you, but we can talk at the break.”

This was, of course, and answer which attempted to justify the practice of grading the quality of provision without engaging at all with the reasons why this practice is unsatisfactory or to criticise possible alternative practices which serve the same purpose.

We did speak at the break and I was concerned that Mr Brooks did not appear to have any awareness of the arguments make against the status quo by other regulators.  So I suggested that I come and talk to Ofsted as Graham Stuart MP had advised.  That suggestion received a very definite refusal and that categorical statement that the grading of the quality of provision would not change, however Mr Brooks agreed that if I put my question in writing by email he would respond.

Rebecca Hanson to Richard Brooks July 5^th

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your time today.

You promised to ponder the question I asked and attempt to answer it more fully.

Just to remind you the question was:

Other regulators interpret the Hampton principle on page 11 of the attached report (regulators are only mandated to intervene when there is a clear case for protection) to mean that they have no duty to attempt to rate the quality of provision where there is not a clear case for protection.  There are considered to be important reasons why rating the quality of provision where there is not a clear case for protection militates against innovation and high quality provision.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45019.pdf

Please can you explain to me why Ofsted does rate the quality of provision where there is no clear case for protection?

Best regards,

Rebecca Hanson

Richard Brooks to Rebecca Hanson 6^th July

Rebecca

The two short answers are:

-          whilst we act as a regulator in respect of some services, we act as an inspectorate in relation to the education provision within our remit.

 -          we are a creature of statute, and the relevant legislation, including the Education Bill before Parliament now, is explicit that we will report on quality in school inspections. There is of course a valid debate to be had about the merits of taking this approach, and whilst I’m not seeking to dismiss the alternative, I would personally come down on the side of quality ratings. Indeed I think the protection principle can very well be used to justify inspection of quality in relation to many services for children. In the end, however, it is not a decision for us. Kind regards Richard

In November 2009 Ofsted was specifically included under 2006 Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act to which most other regulators had been accountable since 2007.  Therefore it is bound by precisely the same law and principles as other regulators.  Yet although this Act was constructed to militate against poor practices like the grading of the quality of provision of services, Richard Brooks was claiming that Ofsted is forced to grade the quality of the provision of services “it is not a decision for us”.

So I submitted a freedom of information request to Ofsted to find out if there was any justification for Richard Brooks claim.  The response is 3 pages long.  The only possible partial justification for the claim is a reference to a statue which designates that Ofsted must report on the quality of provision.  I cannot find any legal imperative that this must be done by the auditing of quality standards or though qualitative reports with disciplined language.  There is substantial justification for the assertion that the quality of the work done by Ofsted would be much higher if alternative practices were used.

So I ask again:

Why are those involved in education in England subject to inspections which are considered to be bad practice by other British regulators because they militate against diversity, against innovation and against the regulator actually perceiving what is happening?

Richard Brooks claims that Ofsted is forced to do from outside.

By what or by whom is he forced to do that?

His response to me question showed a very serious lack of understanding or either inspection and regulation and a total lack of insight into the realities of the consequences of current inspection practices on education.

Where is Ofsted’s ‘proper conclusion’ that this practice is in the interest of the education of our students?

Where is anyone’s ‘proper conclusion’ that this is in anyone’s interest?

Where is the cost benefit analysis I can look at which properly understands and justifies the costs of this quasi-objective system?

To be continued...