Association of School and College Leaders resolves to “explore legal action” over new inspection regime

The announcement follows the findings of its survey in September, in which 65% of respondents said they feared the new system will be “worse or much worse” for their wellbeing than the old system.

The Association said: “Another key consideration is the independent wellbeing impact assessment commissioned by Ofsted and conducted by Sinéad McBrearty, CEO of Education Support. This found that the 'baseline stress level of school and college leaders is concerningly high' and that the revised framework remains high stakes in nature and 'does not reduce the pressure on leaders'.”

The wellbeing impact assessment reported that the transition to the revised framework “will be very stressful for many leaders” and “is likely to further heighten anxiety for some leaders e.g. those who face local competition for pupil/learner enrolment, or who are currently in a category of concern.”

ASCL said it has further resolved to seek feedback from schools and colleges, Ofsted inspectors and the inspectorate over the validity, reliability, and impact on wellbeing of the new framework as it is implemented over the coming months. 

Earlier this year, the Association warned that it would consider encouraging members who were Ofsted inspectors to withdraw their services from the inspection system because of its concerns over the five-point grading scale and what it called a rushed timetable for implementation.

At a meeting last week however, the Association decided it would not at this stage go ahead with that step, “in order to allow time to gather evidence over the impact of the framework in practice during both pilot and routine inspections”.

It added that this action “may be considered in the future” depending on the outcome of the process.

Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We don’t take the step of exploring legal action lightly, but our members are gravely concerned about the stress and pressure likely to be generated by the new inspection system with its five-point grading scale applied over multiple evaluation areas. As feedback to the independent wellbeing impact assessment commissioned by Ofsted put it so succinctly, this will result in ‘many more ways to fail."

“We also fear that this new inspection system won’t provide better information to parents because of the difficulties in inspectors arriving at so many judgements during a single inspection in a way that is consistent and reliable. It seems to us like a recipe for chaos.

“However, we are trying to be as reasonable as possible, and have decided to hold off from encouraging members who are Ofsted inspectors to withdraw their services for the time being while we gather evidence about the impact of the new system as inspections are rolled out. But we will be monitoring this closely and that option remains firmly on the table.”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: "We welcome ASCL's sensible decision not to ask members who work for us as inspectors to withdraw their services. We have had really positive feedback from our pilots and we're confident that our new-look inspections will be well-received when they begin in November."

Lottie Winson