Slip in outstanding schools may reflect years-old fall in standards – Ofsted

Hundreds of schools lost their top rank as the watchdog commenced its reinspections of those previously rated outstanding.

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman (Ofsted/PA) (PA Media)

Ofsted’s chief has strongly rejected any notion the watchdog might seek to downgrade schools to prove the worth of its inspections as she suggested the recent slip in ratings may reflect a decline in standards “many years ago”.

Hundreds of schools have lost their top rank as the watchdog has commenced its reinspections of those previously rated outstanding, with ministers scrapping their exemption from regular checks.

In the last academic year, this involved conducting full, graded inspections of 370 schools, of which only 17% retained their outstanding rating.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman poured cold water on any suggestion the watchdog would push for schools to be downgraded to prove the value of its oversight.

Any suggestion from the top of Ofsted that there should be any kind of quota or sort of push on a particular kind of school would be met with absolute horror

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted

Asked how she would respond to a notion the slip in outstanding schools was not purely a result of inspections but a reflection of Ofsted’s own wishes, she told the Commons Education Committee inspectors guard their independence and impartiality “fiercely”.

“Any suggestion from the top of Ofsted that there should be any kind of quota or sort of push on a particular kind of school would be met with absolute horror,” she said.

“I can assure you that there is nothing of the kind. Each inspection is approached separately, as it should be.”

She said the “downward shift” in schools operating at an outstanding level may have happened some time ago.

“The ones we inspected last year in the main hadn’t been inspected for 13, 14, even 15 years – a great deal of time in which all of the staff, including the head, all of the governors are likely to have changed, sometimes a number of times,” she said.

“So, at one level there is no surprise that the profile doesn’t look extremely similar to what it did for those 300 schools all that time ago.

“It’s important to say that in many cases the downward shift … may have happened many years ago.”

Ms Spielman said Ofsted is “confident” it will meet its target of inspecting all schools by 2025.