It has been hailed as a “landmark moment for children” because the one-word Ofsted judgements that have been handed down for state schools are being revoked with immediate effect.
In the past, the education watchdog would give schools that it conducted inspections one of four marks: exceptional, good, requires improvement, or inadequate.
The Department for Education (DfE) announced that starting with the current academic year, there will be four grades available across the various subcategories. These marks will be for quality of education, conduct and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management.
Parents will be able to receive a “comprehensive assessment of how schools are performing and ensure that inspections are more effective in driving improvement” as a result of the implementation of school report cards, which are scheduled to take effect beginning in September 2025.
The move is a result of discussion with the education sector and the family of Ruth Perry, the headteacher of Caversham Primary School in Reading, who took her own life after an Ofsted report downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate” due to concerns regarding the school’s compliance with safeguarding regulations.
A coroner’s inquest conducted the previous year discovered that the inspection procedure had played a role in her passing.
Single-phrase grades, which are considered “reductive,” “fail to provide a fair and accurate assessment of overall school performance,” according to the Department for Education (DfE), and the change will assist in “breaking down barriers to opportunity.”
According to Bridget Phillipson, the secretary of education, “We are today making that change because I believe that parents need more information about what goes on within our schools and the system that we have at the moment just isn’t working.”
“The stakes are too high, and an adequate amount of attention is not paid to the manner in which we raise the bar in our educational institutions. And this is of the utmost significance to me because I want each and every one of our children to have a wonderful education and a wonderful beginning to their lives.
A primary aim of the new Labour government has been to bring about this transformation. By levying a tax on the tuition fees charged by private schools, the government has promised to raise money and improve the quality of state-provided education.
It was announced today that the government will give priority to reform plans for schools that have been recognised as underperforming, rather than depending on changing administration. This was part of the announcement that was made today.
Beginning at the beginning of the year 2025, regional improvement teams will be established to collaborate with schools that are not performing well in order to address areas of weakness.
The government will continue to step in and intervene in situations where there is the most cause for worry and when schools would have been adjudged to be inadequate.
According to the Department for Education (DfE), this may involve the issuance of an academy order, which mandates that maintained schools transform into academy schools and may, in certain circumstances, result in the transfer of new management.
“The need for Ofsted reform to drive high and rising standards for all of our children in every school is overwhelmingly clear,” Ms. Phillipson stated previously. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this.”
“The removal of headline grades is a generational reform and a landmark moment for children, parents, and teachers.”
An other point that she made was that single headline grades provide “low information for parents and high stakes for schools.”
Our report cards will present parents with a far clearer and more comprehensive view of how their children’s schools are performing, which is something that they deserve.
This administration will make inspection a more effective and open-minded instrument for fostering the improvement of educational institutions. The change that we pledged to bring about is now being delivered.
The elimination of single headline grades will be implemented in state schools that are scheduled to undergo inspections during the current academic year. Other educational institutions, such as colleges and independent schools, are anticipated to follow suit.
Teachers’ unions, which have been advocating for reform for a long time, have expressed their approval of the measures.
The general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, Paul Whiteman, made the following statement: “We have been clear that simplistic one-word judgements are harmful, and we are pleased that the government has taken swift action to remove them.”
While the new administration has “made the right decision,” NASUWT general secretary Dr. Patrick Roach stated that it could go further and “end the fallacy that academy conversion is the only route to securing the improvements our schools need.” Roach, however, stated that the new government had “made the right decision.”
“Whilst today’s announcements are an important step in the right direction, it remains the case that in the absence of root and branch reform to fix the foundations of the broken accountability system, teachers and school leaders will continue to work in a system that remains flawed,” according to the president.