John Bald Ofsted and New Labour

A good subject report on English

The subject report on English, here, is a reminder of the contrast between the work of individual inspectors and specialists and the political role of the organisation. This report highlights strengths and weaknesses in provision for English in a way that would be politically unacceptable to the government - it notes falling standards among seven year olds, for example. The report also highlights the error of putting all of the emphasis on improvement into the weakest schools, with too little done to share good practice. It is well worth reading, and I will update this posting when I've digested it.

Joined up government - the police

Sunday Times has an interesting piece about the way the police can handle a bogus elf n safety case - allegedly manhandling and mistreating a clergyman.  What's most interesting is that there seems no reason at all for the use of force, except, perhaps, the opportunity to use it.  Here is a picture of the "offence" - a child, discretely wearing safety harness, reading on top of a chimney stack.

I suppose we should be grateful that Ofsted does not come equipped with handcuffs - all they do is sack people on the basis of gaps in paperwork that take ten minutes to fix, and other uncorroborated "evidence".  If I, as a lead inspector, found a gap in a school's paperwork, I would point it out to the head in such a way that it was fixed - either before I left, or, if it would take some time, when I returned to feed back to the governors. I would put a critical comment in the report if the inspection team found it was having some negative effect on the children's education or well-being, but otherwise would not mention it.  This almost always worked, and generated goodwill. On the one occasion that it didn't, an attempt to withold poor AS examination results, an indication that HMI were about to become involved solved the problem. In New Ofsted's alternative world, though, schools are not treated as fellow-professionals, and the paperwork is the reality. We'd all be a lot safer on top of a chimney stack.

More nonsense on health and safety

The Health and Safety Executive, like Ofsted, does not base its judgements on first hand evidence, but on paper calculations. So, we have in today's Telegraph advice to music teachers to wear earplugs and stand behind screens. Some instruments - a thing called a Comet, apparently - peak at 140 Db, a level that can cause damage to the ears. There is, of course, no evidence of anyone suffering from the usual round of unamplified instruments used in schools, but that does not deter the ignocrats in the executive, whose purpose is not to ensure health and safety, but to promote their own authority. This distracts attention from the real health and safety issues in schools, chief among them the long term stress caused by some pupils' impossible behaviour.

I wonder if ignocracy is strong enough. Idiocracy might be better. This on safeguarding of a tree, by trying to prevent toddlers from playing under it, lest they damage its roots. The tree is thirty years old. The children two to four. I'm not sure how old the idiots on Cambridgeshire County Council's tree team are. 

How to inspect health and safety in schools.

Health and safety are important responsibilities for schools, and every headteacher knows this - nothing brings the wrath of a parent down harder or more swiftly than an avoidable accident. As a team and lead inspector under Sir Michael Tomlinson's Ofsted regime, I was often responsible for inspecting health and safety. This is how we did it.

The lead inspector would raise the issue in pre-inspection meetings with parents and governors, in the questionnaires to parents and pupils, and in discussions with the headteacher, who would include comments in the school's pre-inspection forms. Points raised would be included in the briefing to the inspectoin team, to be investigated during the inspection.

An inspector would be designated to check health and safety provision, including accident records, and would inspect the buildings with the site manager/caretaker. This inspector would co-ordinate colleagues' findings, keep the lead inspector informed of any issues, and report to the whole team in the post-inspection meeting. This report would include evidence on each of the points raised in the pre-inspection briefing. The lead inspector would check the evidence thoroughly, and include a paragraph in the report, covering issues set out in the Inspection Handbook.

This report could be hard-hitting and require immediate action - for example, to ensure that boys had an opportunity to wash their hands after using the toilet, and that toilet doors were provided with a lock. What we did not do was pounce on minor gaps in paperwork, irrespective of whether children were genuinely at risk, or accept negative evidence without checking it - it is not unknown for people with a grudge to try to get their own back during an inspection. Our approach took time, care and thought. New Ofsted ticks boxes and sacks headteachers on the basis of paperwork and trivialities. Inspectors know the consequences of their actions, and that negative comments on leadership, on whatever basis, are likely to end a headteacher's career. It does not give inspectors time to think, and does not care whether it is fair or not. This is the difference between inspecting health and safety, and using health and safety as a mask for tyranny, in much the same way as Soviet governments would have their opponents classified as mentally ill.