As a teacher myself, I believe schools need to be held accountable and to a certain standard, however the current Ofsted system is totally messed up and needs a huge overhaul. Inspections are not helpful to staff nor students and the irony of spending time out of class to get ‘Ofsted ready’ is ridiculous - I’d rather spend more time in class, teaching well, than ensuring data/folders are up to date, or having ‘Ofsted’ training which is causes extremely bad mental health, in preparation for a review. I want to teach children what’s important, have fun and encourage a love of learning, NOT spend time asking 7 year olds to complete mundane tasks as it’s ‘what Ofsted will like to see’.
The fear that the term ‘Ofsted’ itself brings upon staff is enough to make any sane-minded people question the system and it’s ethics. Staff morale - both teaching and non-teaching staff- is at an all time low and I genuinely worry for the future of schools if we continue with this current, unneeded and unhealthy method of judging schools and professionals. We were trusted through Covid (obviously we couldn’t put the dear inspectors at risk, though schools were safe for us…..) so why not now?
What happened to Ruth is so upsetting and distressing, and I fear there will be more similar stories if we don’t take a serious look at the ways of monitoring our education system.