From the frontline: Ofsted, funding and industrial action

School leaders discussed Ofsted, funding and potential industrial action when they gathered in Belfast last weekend for the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers.

Schools Week deputy editor Samantha Booth reports from the conference floor…

 

Headteachers have been left “broken” by the new Ofsted framework, the conference was told, as delegates voted to explore industrial action.

A four-part motion included calls for the association (NAHT) to “collect and publish evidence” from members on the “worsening impact” of the new inspection framework.

It also demanded the union “explore legal, industrial and campaigning strategies to challenge the framework and promote an alternative approach that safeguards leaders and staff”.

Amy Lassman, the head of Nelson Mandela Primary in Birmingham, said “maintaining” the threat of industrial action was not about rushing to strike.

“It’s about power, it’s about leverage, it’s about being taken seriously by those who shape the system.”

Several heads spoke about their experiences under the new framework.

Amanda Hulme, the head of Claypool Primary in Bolton, read from a letter she had recently sent to Sir Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector.

“This was my fifth inspection as a headteacher, it was by some distance the most stressful experience of my career and had a significant adverse impact on my health in the period leading up to the inspection and after the inspection.

“We were one bullet point away from achieving a strong standard for attendance and behaviour and inclusion, and similarly only one sentence within a bullet point from achieving a strong standard for personal development and wellbeing.

“It is difficult to understand how such fine margins can offer parents a meaningful or coherent understanding of a school.”

Anne Billington, the head of The Beacon C of E Primary in Devon, said she was left “broken” after an Ofsted inspection in January.

“I really hope that what we experienced is not what you will experience, and I hope that was not typical.”

Dave Woods, the president of the NAHT, said its national executive “very strongly” supported the motion, adding: “Our work and campaigning on inspection reform is far from over.”

Industrial action vote looms 

Members also voted for the union to carry out an indicative ballot for industrial action “in defence of pay”.

Lassman said a “long, grinding erosion of pay” had left the profession “undervalued, overstretched and struggling to recruit and retain the staff our schools so desperately need”.

The vote follows ministers’ suggestion of a 6.5 per cent pay rise over the next three years, which, if broken down yearly, would be well below current inflation.

The DfE is yet to release the recommendation of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) and its own final decision on pay.

The motion, passed unanimously, called on the union to oppose any three-year deal that was below inflation, and to conduct the ballot.

It also committed the union to using the results to “inform next steps, including the potential escalation to a statutory industrial action ballot”.

Lassman said it sent a strong message “that the NAHT will not sleepwalk into another cut”.

“It we want better pay we must be prepared to fight for it,” she warned.

‘Sea of flags’

A Bristol headteacher walked a parent home after she was followed by a group waving St George’s flags.

Matthew Cave, the head of Four Acres Academy in Bristol, said: “Our families have to walk through a sea of flags on every lamp post that become a symbol of us vs them – and that tension is walking right into our playground.

“I found myself with a parent, new to the country, who brought her two-year-old in. She had been followed into the school by a group waving St George’s crosses behind her.”

Cave walked the woman home “armed with nothing but my teacher stare”. He ended up “with a complaint from them about me being intimidating”.

A motion called for the NAHT to press the government to ensure all school communities have the resources to create safe, inclusive environments and are protected from attacks on refugees and asylum seekers.

Cave said leaders needed the union to “advocate for the resources and training to give us courage to speak up, to provide a united front and ensure our schools remain neutral ground”.

Nazma Jassat, the head of Charnwood Primary in Leicester, said her personal experience as an immigrant from a war-torn region meant she knew “how powerful stability can be”.

“When everything else feels uncertain, school routines, familiar faces and a sense of belonging matter more than we sometimes realise.

“When compassion is absent in wider public conversations, schools increasingly become the place where reassurance, dignity and truth must be actively upheld.”

Assistant heads are ‘glue in school system’

Assistant headteachers are “shock absorbers” of schools, the conference was told, following suggestions by the government that their numbers could be cut to help costs.

In evidence to the STRB, the DfE said “several common themes” had emerged from those who saved money, including “reconsidering the composition of leadership teams”.

“There has been a 45 per cent increase in assistant headteacher positions since 2011-12, indicating some room to drive better value from spending,” the government highlighted.

But James Hawkins, a deputy head in Birmingham, said assistant heads were “not an operational extra, they are shock absorbers for the system”.

They were the “glue that holds together behaviour, attendance and pastoral systems”.

Mel Collins, the deputy head of Moat House Primary School in Coventry, said the role of an assistant head had grown “because the demands on schools have grown”.

A NAHT survey last year found just one in five school leaders aspired to headship.

Hawkins added: “This is not a pipeline brimming with surplus leadership, it is a recruitment warning light flashing red.

“Stripping away assistant headteacher capacity will not improve value for money, it will further accelerate burnout and turnover.”

INSET day proposal rejected

A motion calling for two more INSET days to support schools in implementing SEND and curriculum reforms was rejected.

Lynn Clark, the head of Marston Green Junior School in Solihull, said there was “silence on how school leaders in this room and beyond will deliver these changes.

“There’s a quiet assumption that schools will simply absorb this change. This is not leadership, it is denial.

“The government has said it will provide funding for the reform. It must provide time.

“Two additional days is not radical, not unreasonable, because without time, SEND becomes procedural, curriculum reform rushed, staff morale eroded and leaders burnout and they leave.”

Clark said academies could plan additional INSET days to the mandatory five when reform demanded it.

“Maintained schools must calculate and aggregate hours to justify any request for even one additional INSET day.”

But Clem Coady, the head of Stoneraise School in Cumbria, said members were “really struggling” with the motion.

“We get that workload is continually being handed on to our schools and the notion that ‘schools will just sort this, it’ll be OK’.

But the motion would require the union’s president and general secretary “to front the national media and argue with fighting for change for a better education by removing education.

“We are yet to be convinced this is the right discourse and [are] concerned that this argument will not be supported by our parents nor our communities.

“It risks us as a profession losing a lot of political capital we’ve gained over recent years.”