Just six per cent of teachers feel positively about the proposed reforms Ofsted has unveiled this week, a poll has revealed.
The education watchdog has launched a 12-week consultation on its proposals – which are aimed at raising standards and relieving pressure on teachers and heads – and include introducing new ‘report cards’.
But in a poll of more than 11,000 teachers on Wednesday, by daily survey app Teacher Tapp, zero per cent of respondents said they were ‘very positive’ about Ofsted’s plans.
Just six per cent said they were ‘somewhat positive’.
Meanwhile, more than one-third expressed reservations about the proposals, with 20 per cent saying they felt ‘somewhat negative’ and 16 per cent ‘very negative’.
One-third said they had not seen the new plans, which were unveiled by Ofsted on Monday.
The proposed ‘report cards’ would be used to assess schools and convey their performance to parents.
Instead of single-word judgments, Ofsted proposes to rate schools across up to 11 different areas.
Every school would be judged on leadership and governance, curriculum, developing teaching, achievement, behaviour and attitudes, attendance, personal development and well-being, inclusion and safeguarding. Those with early years provision or sixth forms would also be graded on these areas.
Across all areas but safeguarding, schools will be given one of five judgements: exemplary, strong, secure, attention needed, or causing concern. Safeguarding requirements will be judged as either ‘met’ or ‘not met’.
Chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said the plans are designed to “raise standards and improve the lives of children, particularly the most disadvantaged”.
Tom Rees, chair of the DfE expert advisory group for inclusion, said Ofsted “is putting disadvantaged children and children with SEND at the heart of their reforms”.
Teachers ‘doubt plan will improve SEND inclusion’
But in another Teacher Tapp poll of more than 10,000 teachers, almost half said they felt the new focus on inclusion would ‘probably not’ (38 per cent) or ‘definitely not’ (10 per cent) lead to meaningful improvements in how schools support disadvantaged and SEND pupils.
Just 14 per cent felt it would ‘probably’ lead to improvements, one per cent said it ‘definitely’ would, and 27 per cent were unsure.
Union the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has also carried out a snap poll of its members, which found they overwhelmingly disagreed with Ofsted’s plans.
In the poll of more than 3,000 school leaders, 92 per cent disagreed with the proposal to introduce a five-point graded judgements across 10 different areas.
Meanwhile 96 per cent said they do not think Ofsted will make meaningful changes in response to concerns shared during the consultation.
Oliver said the report card model would replace the “simplistic” one-word judgement system with “a suite of grades, giving parents much more detail and better identifying the strengths and areas for improvement for a school, early years or further education provider”.
“Our new top ‘exemplary’ grade will help raise standards, identifying world-class practice that should be shared with the rest of the country,” he said. “And by quickly returning to monitor schools that have areas for improvement, we will ensure timely action is taken to raise standards.
“We also hope that this more balanced, fairer approach will reduce the pressure on professionals working in education, as well as giving them a much clearer understanding of what we will be considering on inspection.”
The Ofsted consultation is running until April 28. Find out more and have your say here.
Teacher Tapp has yet to weight the responses to its poll, so the results may change slightly.
It is surprising that as many as 6% of teachers support the new proposals. Schools do not trust Ofsted and have zero confidence in the inspectors’ competence to deliver fair and accurate School Report Cards.