Teachers given strike ‘exemption’ to prepare for Ofsted

Thirty teachers were given “exemptions” by their union to cross the picket line yesterday so they could prepare for an Ofsted inspection.

The watchdog said it would not inspect schools on strike days as the full scale of disruption “might not be known until the day of the strike”. 

They also pledged to notify schools the day before strikes if they plan to inspect the day after walkouts.

Heads’ union ASCL had pushed for no inspections at all during strike weeks, but Ofsted said schools can request deferrals as usual. 

Meols Cop High School, in Southport, was told on Tuesday it would be inspected on Thursday and Friday this week. The school was last rated ‘outstanding’ in 2012. 

Jim Dye, senior regional officer at the National Education Union, said its members at the school were “shocked and angry”. 

The union gave the school’s 32 members a ceremonial “exemption”.

While NEU members can still go into work on strike days if they choose not to walk-out, Dye said the exemption meant staff felt they could go in and prepare for Ofsted “without breaking the strike”.

Dye said “members at the school were solidly behind the dispute for better pay and funding and we are proud that they still demonstrated outside the school in support of NEU early on the morning of the strike.

“We believe that Ofsted’s decision to ignore union calls to reschedule inspections to a different week risks Ofsted being seen as politically motivated and politically directed.”

Ofsted told Schools Week it received a “small number of requests for deferral due to the industrial action, the vast majority of which were granted”. It would not provide figures on how many inspections were carried out on Thursday and Friday. 

Geoff Barton, ASCL’s general secretary, said suspending inspections during the full week of strikes would “allow school leaders breathing space to focus on managing industrial action”.

But Mark Lehain, a former Department for Education special adviser, said “inspections probably shouldn’t have paused at all – if strikes have affected children’s learning, it is important that we know this, and Ofsted are the body best placed to judge this”.

Inspectorates visited Burford School’s boarding house in Oxfordshire on Wednesday as visits under the social care common framework continued.

Matthew Albrighton, headteacher, said Ofsted inspectors had been “nothing but supportive and mindful of the context, making significant dispensations for the events of the week and the demands on the time of senior leaders”.