Schools report: Ofsted changes offer little respite for Charedi sector

Last week Ofsted unveiled its proposals for a new inspection system, just over two years after the suicide of primary headteacher Ruth Perry, whose school was downgraded from outstanding to inadequate, led to clamour for reform.

The contentious single-word headline grades have already gone for state schools (they will remain for independent schools until the new system is introduced in autumn).

But the inspectorate believes the new report card scheme will give parents a better picture of how their children’s school is performing. Currently, inspectors assign one of four grades - outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate - in four educational areas.

This will be replaced by five ratings - exemplary, strong, secure, attention needed or causing concern - with eight areas now to be marked, from curriculum to inclusion (of children with special educational needs). Safeguarding won’t be graded but judged as either meeting required standards or not. A colour-coded chart should make it easier for parents to see the school’s strengths and weaknesses at a glance.

All this is explained in a helpful six-minute video which is available on Youtube. The details are not quite set in stone, as the plan is open to consultation until April 28.

But teachers’ unions believe the rethink has not gone far enough and that Ofsted wants to retain too much of the tick-box evaluation of the present framework. While many of the changes were “steps in the right direction”, the NEU said, they were “not the radical change needed to … regain trust with the profession”.

Another union, the NASUWT found it “deeply regrettable” that the proposals “highlight how far away we still are from developing a fit-for-purpose approach to school accountability”.

if anything, the new scheme seems to suggest greater surveillance.

There will be one part of the Jewish community which will be paying particularly close attention to the proposals - the Charedi sector, where there has been long-running dissatisfaction with Ofsted. It is fair to note that inspection pressure appears to have led to improvements in the secular education provided by Charedi independent schools - most Charedi children are educated in independent institutions.

For example, three strictly Orthodox schools in recent weeks were upgraded after their latest Ofsted visits from inadequate to “requires improvement - Kerem Shloime (boys) in Salford and Beis Trana and Bnos Zion (girls) in Stamford Hill.

But even the best Charedi independent secondary schools are unlikely to achieve a “good” rating because of their refusal, on religious grounds, to teach LGBT awareness. As a result, they are judged to be failing to comply with equality requirements or for the directives of relationships and sex education (RSE) and thus to meet the official independent school standards.

They will then receive an overall “requires improvement” rating, which will likely mean they have to submit an “action plan” for improvement to the Department for Education and expect further Ofsted checks. All this costs time and money but since they are not going to start introducing sessions about gender reassignment and sexual orientation, the whole exercise would seem pointless.

The new system might have offered a little more flexibility so that a school that was falling short in this one area alone would escape a further knock on the door from inspectors. But if anything, the new scheme seems to suggest greater surveillance.

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver has said the intention is ”to return to schools with areas that need attention more frequently to check improvements have been made”. And Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said of the new reforms: “Our intervention to support school improvement will continue to be based on the existing requirement for independent schools to meet the [independent school] standards at all times.”

In other words, a Charedi school omitting part of the RSE curriculum is likely to be graded as “attention needed” or even “causing concern” in the area of leadership, triggering further action from the education authorities. And thus the current impasse seems set to remain.