John Major isn’t given credit for much. But his creation of Ofsted in 1992 was one of the most critical elements in driving up school standards in recent decades.
Before then, there was no common framework for school inspections. Not only were parents at the mercy of what schools and local authorities thought they should be told, there was also no way to accurately compare their performances.
Today, Ofsted is recognised globally for its ability to provide parents – and schools themselves – with accurate and easily intelligible reports. Central to that are the one-word grades Ofsted uses to describe schools’ performance.
Labour’s announcement that it will immediately ditch the terms we are accustomed to – ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’ – means a return to the presentation of findings in a way that is unclear or obscured in vague language. Which is exactly what some teaching unions want.
Unions such as the National Education Union – the biggest teaching union – oppose the mechanisms which drive standards up.
It is deeply concerning that doing the NEU’s bidding and scrapping gradings was one of Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s (pictured) first acts in office
John Major’s creation of Ofsted in 1992 was one of the most critical elements in driving up school standards. (Pictured, John Major gives a speech on trust and standards in democracy at the Institute for Government in 2022)
Today, Ofsted is recognised globally for its ability to provide parents and schools with accurate and easily intelligible reports. (Stock photo of an Ofsted sign)
This week we learned teaching unions have demanded Labour scraps grammar exams and times tables tests introduced in 2018 (stock image)
It’s deeply depressing that the new Government is, in effect, handing back control to The Blob (stock image)
They are run by the hard-Left and push an ideology deeply damaging to pupils and schools. So it is deeply concerning, but worryingly predictable, that doing the NEU’s bidding and scrapping these gradings was one of Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s first acts in office.
Parents will be expected to wade through bureaucratic doublespeak in so-called ‘Report Cards’. This will reduce the ability of many to dig deeper to make an informed decision about what is best for their child.
Not that anyone should be surprised. When the Conservatives set up Ofsted in 1992, Labour vigorously opposed it because, for most of the party’s existence, the party has been the political wing of the teaching unions, even though they do not affiliate to Labour.
Not always, mind: under Tony Blair things were very different.
He understood standards would improve only if schools and teachers were forced to confront their failings, so he backed Ofsted and made a point of confronting union dominance of Labour education policy. But the moment Blair was gone, Labour reverted to type – and when Michael Gove became education secretary in 2010, Labour attacked him as some sort of pantomime villain.
In reality, Gove was one of the most important and successful reforming ministers, with an unremitting focus on improving standards. He built on Blair’s academy schools that were free of local authority control, passing legislation to let any school opt to become an academy. And he introduced the idea of ‘free schools’, newly set up academy schools. Today there are more than 600.
But these reforms, which transformed state education for the better, were fought tooth and nail by what Gove called ‘The Blob’ – a term he took from a 1950s film about an amoeba-like alien mass nothing can stop
It’s deeply depressing that the new Government is, in effect, handing back control to The Blob.
This week we learned teaching unions have demanded Labour scraps grammar exams and times tables tests introduced in 2018, describing them ‘an unnecessary waste of time’. It may be only a proposal now, but with Keir Starmer and Phillipson having already shown they take their lead over Ofsted from the likes of the NEU, it surely won’t be long before it is Government policy. The Blob is back.
Stephen Pollard is editor at large of the Jewish Chronicle.
