The proportion of children staying away from school may be alarming – one in five – but the proportion of parents – almost one in three – who do not see school as a necessary part of their child’s daily schedule is even more so. Keir Starmer’s government understood that the connection between parents and schools needed fixing – and settled on Ofsted as part of the solution.
For many, however, Ofsted was part of the problem. The suicide of Ruth Perry, a much-loved headteacher, had highlighted the pressure that school inspections placed on the teaching profession. The majority of teachers viewed the regulator negatively. Meanwhile, fewer than 4 in 10 parents felt short-changed by Ofsted’s one-word verdicts (‘Outstanding’, ‘Inadequate’) delivered after their two-day inspections.
Too many heads ignore the positive outcomes of parent power
On becoming Secretary of State for Education last year, Bridget Phillipson pledged to reform Ofsted. She unveiled her new vision for ‘reform, renewal, for modernisation’ at the Centre for Social Justice this morning. A report card will replace the one-word judgements, with a colour-coded scheme to assist parents to gauge their school’s performance. Already, however, the sector has hit out with a barrage of criticisms, and parents are sure to follow.
Teachers worry that the many facets of a school’s ecosystem, where learning involves everything from attendance and attainment through behaviour and improvement, cannot be evaluated properly within a 48-hour visit. Daniel Kebede, the General Secretary of the National Education Union, has branded the Phillipson new deal as ‘intellectually inconsistent’. Others worry that the new-look Ofsted does nothing to address cheating – not by pupils but by the schools themselves, excluding (or off-rolling) pupils whose grades could compromise the school’s record, or else forfeiting challenging subjects in the curriculum in order to drive SATs scores.
None of this will boost parents’ confidence in schooling. The same parents who didn’t buy the one-word judgement hung by the school gates will have trouble believing the colourful new ‘report cards’. Many will have little faith in report cards – their own were never great. They won’t like the sound of an inspector much either.
What they do want is someone to engage their children, spark their curiosity, encourage their ambition and offer an opportunity for a social life that does not revolve around their phone. They want to know that they, whether as mother or father, play a crucial role in their child’s learning for life. When schools can show that this is on offer, whether through a family liaison officer or an attendance mentor, parents become allies rather than sceptics in the effort to turn school into the core of a child’s weekday.
Engage parents with school, and you have a far better accountability system than Ofsted could ever hope to deliver: day in, day out, an engaged parent will scrutinise their child’s progress, note bullying in the playground, pick up on a teacher’s unpopularity and support extracurricular activities. This is not a two-day blink and you miss it visit but a regular and continuous study of what works and what doesn’t.
Schools that draw parents into a close-knit community can rely on word of mouth appeal. Schools that fail to take into account parents, instead, will continue to quake at the prospect of that dreaded Ofsted inspection.
Yet too many heads ignore the positive outcomes of parent power. As one assistant head at a secondary school in Kent puts it, ‘Too often parental participation gets crowded out of the busy curriculum, and without a clear direction and without schools being held to account for the way they engage with their families, the new Ofsted reports will do nothing to improve this.’ To improve attendance, attainment, and accountability, schools need parents’ support, not report cards.
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