Enough is Enough

Let’s start with the children, shall we? I mean this is where we as schools would always say we start from – putting children truly at the heart.
We have created a system where statutory tests determine the curriculum we teach. There are schools across the UK where Maths and English is taught all morning and all afternoon – or where there are interventions all afternoons for children not ‘meeting standards’ where they are then missing out on all the other diverse subjects schools should be teaching.
It’s a system where leaders and teachers sometimes manipulate data and even take part in somehow controlling the outcomes of the tests – obviously one would question any leader who participates in this and doesn’t lead with anything but integrity – but this is the system that is created – where leaders even feel this is a necessity – to put their jobs at risk because of the pressure to perform.
This is why phonics is often taught all day to Key Stage 1 children, small groups taken out to ‘catch up’ with the sounds they just haven’t grasped – where children are given a diet rich in remembering how to take the test and how to answers the questions that might be given.
This is what we are doing to our children.
The pressure that teachers face is replicated onto to our children – they feel this pressure. Children in year 6, who can’t sleep, who self-harm because of the anxiety and fear they have for the tests they have to take at the end of the year.
Children, where just this week, we’ve seen crumble with a feeling of not being good enough because they couldn’t finish the SATs Reading test – children only aged 10 or 11, who’s self-esteem is being challenged at every level.
And, as we all know it is often the results of these tests that can sometimes be the difference between being crowned with the words of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
So, because Ofsted have caught on to the fact, that children are often only are being taught what are perceived to be the core subjects, they have decided to focus on a broad curriculum. You would think that this has been a beneficial change, however, the focus has suddenly turned to knowledge. Many schools have churned out ‘Knowledge Organisers’ for every subject, highlighting the facts and key dates that children should remember. Suddenly, it’s all about retrieval and pop quizzes. Again, a curriculum not built for questioning, awe and delight, but about cramming children with facts and knowledge and littering it with retrieval practice to ensure they really have remembered everything we have taught (evidence) so that when the inspector calls, they can answer their questions.
Whatever Ofsted asks for, schools immediately add it to their checklist. Suddenly, we are only doing things for Ofsted. You see how this works?
What are we doing? This is not education.
This is not a system that the world will look at with admiration. Instead, this is a system that is failing us all.
Leaders are not brave enough to try a different way – and if they are, what if their way doesn’t work? Their jobs are at stake. If Ofsted deems them inadequate or even ‘requires improvement’, their careers could be over.
Imagine being in education all of your life – it is your career after all – a job that you don’t go into for the money or for the recognition. It’s a job that you can never get away from – where every night you go home thinking and worrying about little Billy in the corner who just never seems to catch a break, or Lucy, who comes in every morning without breakfast, anxious that maybe you didn’t notice something you should have or you didn’t ask the right questions. A job, where every weekend and break you are planning and thinking about your class, your children, your staff – reading books about behaviour, leadership, assessment or curriculum, so that you can do even better. It is a job you live and breathe. Until you’ve done it, you can’t quite understand it.
So imagine this – imagine putting everything you have into this career, putting your family on hold, working weekends to get ahead – missing out on gatherings here and there so you can catch up on planning. Imagine, the sweat and tears that you pour into a school as a headteacher to have Ofsted come in and tell you that your school is ‘Inadequate’ or that you ‘Require Improvement’. This cuts you to the core. Everything you are and everything you do comes down to this one word.
You are not good enough.
And how does this make staff, children and your community feel? The impact of this ripples further that many can comprehend.
We’ve seen what it can do – how it can ruin lives forever. How long will we allow this to continue?
Ofsted says that 84% of parents find the reports useful (Ofsted Annual Survey 2021) – but do these parents know what Ofsted is doing to schools? Do they know the pressure that is often put on their children because of the pressure that comes from Ofsted? Do they realise all the subjects and lessons in a week that are often not taught, to ensure that their children are caught up in Maths and English?
In amidst all of this, we know there are schools and leaders where they are challenging the ‘status quo’ – where they won’t allow Ofsted or SATs to dictate the curriculum or create a pressure that should not be there. However, even when you have leaders who take away this pressure, it is still an omnipresent force. Teachers still know that parents read the Ofsted reports, that the statutory test results in Year 1, Year 2 and Year 6 can often make all the difference. The pressure, is pervasive – our system is entrenched in it.
65% of parents (Ofsted Annual Survey 2021) believed that Ofsted’s work improved the standards of education. Let’s look at this. You cannot walk into any school where they are not trying to improve something. Every school will have its development plan that has been carefully crafted with staff and governors. No one comes into education other than wanting to make a difference and to improve lives. This is why we are in it. This is the business of schools. It is the people in the building day in and day out that are improving the standards of education. It is the teaching assistants, the teachers, the leaders, the cooks, the cleaners, the office staff and the caretakers – when you walk into most schools, it is these people who make the school the wonderful place it is. Every single person in that building is working to create a culture where children can thrive. It is not Ofsted.
Yes, schools need accountability. Yes, we need a way to ensure that every school is doing its very best for every child in its care. But, the framework in which Ofsted is working is not it.
Instead, it is creating a culture of fear, anxiety, and high stress. It is creating a mental health crisis in schools. I do not say this lightly. The stories that have surfaced of teachers and leaders working in schools who have had to leave the profession because of illness or stress – teachers who are on constant medication, in indefinite counselling, because of the high stakes that Ofsted has created, is inexcusable. It is not sustainable. We know there is a recruitment and retention crisis in education and we need to face this immediately. This is the future of our children – this is the future of us all.
We all know what needs to change. We all know why it needs to change. We all want the best for the children in our care.
So let’s sit down and rethink education, rethink how we do things – together. There has never been a better time as now – we all say that COVID changed everything and yet, we haven’t changed anything.
Enough is Enough. There is undeniably another way, that I can guarantee will have better outcomes than any of us could have ever imagined.
If we do not get this right, we get everything wrong.