The Ongoing Saga of the Ofsted Teaching Style

For decades, it was taken for granted that teachers were best qualified to decide how best to teach their lessons. In the late nineties, the introduction of the National Strategies challenged that idea with the promotion of specific ways of teaching, particularly in maths and English, such as the use of three-part lessons. In recent years however, the greatest pressure to conform to a particular style of teaching came through the widespread belief, promoted by many managers and consultants, that Ofsted inspectors would wish to see a particular style of lessons during inspections.

Consultants, many of them also employed as inspectors, charged schools significant sums of money to help them identify the correct style of teaching. Phrases used to describe outstanding lessons, such as “Teaching promotes pupils’ high levels of resilience, confidence and independence” from the Ofsted handbook were taken to indicate that lessons were to require less of a direct contribution from the teacher and more of an emphasis on activities undertaken by the students, often in groups. Probably the clearest statement of this in the Ofsted literature was from guidance given to inspectors in 2009, which asked inspectors to consider:

Are pupils working independently? Are they self-reliant – do they make the most of the choices they are given or do they find it difficult to make choices? To what extent do pupils take responsibility for their own learning? How well do pupils collaborate with others? Do they ask questions, of each other, of the teacher or other adults, about what they are learning? Are pupils creative, do they show initiative?

Those seeking to advise schools went further. One popular guide to lesson observations, originally published by the NCETM and specifically designed for maths teaching, but later adapted in many ways, by many schools, advised that a lesson would be inadequate if:

“The children are not used to collaborative talk / working with a talk partner…” or “Classroom practices discourage independence…”.

Those of us who preferred to teach in a style which emphasised teacher explanations, and included little group work, found ourselves outside of what was considered acceptable at a time when the introduction of performance management had made lesson observations and Ofsted style evaluations of teaching a part of school culture. Even many teachers whose style is closer to what Ofsted desired, found the dictatorial edicts and box-ticking enforcement through observations to be an imposition on the profession. However, what has turned out to be the most shocking aspect of the saga of the Ofsted teaching style has been what happened after the leadership of Ofsted made a welcome attempt to change this.

Appointed as chief inspector in January 2012, Sir Michael Wilshaw made substantial efforts to indicate to inspectors that he no longer wished inspectors to enforce the Ofsted teaching style. In a speech to the RSA in April 2012 he stated:

We, and in that word “we” I include OFSTED, should be wary of trying to prescribe a particular style of teaching, whether it be a three part lesson; an insistence that there should be a balance between teacher led activities and independent learning, or that the lesson should start with aims and objectives with a plenary at the end and so on and so forth. We should be wary of too much prescription. In my experience a formulaic approach pushed out by a school or rigidly prescribed in an inspection evaluation schedule traps too many teachers into a stultifying and stifling mould which doesn’t demand that they use their imagination, initiative and common sense. Too much direction is as bad as too little.

He continued:

There will be no OFSTED template which compels teachers to do things they wouldn’t normally do. We need to celebrate diversity, ingenuity and imagination in the way that we teach. Surely this is common sense. When every child is different; every class is different, and every year group is different. One size rarely fits all. Surely this adage must apply to teaching as it does to most things in life.

During the summer of 2012, the Ofsted handbook was amended to reflect this attitude. The statement about promoting “high levels of resilience, confidence and independence” was removed and inspectors were told: “…Not all aspects of learning, for example pupils’ engagement, interest, concentration, determination, resilience and independence, will be seen in a single observation.”

Phrases such as the following were added to the handbook:

25. The key objective of lesson observations is to evaluate the quality of teaching and its contribution to learning, particularly in the core subjects. Inspectors will not look for a preferred methodology but must identify ways in which teaching and learning can be improved…

…111. Inspectors must not expect teaching staff to teach in any specific way or follow a prescribed methodology…

A subsequent speech made at the Institute of Education in London spelt the message out further:

Let me emphasise again to anyone who hasn’t heard this from me or from anyone else in OFSTED. OFSTED does not have a preferred style of teaching. Inspectors will simply judge teaching on whether children are engaged, focused, learning, and making progress, and in the best and most outstanding lessons, being inspired by the person in front of them.

The sequence of events which followed this change illustrated the truly dysfunctional nature of the school’s inspectorate. As documented in many posts on my blog, Ofsted reports, publications and even videos continued to be produced (including even some reports from this year) which ignored the changes to the handbook and the chief inspector’s claims. Sir Michael and others at Ofsted then made many further efforts to reinforce the same message, just some of which are listed below.

● A letter to inspectors in March 2013 complained that “inspection reports often contain phrases that give the false impression that Ofsted expects teaching to occur in a particular way” and clarified how they were expected to judge lessons.

● The new version of the Ofsted handbook published in the summer of 2013 added several new statements about not requiring a particular style of teaching.

● A change in the guidance to inspectors in December 2013 again warned against expecting a particular teaching style and clarified that this meant they should not expect to see “independent learning” or criticise “passivity”.

● In January of this year, a number of reports were removed from the Ofsted website and rewritten, or held up before being published, in order to remove phrases which suggest a particular teaching style is preferred.

● A letter, also in January of this year, listed examples of inappropriate comments from Ofsted reports and begged inspectors to “please, please, please think carefully before criticising a lesson because it doesn’t conform to a particular view of how children should be taught.”

● In February of this year, the chief inspector confirmed to the education committee of the House of Commons that, instead of leaving it to private contractors, Ofsted had taken direct control of the training of inspectors.

Support for Sir Michael’s efforts also came from the Secretary of State, when in September 2013, is a speech to policy exchange Michael Gove commented on the continuing story:

…Ofsted’s guidance provided too little clarity about what constituted good teaching; or allowed inspectors’ personal prejudices and preferences to be interpreted as ‘the Ofsted way’.

As a result, and as teacher bloggers like Andrew Old have chronicled, time and again too much emphasis was given to particular practices like group work and discovery learning; while Ofsted inspectors marked teachers down for such heinous crimes as ‘talking too much’, ‘telling pupils things’ or ‘dominating the discussion’.

The good news is that Ofsted - under its inspirational new leadership – is moving to address all these weaknesses and give us a system of inspection of which we can be proud.

This was, however, followed by later reports of disagreements between the chief inspector and the secretary of state over this issue.

While it remains to be seen how much has changed, what it is hard to miss is that Ofsted has failed to be a neutral body concerned only with gathering objective evidence. It has been involved in many controversial and contested practices. Worse, in doing so there has been little sign that anyone within Ofsted is being held accountable for those decisions. Neither politicians, nor even chief inspectors, seem to be in charge of Ofsted which remains a strange mix of public servants and private companies. Born out of Thatcherism and still largely unchallenged by politicians, Ofsted remains a remarkable case of power exercised without responsibility.