Ofsted's revised school inspection framework: experiences and implications

Abstract

The election of the coalition government in 2010 prompted changes to the framework that Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) uses to inspect schools. The framework was piloted in 145 schools during May and June 2011 to inform its development for use from 2012. Ofsted fosters a culture of compliance and performativity within a managerialist discourse. Its inspection framework operationalises this compliance; schools which do not achieve its standards risk closure. Its influence extends beyond inspection periods; many leaders subject themselves and staff to intense surveillance to ensure that practice corresponds as closely as possible to the Ofsted-sanctioned ideal: this has been recognised in the literature as panoptic performativity (Perryman, 2006). This inspection framework is therefore of great significance to the English education system as both a product of a discourse and a mechanism for its reproduction. This study aimed to answer the following questions:1. What were headteachers’ experiences of the pilot?2. What are headteachers’ and key educationalists’ views of the framework’s implications for schools and the English education system?3. To what extent is panoptic performativity as a means of conceptualising Ofsted’s inspection regime more or less relevant with this framework?The study will contribute to knowledge by providing the first analysis of the most recent incarnation of Ofsted’s inspection framework and testing the continued applicability of the theoretical constructs developed to understand Ofsted.This study used mixed methods, employing an online questionnaire survey of all piloted headteachers, pre-tested with one of the population, to map the terrain of inspection experiences, and drilling down further through a series of interviews with three volunteers, enhancing validity through triangulation. The inspections expert of a school leaders’ union was purposively selected for interview; her specialist position providing data which helped inform the questionnaire, whose content validity was improved through scrutiny by a colleague specialising in inspection.The study is currently in the analysis stage, where panoptic performativity as an organising theory is being applied to the findings. The questionnaire data is being analysed quantitatively in SPSS, and the interview data coded thematically. Initial findings indicate that panoptic performativity, operationalised through the emergent term ‘typicality’, is, if anything, more pronounced with this framework.ReferencesPerryman, J., 2006. Panoptic performativity and school inspection regimes: disciplinary mechanisms and life under special measures. Journal of Education Policy, 21(2), 147–161.

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