Turning school inspections toxic: insights from an inquiry into Ofsted in England

Abstract

Research has long suggested that the policy of school inspection, implemented through the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) in England, has psychological and physical effects on teachers that can be defined as toxic. Concern over this issue intensified following media reports linking a headteacher’s suicide to a negative Ofsted inspection in 2023. To a lesser extent, these problems have been shown to accompany school inspections in other countries. The question arises as to what it is about the inspection process that produces toxicity. Drawing on the responses to the open-ended questions in a survey of Primary and Secondary school teachers in England, we identify and elaborate four unresolvable threats that make Ofsted inspections toxic for teachers: a confirmatory bias, a lack of consistency, being an interrogation and inducing a performance. The toxicity of these factors can be explained by relating them to the psycho-biological model of stress and exhaustion. We conclude that the problem with implementing a school inspection policy is that it produces unavoidable, inescapable, and unresolvable stressors. We argue that reform of inspection needs to consider these unintended effects and ensure a means of resolution, thus enabling teachers to manage the threat inspection poses to them.

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