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Evidence from Education Support

1. About Education Support

1. Education Support has been supporting teachers and education staff for 147 years. Our mission is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and education staff. We believe that better mental health leads to better education. We support individuals and help schools, colleges and universities to improve the mental health and wellbeing of their staff.
2. We support over 100,000 staff members schools, colleges and universities. In the year 22/23 we provided help for over 16,000 specific issues, 1,800 of which involved ongoing counselling sessions.
3. We also carry out research and advocate for changes in Government policy for the benefit of the education workforce, using our unique combination of expertise in the education sector and mental health and wellbeing.  
4. Education Support is responding to questions two to five. 

2. One part of the accountability system

1. Education Support welcomes the opportunity to submit to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into Ofsted. We recognise that Ofsted is only one part of the accountability framework to which state-funded schools and colleges in England must adhere. Pupil assessment and league tables also contribute to many of the issues cited below.
2. Ofsted is an important actor within this system. We hear through our work with schools across the country that Ofsted is experienced as excessively punitive and divorced from the reality that schools face on the ground.   
3. In our view, Ofsted demonstrates a lack of understanding of the relationship between professional identity, workplace stress, burnout, mental health and wellbeing. This is particularly evident through Ofsted’s determination to stick with summative judgements, despite the chorus of requests for an evolution of this approach from stakeholders across education.
4. Ofsted could improve the trust and legitimacy of its work by engaging with the sector to co-produce an improved inspection process. There is little benefit in sustaining a false polarity that equates a psychologically safe (and psychologically-informed) inspection process with being an ‘easy’ or soft approach. It is perfectly possible to hold schools to account and build professional efficacy across the sector, and Education Support would be willing to contribute constructively to any initiative that aims to develop such a model.

3. The impact of Ofsted judgements on schools and pupils

1. The pressurised inspection system delivers high stakes judgements that carry disproportionate consequences for the lives and careers of school leaders and their staff.  At the same time, there is insufficient evidence that this inspection approach improves outcomes for pupils. This is a high cost/low return approach to accountability.
2. There is a pervasive view across the education sector that Ofsted inspections are not fair and that they penalise the least advantaged communities. This is supported by EPI’s finding that, “There is a systematic negative correlation between school intakes with more disadvantaged children, or more children with low prior attainment, and with favourable Ofsted judgements.[1]”
3. This finding raises questions about the legitimacy of Ofsted’s approach, supported by the National Audit Office’s view that Ofsted doesn’t know whether its inspections have the intended impact of raising the standards of education and improve the quality of children’s and young people’s lives[2]. 
4. Questions of legitimacy and fairness are central to any discussion of regulation in any industry. In our view, there is a disconnection between Ofsted’s stated purpose and the outcomes (intended and unintended) that it achieves. This impacts schools by creating a negative sense of unfairness and injustice around inspection. Furthermore, it drives a culture of compliance and fear within many schools.
5. Our Teacher Wellbeing Index 2022 showed that 42% of teachers and education staff reported that their organisations’ culture had a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing. This compares to just 24% who felt their school culture had a positive impact on their wellbeing. Those who reported a negative culture experienced more symptoms of poor mental health.[3]  There evidence to suggest a negative association between teacher stress, burnout, depression and/or anxiety and outcomes for pupils in schools in terms of the academic achievement[4].
6. Any Ofsted judgement which is less than ‘Good’ require significant resource allocation to ensure that compliance activities are meticulously documented and evidenced for future inspections. To be clear, improvement work is not an issue, it is the burden of documenting improvement that causes problems. Much of this type of work falls into the category of ‘empty work’ as identified by Education Support’s Teacher Retention Commission i.e. the type of work that is time consuming, bureaucratic and takes teachers away from their primary purpose of teaching.
7. “One of the main reasons teachers choose their career path is the opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives (selected by 59 per cent of respondents to a survey for the Teacher Retention Commission). The second most important reason? Because they love the subject they teach (53 per cent)…. Teachers want to teach.”[5]
8. Teachers report finding this demoralising and professionally unsatisfying due to the widespread belief that this work takes their focus away from working directly with pupils. Lower job satisfaction is correlated with lower wellbeing[6]. In turn, a systematic review of teacher wellbeing has suggested that teacher wellbeing influences teaching quality[7].  This has a direct impact on pupils.
9. 63% of teachers surveyed for the Teacher Retention Commission believe they spend more time doing lesson planning and marking papers because of external accountability.[8]

10. “The fear that senior leaders and headteachers have of Ofsted… It is real… And that does drive a lot of this [empty work] and creates inertia.”[9]

11. Recommendation: It is time for a wholesale review of the inspection system, with a particular focus on ensuring fairness, legitimacy and positive outcomes. This review ought to seek to minimise the bureaucratic burden on schools, ensuring that the minimum necessary resource is required to support inspection.

4. The impact of Ofsted inspections on workload and wellbeing for teachers, school leaders, governors and pupils, specifically relating to workload required by the inspection process, and what measures are put in place to mitigate this

1. Pre-inspection, we routinely hear from school leaders who are anxious and worried about an imminent inspection. They describe a fear of getting something wrong and an expectation that there will be a punitive response from inspectors. They are anxious that their jobs are at risk and that the community they serve could experience significant, negative consequences as a result of a summative judgement that is below their expectations.
2. Most of the leaders we work with describe the anxiety of “waiting for the call” with many reporting themselves in a state of high alert for the first half of the week (i.e. the window in which an inspection could be announced). There is a strong link here with the inability to switch off from work and a significant negative impact on personal wellbeing.[10] The physical risks include high blood pressure[11], diabetes[12], heart disease[13], a supressed immune system[14] and musculoskeletal conditions.

3. “Being unable to switch off is correlated with lower wellbeing. Emotional exhaustion is an indicator of burnout. Lack of control over workload and pace is also a risk to wellbeing.”[15]

4. The very real and understandable stress that is felt by leaders in education trickles down throughout the system; from CEOs to school leaders, from school leaders to staff, within classrooms from staff to children and young people. This is visible through the negative cultures evidenced in the previous section.

5. During an inspection process we routinely hear school leaders describe working through the night to ensure that the evidence of achievement is in place to meet the apparent priorities of the inspection team on-site. Many school leaders, in particular, describe being in a state of high alert, high stress throughout an inspection process, following by a period of exhaustion after the inspection.
6. Until the recent change of guidance by Ofsted, the requirement to remain silent on the inspection outcome was routinely described as burdensome by school leaders.
7. Leaders also describe feeling shamed by a negative summative judgement of an Ofsted inspection, particularly when they feel that the judgement is effectively used as a descriptor of their community. 
8. Positive feedback about inspections relates to fairness, specifically:
1. When staff are treated fairly, but challenged, and the outcome accurately represents what is happening in the school (a positive outcome).  This builds self-efficacy amongst staff and leads to better job satisfaction.
2. When inspections feel fair and recognise of the reality of the school’s context, an inspection can be an affirming experience for the staff who have worked hard to do the best for their particular school community and pupils.

9. In the wider context, Ofsted contributes to a reduction in job quality and a relative decline in the attractiveness of the profession[16].
10. Increased bureaucracy contributes to a vicious cycle of staff attrition. Bureaucracy leads to a higher workload, which leads to stress, which leads to staff burnout and then attrition. Higher staff turnover leads to less continuity in teaching for pupils. This can affect behaviour and culture, which in turn affects the reputation of the school and its ability to recruit staff.[17] [18]
11. In addition to affecting the culture and staff experience of the school, high staff turnover is disproportionately negative for pupils in the least well-resourced communities[19].
12. Critically, through our experience of working with school staff and our research on stress, exhaustion and burnout in the sector[20], we believe that the current accountability regime creates a significant burden on the wellbeing of education staff, particularly leaders. We would ask the Committee to recognise that burnout is associated with predicators of suicide and is also predictive of suicidal thoughts and behaviours[21]. 

13. “Reduce workload, move away from a culture of blame, especially after Ofsted. Think about the language used - inadequate and requires improvement- these mean not good enough. How can anyone feel they are doing a good job when told they are not? Labelling the school does not mean all staff at that school fit that label but that is how they will feel.” (Quote from survey respondent for Teacher Wellbeing Index, 2019)

1. Recommendation:  Ofsted plays a key role in shaping the systemic drivers of stress and burnout in the education sector. Inspections do not land on a blank canvas, but rather into a school community that is likely to face notable degrees of stress, exhaustion and/or burnout[22].  The inspection process must be reviewed to take account of this reality by:
1. Overhauling inspection to ensure that it is designed in a way that takes account of contemporary knowledge about mental health and wellbeing. We can ensure accountability and prevent significant negative impacts on school leaders and staff.
2. Ensuring that inspectors are sufficiently trained to safely engage with a profession operating under well-documented stress and rates of burnout.

5. The effectiveness of Ofsted’s complaints procedure and the extent to which Ofsted is accountable and transparent in its work

1. We note that Ofsted is currently consulting on its complaints procedure and is moving away from ‘marking its own homework’. In particular, we welcome this introduction of independence into the complaints process. The historic lack of independence and transparency around complaints has not supported trust within the education workforce.
2. Recommendation:  we would like to see three discrete elements of inspection be available for review:
3. The conduct of the inspection team – schools describe inspectors’ conduct that ranges from discourteous to aggressive and there ought to a mechanism to register this for improvement.
4. The fairness of the inspection:
1. Detailed points ought to be discussable and addressed within a reasonable window of time before an inspection outcome is finalised.
2. More substantive issues ought to be eligible for appeal through an independent process, in line with regulation of other sectors.
5. Independent evaluation of the overall impact of Ofsted within the sector is required to establish and benchmark the overall efficacy (and legitimacy) of the inspection approach. This ought to include active learning from complaints and appeals to inform improvement.

6. The impact of the new Education Inspection Framework introduced in 2019

1. As discussed above, there is a lack of evidence about the impact of Ofsted, beyond self-referenced trends in inspection outcomes.
2. We have heard positive feedback from schools who have found the new framework an improvement on the old one. 
3. We also continue to hear stories about the variability of inspectors. The significance of the mindset, beliefs and values held by individual inspectors does not appear currently to be well addressed. This matters because there is a relatively high degree of subjectivity in the inspection process. Whilst there may be an ideal to aim for objectivity, the reality is that subjective decisions are made based on the variability of inspector experience, subject knowledge and personal mindset.

4. Recommendation: This degree of subjectivity will only function well within a climate of trust between schools and Ofsted. We do not currently have this level of trust and so we recommend future improvements be made that aim to narrow the degree of subjectivity in the current process. 

End

October 2023