I am delighted that Fair Judgement is taking the initiative in raising funds for legal action against Ofsted (Teachers asked to chip in £1 each for legal case against Ofsted, 1 May). As chair of governors at Queen Emma primary school in Cambridge, which is launching its own legal challenge to Ofsted, I know well how slanted the Ofsted complaints system is against schools.
The only way to complain against an Ofsted judgment is to go through Ofsted itself, starting with the selfsame inspector against whose judgment the school is complaining. At every step of the process, Ofsted passes the issue to other Ofsted figures who, in the overwhelming majority of cases, find that Ofsted was right all along. What a surprise.
Schools are also hampered by the fact that Ofsted makes use of an exemption clause in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to deny schools sight of the evidence base on which they build their judgments. Complaints are regularly dismissed with the words “The evidence base shows that …” and schools are supposed to take Ofsted’s word for it. It even maintains this shroud of secrecy after a report is published, though at Queen Emma we are challenging the legality of that.
The obvious point to take from this is that no reform of Ofsted, however well drawn up, will be complete without an independent appeals body to which schools can take their complaints, to which Ofsted is answerable and which will have the power to overturn an Ofsted report and order a reinspection. We do not allow pupils to mark their own homework; why should we allow Ofsted?
Dr Sean Lang
Chair of the governing body, Queen Emma primary school (Queens’ Federation), Cambridge
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