Credit: Lucy Pope for UCL IOE.

1 August 2025

By Frank Coffield

Concerns, and anger, regarding the conduct and impact of Ofsted inspection are longstanding. To pick out just a few examples, analysis by Carol Taylor Fitz-Gibbon (1996), Jo Hutchinson (2016) and Christine Farquharson et al (2022) has variously critiqued inspection methodologies, the failure to take account of a school’s context, and the risk that inspection tips a school into a downward spiral, with all the consequences that entails for its staff and the community it serves. Earlier this month, Chief HMI, Sir Martyn Oliver, stated Ofsted is to put “disadvantaged and vulnerable children…at the heart of what we do as an inspectorate”. If that is to be the case, then it is even more vital Ofsted engages with such evidence. Especially so as we await an updated National Curriculum, the delivery of which is a focus of inspection. (more…)

Credit: Mat Wright for UCL IOE.

1 July 2025

By Jane Perryman and Alice Bradbury

In June, Ofsted announced a delay in the publication of its formal response to the 2025 consultation on inspection reforms, until September. Despite this, the inspectorate is pressing ahead with its plan to introduce new ‘report card’-style inspections in November. Originally, Ofsted was expected to publish its response during the summer term, giving schools a full term to digest and prepare for the new framework. Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver has cited the ‘scale of feedback’ as the reason for the delay.

As authors of the Beyond Ofsted inquiry report, we have joined teachers, leaders and education unions in a call for a pause to the process – the latest such call being a joint letter to the Secretary of State from four unions. As a reminder, this reform came as a direct response to an inquest which concluded that Ofsted inspection had contributed to the mental health deterioration and death of a headteacher, Ruth Perry. Perry had committed suicide whilst awaiting publication of an inspection report downgrading her previously ‘outstanding’ school to ‘requires improvement’. Her suicide brought to the forefront of public discourse concerns about Ofsted and its effects. (more…)

Photo captured amid the heat of protests in Los Angeles on 14 June 2025. Credit: Larissa Puro via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

26 June 2025

By Duncan Mercieca

A moment that stops us

Just days ago, amid the heat of protests in Los Angeles, a photograph captured the world’s attention. A woman stands, her face intense, unwavering and resolute. Before her, a Sheriff deputy, anonymous behind helmet and mask, forms a wall of state power. Her face is visible; his is not. This image, shared across social media and news outlets, became more than a moment; it became a lens through which power, vulnerability and resistance came into focus.

Here, I consider how such images challenge dominant narratives of vulnerability and resistance, and how they can be used in education to foster critical, ethical and feminist engagement with the world. This is central to my own research with children with special educational needs and disabilities, their families and their teachers, in which we question existing structures, systems and practices, finding ways for marginalised learners to flourish in more just and inclusive societies. (more…)

Credit: imtmphoto via Adobe Stock.

11 February 2025

By David Scott

This short piece is a plea for full disclosure in processes of peer review and evaluation in academia. It stems from a philosophy of research explained in the trilogy of books that I have just published with UCL Press: On Learning: A General Theory of Objects and Object-Relations (2021); the edited collection On Learning: volume 2, Philosophy, Concepts and Practices (2024); and On Learning: volume 3, Curriculum, Knowledge and Ethics (2025). It is also reflected in my latest publication, On Learning and Ethics: Philosophy, Knowledge and Normativity (2025, Ethics International Press). That philosophy of research is underpinned by a semantic and valorised epistemology – meanings and values are prioritised – and by a careful and ethical approach to the world. (more…)

Credit: Phil Meech for IOE.

19 November 2024

By Bernie Munoz-Chereau

This commentary is adapted from Bernie’s contribution to the ESRC Education Research Programme event, ‘Democratic decision-making in English education: whose voices count?’ You can watch the event recording on UCL Mediacentral.

Imagine for one moment that you are subjected to the visit of a team of inspectors. They will come to your workplace at any time after one to three days of giving notice. When they arrive, they will spend a couple of days collecting information (i.e. observations of your performance, interviews with your colleagues and/or ‘service users’, institutional data, etc.). Then, they will use the evidence they have gathered to rate the quality of your performance, which will first be communicated to you in a meeting with you and your team, and then reiterated in a written report a few weeks later. This report will identify the name of your organisation and, once published, will be publicly available for anyone in the world with access to the Internet.

If the inspectors conclude your organisation is doing a good job, new opportunities may open up for you as its leader, such as taking on more responsibility, career progression, and even training those new in your sector and profession. If, on the contrary, the inspectors conclude the performance of the organisation you lead is poor, a spiral of decline might follow. In the worst-case scenario, your institution might be closed or taken over. Colleagues might move to other jobs, while, for those who remain, there might be fewer resources to work with.

Within England’s schools system, these latter risks are very real following a poor outcome from an inspection by Ofsted. (more…)

Credit: Cavan for Adobe via Adobe Stock.

7 June 2024

By Alice Bradbury  

This is the final in a mini-series of blog posts about primary education from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (HHCP) at IOE. Each post addresses key points that are included in a new HHCP briefing paper written to inform debate about education in England as we approach the general election. The four posts are:

1. In the hands of new government: the future of primary education in England
2. Children, choice and the curriculum
3. Hands on learning: a progressive pedagogy
4. Assessment in primary schools: reducing the ‘Sats effect’

Assessment plays a key role in any teacher’s work: through formative assessment, teachers understand what children can do and what they need to learn next. This guides how learning is planned and what is taught. However, the current assessment landscape in England is dominated by statutory, summative assessment, where the purpose of the assessment is not to help children learn, but to measure what they can do. This is one part of the education system which, as we in HHCP argue in our new briefing paper, needs a different approach. (more…)

Credit: Ashok Sinha / Adobe.

24 November 2023

By Alice Bradbury and Jane Perryman

The current Ofsted inspection system for schools has generated such a level of mistrust, even perceptions of ‘toxicity’, that it needs extensive reform, and to be paused immediately while an alternative system is developed. This is the overarching conclusion of the Beyond Ofsted Inquiry, for which we provided the research.

We have spent several months collecting data from teachers, school leaders, parents, governors and key policymakers about the impact of Ofsted and options for reform, through a survey and series of focus groups. Based on this feedback and a review of the wider evidence base, the inquiry report proposes (more…)

Credit: Phil Meech, UCL.

24 May 2023

By Alice Bradbury

One of my daughters did Key Stage 1 SATs ‘quizzes’ last week, and she found it tiring and emotional. Some of her friends were in tears over how they did, and this is without the pressures of having your results used to appraise the whole school. Judging by the outcry over the Reading paper, the Key Stage 2 SATs week was especially tough for pupils, parents and teachers alike this year. But this concern over SATs goes much deeper than one difficult paper; many parents and teachers have simply had enough of what they see as a damaging system. (more…)

Credit: Phil Meech for UCL.

9 May 2023

By John Jerrim

For quite a long time now, some groups have argued for the abolition of the Year 6 SATs (Standard Assessment Tests). Those who do so argue that they lead to a narrowing of the curricula, encourage schools to “teach to the test” and harm wellbeing across the education sector.

On this final point, in a previous blog I have discussed how evidence of a negative impact of the SATs on pupil wellbeing is pretty thin.

But what about the link between the SATs and the wellbeing of teachers? In a new academic working paper released today I take a look… (more…)

Credit: Phil Meech for UCL IOE.

7 February 2023

By John Jerrim, Sam Sims and Christian Bokhove

This is the final post in a five part series on Ofsted inspections. Jump to: previous.

We have published a new academic paper investigating how Ofsted inspection outcomes vary across inspectors with different characteristics. This has been supported by the Nuffield Foundation and uses data we have pulled together on approximately 30,000 school inspections conducted between September 2011 and August 2019.

You can read a full version of our academic working paper along with our responses to some FAQs about the research.

This final blog in the series looks at the relationship between lead inspector characteristics and short inspection outcomes of primary schools. (more…)