Female Ofsted inspectors are more likely to hand out harsher grades for primary schools than their male counterparts, new research suggests.
A study by the University of Southampton and UCL also shows higher grades handed out by freelance inspectors – mostly people who also work in schools – than those who work for the watchdog full-time.
It is the first independent research into how school inspection outcomes are linked to characteristics of lead inspectors, authors said.
Academics looked at overall Ofsted grades awarded by 1,376 inspectors across 35,751 inspections between 2012 and 2019.
