On 22 November 2022, a palindromic but otherwise dreary November Tuesday, Ofsted issued a report entitled ‘A Return to Inspection: the story (so far) of previously exempt outstanding schools’. The report rather revelled in the news that during the period when outstanding grades schools were given exemption from inspection, that those high standards had not been maintained. 71%, it revealed, with thinly veiled glee, had not maintained their Outstanding judgement; following this period of respite half of those had been downgraded to Good with a smaller percentage described as less than Good.
The purpose of the report, I believe, is to remind the public and His Majesty’s Government that without the regular clunky clicking of Ofsted Chromebook judgements, that our schools would descend into unregulated chaos. Please don’t cut our funding, you’ll regret it, goes the argument.
