When a school gets the call to say, ‘an Ofsted Inspector will be within you soon;’ panic sets in for most. All teachers and SLT within any school want to be able to show off their development of their students through good paperwork and quality teaching application however, workload for teachers has always been an issue. Ofsted have now claimed; a school’s Ofsted grade will suffer if the inspector believes that teachers have an unsustainable workload.
Throughout the school year, data collection points will be allocated where teachers will need to detail a small ‘assessment’ for each student, however some schools require these points once a term. Amanda Spielman, chief inspector, has stated that there should not be more than 2 or 3 collection points throughout an academic year meaning less workload for teachers. If a school demands more points, then it needs to be clear on how they will be interpreting that data and why it needs to be collected so often.
For us educators, this is great news! Headteachers around the country will not want to risk getting a lower Ofsted grade than what they deserve so they will be forced to lower workload. If a higher rate of workload is needed in certain schools, then SLT will need to organise time better for all their teachers and potentially utilise the idea; work smarter, not harder.
