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CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 980-i
House of COMMONS
Oral EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE the
Education Committee
Annual report of HM Chief Inspector, Ofsted
Wednesday 13 February 2013
Sir Michael Wilshaw and Matthew Coffey
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-139
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course.
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Education Committee
on Wednesday 13 February 2013
Members present:
Mr Graham Stuart (Chair)
Neil Carmichael
Alex Cunningham
Bill Esterson
Pat Glass
Charlotte Leslie
Siobhain McDonagh
Ian Mearns
Chris Skidmore
Mr David Ward
______
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Sir Michael Wilshaw, HM Chief Inspector, and Matthew Coffey, Director of Learning and Skills, Ofsted, gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Good morning and welcome, Sir Michael and Mr Coffey, to this session of the Education Committee, looking at the annual report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Ofsted. It seems quite a while since you were before us, Sir Michael, so it is a pleasure to have you with us today.
How are things among the leadership team at Ofsted? Are you a happy ship at the moment?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: I think in the main we are. I have set a clear course of how I want the inspection system to be developed, and I think I have got their support, in the main.
Q2 Chair: In the main, so not necessarily everybody, even in the senior leadership team.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: There is not unanimity on that one, but in the main I have got their support, for the frameworks and also for the regional structure.
Q3 Chair: We were expecting John Goldup to be with us this morning, and he is not.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: No, because we are reporting on social care in the summer. The reporting year for social care is March to April, and inspectors inspect social care institutions in the summer holidays, so we decided that we would have another annual report on social care in the summer. We will appear in front of you after that.
Chair: If we choose to call you, of course.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: Yes. I think it is also important to say, looking at last year’s report, the social care bit of it merged into the other sections. It is such an important area of our work that there needs to be a discrete report.
Q4 Chair: Good. There has been some criticism of Ofsted’s riskbased approach to inspection, and contentions that inspection is now a snapshot rather than a “state of the nation” view and that this gives a more negative view of the performance of the system, by identifying those areas where there is more risk. Do you think that the picture we get of the FE sector—which I think felt quite sore after this report came out—is a fair one of the overall state of FE colleges?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: We have made a decision—and it was made before my time at Ofsted—to look at the poorest provision, and I think that is a sensible thing to do given the resources that we have got. If we had unlimited resources—and we will talk about those resources, I am sure, later in the session—then we could do much more. Given the resources we have got, we have got to prioritise those institutions that are less than good. That is what we are doing in schools and that is certainly what we are doing in the FE sector and in colleges.
Q5 Chair: As you may know, as well as this Committee I chair the AllParty Parliamentary Group on Home Education and take a close interest in this, and this Committee recently produced a report on home education. Last month I wrote to you with some questions on how home education is monitored by Ofsted. I have not had a response as yet, but I wonder if you could tell me whether Ofsted does view homeeducated children as being particularly at risk of poor education or otherwise as a particularly vulnerable group, and if so, why.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: They are vulnerable. Unless we know what they are doing and how their parents are educating and looking after them, then they are vulnerable. It is also important that they have access.
Q6 Chair: So, are children in the summer holidays with their parents vulnerable? We don’t tend to know what they are doing, either. That could be rather frightening: months alone with the parents. They could even take them abroad without official permission. Do you not think there is an issue there of seeing people as a risk if the state does not know about it?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: I just think it is important that all children receive a decent education, whether it is at home or in school. I noted your concerns about access to and funding for examinations, and that is something, certainly, when we inspect local authorities we will be asking questions about. Are local authorities supporting children at home and funding access to qualifications and examinations?
Q7 Chair: It does seem that the approach Ofsted is taking seeks to erode the statutory settlement, which recognises that parents, not the state, have the duty to provide education. Having a suspicion that unless you know what is going on, the state views those children as vulnerable is an inappropriate assumption, and leads to highhanded behaviour by local authorities who are fearful of Ofsted coming in and finding that they have not done enough to knock on doors, misrepresent the powers they have and basically act in a bullying and intimidatory way towards parents who are simply exercising and fulfilling their statutory duty to educate their children as they see fit.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: This is a deeply philosophical question. We could have a big debate on this one, but we know that some parents—and we will be talking about this at greater length in the summer when we issue our report on social care—do not treat their children well and the state does intervene when that happens. I think you are absolutely right that most parents educating their children at home want the best for them and do their best for them, and good local authorities support them. Where that does not happen, I think the state has a duty to intervene.
Q8 Chair: It does indeed. If it appears to a local authority that someone is not receiving a suitable education, then, in that case, they have a duty to act. They do not have the duty, or the power, to go and assume a negative without evidence to that effect.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: No, absolutely not, and there would be good reasons why parents want to keep their children at home and not send them to school, but if they are not treating them properly, then I think that becomes an issue for the state. As I say, I think it is really important that parents who are doing their best for children at home have access to the support that a good local authority will give them.
Q9 Neil Carmichael: As you know, this Committee is busy thinking about governance; we have got an inquiry underway. Are there any key messages you would like to give us as we think about governance?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: We are spending a lot more time on governance arrangements when we inspect. I know this is something that has already been communicated to you by my colleague, Michael Cladingbowl. We are writing a separate paragraph on governance; it is going to be quite a lengthy paragraph. We are going to be asking whether governors are focusing on the right things and not on marginal issues. Are they asking questions about the quality of teaching, the progress of students and the outcomes of students? Are they looking particularly at the pupil premium and examination policy and earlyentry policy? Are they asking about the big things that governors should be asking about? If they are not, then we will be critical of governance and we will be saying so in our report and we will be saying, where we perceive governance to be weak, that external review is required. We have said that a number of times now. When we go back to look at whether governance has improved, we will be looking to see whether they have sought that advice and support.
Q10 Neil Carmichael: How forensic will you be in examining governance? Of course you can get a governing body that looks good on the outside, but one or two individuals let it down.
Sir Michael Wilshaw: Yes. All our reports say very much that: that a good governing board often is a result of a small core of individuals running with issues, taking responsibility and leading others on the governing board. Where a dysfunctional governing board is not working, you have not got that core group and they are not focusing on the big issues.
Q11 Neil Carmichael: You have emphasised leadership—not just with governance but also, obviously, the head teacher—but there are different styles of leadership. Do you think that there are appropriate differences between forms of leadership?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: I think there are, but in all my experience as a teacher and as a head, the best leaders are the ones that focus on the big issues. We say endlessly at Ofsted that the big issues are always the same ones, in schools certainly, and in colleges. I am sure my colleague, Matthew, will endorse this: it is the quality of teaching. A good leader will make sure they know what is happening in the classroom and in the workshop, will monitor provision carefully, and will make sure that there are good professional development programmes on offer to improve the quality of teaching, particularly for those who have just started teaching. A good head will make sure the culture is right in the school, so good teaching can go on and behaviour is sorted out. A good head will track the progress of students, particularly the most vulnerable students and those falling behind. A good head will ensure that he has a weather eye on outcomes, and that the outcomes are as good as they should be given the intake of the school.
Q12 Neil Carmichael: Absolutely. When inspecting a school, there are other influences, like, for example, a local authority and, indeed, the national level. How does Ofsted set about assessing those extra influences, notably the national level?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: As you know, we are looking at local authorities and how well they are supporting institutions. A major feature of our report was the variation in performance across the country. We have said quite clearly that it is unacceptable that local authorities with similar demographics, similar levels of poverty and similar numbers of children on free school meals perform very differently and we are going to be looking very, very carefully at the reasons for that. We will be inspecting schools within the worstperforming local authorities and, if necessary, we will inspect those local authorities that we perceive to not be supporting and challenging their schools in equal measure. We will be doing that over the summer term. Local authorities have a powerful part to play in school performance and I have said publicly that they have a powerful part to play in local authority schools—those schools they control—and those outside their direct control. If they identify underperformance in an academy, they should be writing to the chair of governors and the sponsor of that academy and contacting the Academies Division at the Department.
Q13 Mr Ward: Before we leave the issue of leadership, which you have stressed the importance of, there seems to be a correlation between good leadership and better schools—it is a determinant factor—but there also seems to be a correlation between better schools and more affluent communities, and less successful schools and deprived communities. Does it then naturally follow that the better leaders are in the more affluent schools?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: No. We have identified coasting schools in coasting local authorities.
Q14 Mr Ward: But disproportionately, that is the case, is it not? If the leadership is the thing that makes the difference and disproportionately more of the weaker schools are in deprived communities, does that not mean that fewer good leaders are in the schools serving deprived communities?
Sir Michael Wilshaw: Where we see schools in deprived communities doing well, we see good leadership and good governance. Nevertheless, it is true to say when you look at the statistics on those who are national leaders of education, who are there to support other schools, more of them are in prosperous, more affluent areas with relatively low numbers of freeschoolmeals children. The great challenge for the future is to identify systemwide leaders in our poorest areas, because at the moment we have got more head teachers serving quite affluent communities who are national leaders of education, who are asked to go into disadvantaged communities and support them. I am not sure they have the necessary skills to do that—some will and some will not—and I think the great challenge for the National College for School Leadership is to identify more outstanding leaders in our most disadvantaged communities.
Q15 Chair: Do we not also need to get a playing field in which you are not incentivised to move? It seems that everything in our education system incentivises you to move away from the more challenging areas. The crude fiveGCSE accountability measure has meant that you are more likely to be found wanting in a school with lower prior attainment than higher prior attainment. As you go through your career, your spouse will probably want you to go and work in a good school in a nice leafy area, so that your children can get preferential access. Everything in the system is incentivised to move people away from the greatest need, is it not? Have you got any thoughts on how that could be turned round? If you are right about the leadership—and I am sure you are—then what we need to do is move the playing field so that great leaders are incentivised and would choose to be in a challenging school. At the moment it seems like the riskiest place to be is taking on those challenges. That is where you are going to get branded a failure, not in some leafy suburb, where the chances of you failing on your benchmark are bordering on nil, unless you are peculiarly incompetent.