Ofsted has failed us for 30 years. Can it be fixed? | Letters

At long last, a consensus seems to be emerging that Ofsted is not fit for purpose and needs reform (Ofsted’s ‘simplistic judgments’ no longer fit for purpose, schools experts warn, 4 November).

Just suppose the English education system had at its heart a national curriculum based not on an arbitrary list of prescribed subjects and parcels of information but on the real needs of young people and the society of which they will become members.

Just suppose that all learning was based on collaboration, creativity, imagination and enjoyment, aimed at ensuring success for every child every day. Just suppose that the training and professional development of all who work in education and the arrangements for student assessment were designed to ensure those things.

Hard to imagine, perhaps. As long as the English education system continues on the profoundly misguided and damaging course it has followed for more than 30 years, Ofsted will have some sort of purpose for which it will never be fit.
Bernard Clarke
Oxford

Your editorial says Ofsted “must find a way of helping schools improve – and feeling more like a critical friend instead of a persecutor to school leaders” (6 November). I worked for many years as head of the English department at a large secondary school in Kent. We had county advisers rather than inspectors, and these did indeed become valued friends; one of their responsibilities was circulating good practice as well as submitting reports. If Ofsted inspectors became advisers, that would change their relationship with schools significantly and radically improve their function.
Dan Willis
Gillingham, Kent

One aspect of the necessary reform of Ofsted must be its link with the slow death of local authorities dating back to about 1990 and involving both Conservative and Labour. The old HM inspector of schools could not have functioned effectively without the “handmaid” of local inspectors and a network of advisers and advisory teachers. Every curriculum and subject initiative needed the support of local authorities. Until we return to that model of local governance, education will swing haphazardly among idiosyncratic models of teaching and learning.
Simon Clements Former HM inspector of schools
Sheffield

Concern about Ofsted inspections should not be confined to schools, as it also inspects apprenticeship providers. The Association of Health Professions in Ophthalmology (AHPO) delivered a level 4 apprenticeship and BTec diploma for ophthalmic technicians. We have excellent reports from the BTec awarding body, and all our apprentices passed the end-point assessment, yet in March Ofsted graded us as inadequate and our delivery was terminated. The inspectors, who had no expertise in ophthalmic practice, did not visit any workplaces, but phoned apprentices while at work. Leaving aside the validity of assessment by impromptu telephone calls, an inspector has to know the subject.

There is one other provider of this apprenticeship, but will they continue if they too can be failed by Ofsted? Patients are losing their sight and, if the conclusions of our Ofsted report are not challenged, all government funding for training ophthalmic technicians could be withdrawn.
Rosalind Harrison
Head of centre, AHPO