Viewpoint: Thoughts on whole school inspection post-covid

Abstract

This article argues that the pause in whole school Ofsted inspections until the end of 2020, and possibly into 2021, offers the opportunity to re-examine the nature of school inspection as an appreciative process with inevitable limitations that Ofsted has so far failed to recognize. This raises the possibility of replacing the current adversarial system with a more consensual one grounded in basic principles similar to, but developed from, the process of school inspection pre-Ofsted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools.