Ofsted’s one-word ranking system for schools won’t be missed, because it never made sense: “outstanding” couldn’t possibly mean “outstanding”, because anything less than that meant “not good enough”. You could call it Orwellian, but that would suggest it was merely a simplification of existing language; it was more of a system of anti-meaning, where “outstanding” meant “fine”, “good” meant “rubbish”, “requires improvement” meant “run by idiots” and “inadequate” meant “poses an active danger to children”.
Teachers, being teachers, broadly knew what the words meant and had been saying this for years. Politicians and the media tended to write that off as the cavilling of slackers who didn’t like to be held accountable, because if there is one thing both sectors understand, it’s that slackers don’t like to be held accountable.
If the words made no sense, the process by which they were arrived at made no sense, either. There was huge emphasis placed on attendance, which made no allowances for unusual or unavoidable circumstances. I did a story once on a school that slipped down two rankings – from “meh” to “get away from children, you monsters” – because a couple of children were long-term absent, having been placed in a witness protection programme.
Just because the measure was daft, however, didn’t mean it was inconsequential. An “outstanding” ranking would create a vacuum effect, particularly with primary schools, where it became a matter of life and death that all right-thinking parents got their kids in there. Surrounding schools would, over time – and often not that much time – find their intake transformed, as all the pushy parents went elsewhere. (Whatever that did to the socioeconomic profile of the school, I bet it made the summer fairs a lot less annoying – although this, of course, would never show up on the Ofsted report.)
It will be great if the scrapping of the old system signals a fundamental reorientation, in which the government listens to people who work in education, takes them seriously and doesn’t get hung up on buzzwords – such as “parental choice” – dreamed up in thinktanks by people whose nearest experience of education is that it’s not that long since they were at school themselves.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
