Ofsted’s teacher perceptions survey published

Ofsted’s annual teacher survey for 2018 has been published and show the perceptions of more than 1,000 teachers on Ofsted.

The survey shows that the vast majority of teachers (86 per cent) think 'outstanding' schools should be reinspected, rather than being exempt from routine re-inspection.

Since 2011, "outstanding" schools have been exempt from routine reinspection. Ofsted inspectors can inspect these schools where concerns are raised about standards or safeguarding issues. This is something that Ofsted themselves want to change.

The survey shows that more teachers know about Ofsted’s myth busting attempts; 36 per cent of teachers compared to 27 per cent last year.

The survey also shows that eight out of 10 teachers knew that Ofsted generally has to give a half day’s notice before inspection and eight of 10 knew that Ofsted inspectors do not grade individual lessons.

In the survey, 51 per cent of those questioned either strongly or slightly disagreed with the statement, “Ofsted acts as a reliable and trusted arbiter of school standards across all different types of schools in England.”

The figures also show that the longer a teacher has been in the profession, the less likely they are to think that the inspectorate is reliable. Only 17 per cent of NQTs or teachers in their first year disagreed with the statement that Ofsted was reliable.

This proportion increased to 47 per cent of teachers who have been in the profession for up to six years, 53 per cent of teachers who had worked for seven to 15 years and 58 per cent of those teachers who had been in the profession 16 years or more.

The survey also shows that most of teachers believe Ofsted’s inspection judgements are fair (62 per cent), up from 57 per cent last year.

This year’s results also reveal that 25 per cent of teachers thought that Ofsted inspectors were too harsh and failed to see positive elements and 11 per cent thought the inspection judgement was too lenient and missed some problems.

Half of the teachers questioned said that they agreed that Ofsted is needed to monitor performance and hold schools to account, up from 44 per cent last year.

Thirty-five per cent of teachers disagreed with this view in 2018, the same figure as the year before.

However, 31 per cent agreed that inspections help individual schools to improve and 45 per cent disagreed with this view. Twenty-four (24 per cent) agreed that Ofsted inspectors have the relevant frontline experience skills and qualifications to carry out inspection while 41 per cent disagreed with this view.

The survey also shows that 54 per cent of teachers believe that Ofsted inspections mean a huge amount of unnecessary work.

This figure was slightly higher among secondary school teachers, of whom 58 per cent thought it would lead to unnecessary work compared with 51 per cent of primary school teachers.