A truly educational experience

Yesterday I had the absolute privilege of visiting  Deptford Green School in London to hear Bill Gates addressing students about his annual letter http://bit.ly/wINL46 as part of the Speakers for Schools initiative (http://www.speakers4schools.org/). For obvious reasons the visit was cloaked in secrecy and even the students sitting in the hall waiting for him to arrive did not know who exactly was coming apart from the fact that it was somebody really famous. As the introduction started one boy sitting near us turned round and said ‘It isn’t Bill Gates is it? As he and others realised who  it was the excitement in the hall was palpable.

Deptford Green is an inner city school in a challenging area of London. As soon as you walk through the door you can tell that it is a school which passionately cares about the life chances of every student – a message enthusiastically confirmed by a parent governor who told me of her admiration for the staff and gratitude for the excellent education her child was receiving. The school has a highly developed programme of global education. A partner school in Uganda was on a live link to the event which was followed by a BBC World Service broadcast involving both of those schools and some others .

The event took place because one of the teachers had heard about Speakers for Schools and registered the school never dreaming that they would get someone as famous as Bill Gates. The Speakers for Schools project exists because Robert Peston - BBC Business Editor passionately believes that young people in state schools should have the opportunity to hear from role models just as their peers in independent schools do. Working with the Employer Education Task Force  he made his brainchild a reality. ASCL is proud to be associated with this initiative.

As students from the school council eloquently and confidently introduced the speaker -talking about the 4Rs of resilience, relationships,  responsibility and results - they embodied those qualities.

Gates spoke passionately and convincingly about his own life story and about the importance of taking responsibility for global issues describing the impressive achievements of the Bill Gates Foundation to eliminate diseases like polio and malaria and improve the life chances of people in the poorest countries. He demonstrated  convincingly the  link between improving agriculture and increasing access to education and life chances.

He told the students how much he had valued receiving their contributions and ideas. The students were obviously impressed and moved as I was by the way he almost casually explained  that he had to give the money to his foundation;  ‘otherwise I would have had more money than anyone else in the world.’ His sense of social responsibility is humbling and infectious.

This event was  a glowing  example of how a leading figure can be an inspiring role model to young people. The young people in this inner city school have been able to directly influence the content  of his annual letter and the important work of his foundation. His visit sent out the resounding message to every student in the room that they can make a difference. They will remember this event for the rest of their lives. No league table measure will ever recognise educational experiences like this.

No notice inspections make a mockery of notions of a high status profession

The announcement by the Chief Inspector less than two weeks into the implementation of a new inspection framework is quite extraordinary number of counts:

No notice inspections were not introduced after the previous consultation for very sound reasons.  School inspections are not simply an audit of compliance like the inspection of health and safety in a restaurant or care home. They are about making informed, evidence-based professional judgements about a wide range of complex institutions. By definition this implies that such judgements need to be based on a solid and reliable evidence base. Arriving with no notice at all to do a spot check on behaviour following a critical inspection is a completely different issue and cannot be compared with a full inspection leading to a published report on a wide range of aspects of the school's work.

The current inspection framework draws on a wide range of data prior to and during the inspection visit together with observations of life and work of school. Key staff  are rigorously interviewed, time is spent in the classroom the views of staff and students are gathered. Their assessment is informed by appropriate evidence arising from their self-evaluation processes.  The idea that the new Parent View website which is so open to abuse in any way strengthens that evidence base  makes a mockery of the considerable efforts schools currentlyto elicit feedback from parents  .

Schools currently receive up to two or possibly three days notice. This just about gives sufficient time to rearrange diaries in order to ensure that everyone who needs to be available for the inspectors is on-site and that the information that needs to be available for inspectors is ready for them. The idea that this length of time would be long enough to pull the wool over inspectors’ eyes is an insult to the inspectors and the professionals who work in those schools.  Some commentators have been asking whether this decision was a knee-jerk reaction to the report last week about bribes paid to children to stay away from school.  If there is any truth behind this anecdote then the unacceptable activities of a small number of individuals are not a reason to change the whole system.

No notice inspections are based on the idea that everyone who needs to be seen by an inspector will be available when they arrive. The question is therefore begged what happens when the headteacher is off-site at a perfectly legitimate meeting or key member of staff responsible for an area the inspectors want and need to investigate is attending a child protection meeting or on an educational visit. The absence of these key people could lead to flawed judgements based on inadequate evidence which are reaching implications for the reputation of the school.

Above all however this proposal is deeply insulting and makes a complete mockery of the government’s increasingly hollow claims that it wishes to create a high status profession. How can a profession which cannot even be trusted to be given the courtesy of 24 hours notice for inspection be described as high status?

An experienced, highly regarded headteacher of a school which has been graded outstanding by Ofsted described this as a ‘cavalier disregard for consultation’ and ‘ongoing contempt for the professionalism of schools and teachers.. which is starting to look like persecution’. The government should be extremely concerned when leading professionals like this ASCL member feel disenfranchised and demoralised and are talking of resignation.

ASCL has always been quite clear that inspections are an important and necessary part of school accountability. Effective, modern inspection is challenging, rigorous, identifies and spreads good practice, validates self-evaluation processes and helps schools to improve. All of this is achieved by working with school leaders not by playing cat and mouse with them.