We know that, as governors, many of you will have experienced the inspection of your school.  You may or not have been involved directly during the inspection, but you will be aware of the impact of being in the 'Ofsted window'.  

Many of you will be aware of the tragic death by suicide of our colleague Ruth Perry. Astonishingly, the stress of Ofsted inspections has been listed as a factor in the coroners' reports into the deaths of 10 teachers over the past 25 years.  Ruth’s sad death has provided the burning platform from which the entire school community must grasp the opportunity to do everything they can to change the system so that this never happens again. We cannot afford to lose any more colleagues while we are waiting for Ofsted or the Government to take action!

One of our colleagues has recently become a governor after leaving headship. She describes how she sees and understands the behaviours of a self-motivated but highly anxious headteacher before her. Repeated conversations and dialogue about children’s learning, but the practice she is seeing, clearly demonstrates it is all catalogued for a higher body with systems of checking, described as accountability. These checks include data returns, SATS and their preparation, a range of questionnaires, parent workshops, displays, subject leader monitoring reports, etc., all aimed at providing evidence. Even community engagement, photographs collected, Twitter and other social media avenues feed the monster of providing evidence for the fateful phone call and visit. All are to be maintained and kept up to date and current. The workload and pressure are immense on the headteacher. 

We know that the role of a governor requires dedicated commitment and time, given freely, usually in addition to personal, professional and family commitments. Governors are skilled people from all walks of life who voluntarily provide constructive challenge and are equally judged by inspectors.

Governors that we speak to are calling for a re-set of inspection. One which feels more supportive and developmental, rather than the finite, judgemental system in place. More frequent, less high-stakes visits would provide a better understanding of school improvement over time, and the impact on learners would positively improve.  We believe that we have proposals to help achieve this that has meaningful roles for all members of the school community. 

To introduce ourselves: We represent a movement of hundreds of colleagues across the education spectrum who, in 2016, were mobilised to argue for a positive agenda for change in assessment practice and accountability - the @BeyondLevels #LearningFirst community. 

We have been closely observing the media and Twitter over the last seven weeks or so, and yes, there have been fits and starts of coverage, lots of outrage and some useful pockets of action, but the response from Ofsted, the Government and other political parties have been woefully inadequate. If they are not going to respond to a grieving sister demanding change, over 3000 colleagues and, latterly, nearly 400 headteachers, all sharing their negative stories of Ofsted, who are they going to respond to? 

This took us back to thinking about what we learned from @BeyondLevels #LearningFirst.  We were in a similar situation back then - the profession was at its wit's end with levels, points of progress and tracking grids, and how this negatively impacted teaching and learning and that Ofsted outcomes were so heavily reliant on this internal assessment data, which was leading to perverse practices in schools, 

We responded back in 2016 for the same reason that we felt we needed to respond this time, too - the profession is desperately calling for change with no indication that either Ofsted or the Government are considering the deep change needed. Perhaps their strategy is to just wait it out; the pressure will dissipate, and the problem will disappear, and although organisations and folk are trying to keep the momentum going, the outrage is dissipating. Teachers and school leaders are very busy people, and this is a busy time for them. But where does this anger disappear to? It will be internalised and added to that day-to-day swirling mass of stress and anxiety that most of the profession carry inside them. Just today, we heard from a friend and colleague who is leaving headship because they consider the current system to 'be broken'. 

In 2016, we gave the teaching profession a voice, a positive agenda for change and collective agency. We believed then, and still do now, that the solutions to improve education practices come from within the profession. We didn't wait for Ofsted or the Government to make the change needed then. We did it ourselves!! We created the #LearningFirst community, many of whom, even some seven years later, maintain that their professional lives changed for the positive as a result of our movement. It was only later that Ofsted caught up when in 2018, the current HMCI announced that inspectors would not look at non-statutory internal progress and attainment data on inspections of schools.

It is that time again, folks - time for the profession to start taking action to change things for ourselves in our schools. We cannot afford to wait for Ofsted or the Government - we are losing too many good people! There are things that schools can literally start doing today that will start to change the culture and make a difference.  Let's give it a go!

You can read a summary of our proposals here.

The proposals in detail, backed up by research, personal testimony and commentary, are here. 

Resources you may wish to use to spread our message and build support for our proposals are here.

And finally, we would be delighted If you would add your name to endorse our proposal here. This information will remain confidential - only the numerical total of endorsements will ever be shared. However, we would be delighted to receive your endorsement in any way you see fit!

With warm regards,

The #LearningFirst community