Sunday 5 April 2015

Those Ofsted ads keep popping up


There’s an annoying little advertisement for the post of social care inspector at Ofsted that keeps popping up on my screen, when I’m trying to read something else.



Somebody who left a front line job in local authority social work to join Ofsted is quoted in the ad as saying that she has "made more difference "in a few months at Ofsted than she did in fifteen years of practice.

This conveys completely the wrong message: (1) it puts practice down, when what is most important is the right service at the point of delivery, not at the point of inspection; (2) it undervalues the work of practitioners and overvalues the work of inspectors; (3) it suggests that top-down is the route to improvement – Ofsted knows best – when what is needed is continuous improvement by those that practice, not endless prescription by those that can only preach.