麻豆淫院

Educators and students are experiencing tremendous social, economic, political and educational change. This era of ‘polycrisis’ in which multiple crises such as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, the , the mental health crisis, the crisis and rising child poverty occur simultaneously and amplify each other. This polycrisis produces unique challenges for schools and creates a context in which old mechanisms for school inspection are ill equipped to meet the complexity of the present moment.

This era of polycrisis underscores the urgent need for increased material support for schools and sustainable school improvement mechanisms that directly connect to educator and student needs. It further throws into sharp relief some problems with the 2025 Ofsted and the issues inherent in high-stakes inspection practices.

This blog post explores the historic origins of British inspection regimes and the creation of epistemic hierarchies in education systems. It connects the origins of inspections to the perception that inspectors act as rather than meeting the improvement needs of schools in crisis. Ultimately, it aims to spark a dialogue around whether the EIF might continue or disrupt these issues.

‘This blog post connects the origins of inspections to the perception that inspectors act as “clipboard police” rather than meeting the improvement needs of schools in crisis.’

Control, fear and epistemic hierarchies

School inspections originated in the British colonial era, and London (2004, p. 496) asserts that ‘the inspectorate, was a major tool in accomplishing the mission of imperial control’. This imperial control was grounded in slavery, domination and genocide across the globe. Domination, control and ‘divide and rule’ practices were mirrored in education by the British Empire in its colonies and at home through schooling and inspection practices. Abroad, most indigenous peoples were banned from access to education or subjected to in which the plantation economy became the model of schooling with racialised and classed hierarchies and technologies of surveillance and control. Domestically, these colonial practices and inspections enshrined classed hierarchies in education systems, forced assimilation and control, and spread terror and a in schools. Grigg (2020, p. 609) notes that in the 1800s domestic British ‘inspectors’ relationships with teachers were always on a “them” and “us” footing, given the class differences and the power the former exercised over the latter’. These power inequities were even more evident in countries impacted by colonial control in the Global South, and these dynamics continue in present-day research on inspections.

highlights that the inspector ‘assumes mastery of the subjects and expects the teacher to be subservient to them. They assume that [inspectors] have the knowledge and regard the teachers as inferior workers who should take instruction from them without questioning.’ In Botswana, Moswela (2010, p. 84) describes contemporary teachers’ experiences of inspection as ‘a self-serving activity with the motive to punish (as evidenced by the use of strong phrases such as “witch-hunting”) rather than to improve performance’. Across a range of , educators continue to experience inspections as a deficit-oriented and punitive experience that entrenches epistemic hierarchies and fails to drive improvement even after the formal end of colonial control.

Similar dynamics were also found in recent research on inspections in England under the previous Ofsted framework which noted the impacts on educators, the punitive effects on and the with the inspectorate as the arbiters of educational ‘success’ and ‘failure’. This raises questions about educators’ experiences under the EIF and if inspections will perpetuate these dynamics or equip schools with genuine support in challenging times.

2025 Ofsted framework: New possibilities or continuing concerns?

Ongoing colonial logics, hierarchies and social inequities are unlikely to be dismantled through minimally revised inspection frameworks. There are concerns that the new Ofsted framework perpetuates inequities through the ‘inclusion penalty’. Under the prior Ofsted framework, found that schools with disadvantaged intakes were five times more likely to be graded as ‘Inadequate’. of the new framework show that ‘Ofsted is more likely to downgrade schools with poorer intakes or more pupils with SEND for their achievement, attendance and behaviour’. Only have been in the two highest brackets – down from 91 per cent under the previous framework. These reports highlight Ofsted’s epistemic authority, the punitive impacts of inspections on inclusive schools, the disinterest in critically examining school context and the failure to disrupt hierarchies in accountability systems. Top-down inspection regimes are rooted in disciplinary, colonial logics which are ill equipped to support schools today, and minor framework revisions cannot erase historic harms.

‘Top-down inspection regimes are rooted in disciplinary, colonial logics which are ill equipped to support schools today, and minor framework revisions cannot erase historic harms.’

Each revisitation of inspection systems offers the opportunity to radically reimagine school improvement, address systemic inequities and create systems of support for educators and students; however, it also creates opportunities to entrench injustice, silence educator voices and create further ruptures and distrust between the inspectorate and schools. It is clear that these historic harms and hierarchies are continuing, with evidence of ; calls by the National Association of Head Teachers to stop graded inspections due to  to school staff; and a National Education Union highlighting educators from more deprived schools who experienced the new inspection framework had reported ‘a greater negative impact on their exhaustion levels and overall mental health’, while Black educators reported wanting to leave their schools following an inspection at higher levels.

Conclusion

Ultimately, inspections are about power and epistemic authority: who decides what a good school is, whose voice is listened to, and who is harmed or marginalised through inspections themselves and wider systemic injustice. These issues echo a colonial past and continue with the present 2025 framework, while the wealth of expertise from school-based educators and their communities remains sidelined and placed at the bottom of an educational hierarchy.

References

Grigg, R. (2020). ‘Wading through children’s tears’: The emotional experiences of elementary school inspections, 1839–1911. History of Education, 49(5), 597–616.

London, N. A. (2004). School inspection, the inspectorate and educational practice in Trinidad and Tobago. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(4), 479–502.

Moswela, B. (2010). Instructional supervision in Botswana secondary schools: An investigation. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(1).