Catherine has slammed the Government’s decision to retain one-word Ofsted judgements as ‘defending the indefensible’.
Responding on the Education Select Committee Report today, Catherine said: “The current system is high-stakes for teachers and low-information for parents, and like his cross-party committee, we [Labour] believe it must be reformed.…the Government should listen properly to the overwhelming response the Committee received from those across the sector about reforming the system, as Labour has done in setting out our plan for report cards, welcomed by the former Chief Inspector.”
Catherine’s intervention comes on the back of a January 2024 report from the Education Select Committee recommending a review of single-word Ofsted judgements. Labour has also called for an end to single-word grades, and in Government would replace them with report cards that would identify a school’s strengths and weaknesses – a proposal welcomed by a former Chief Inspector of Ofsted.
Ahead of her intervention in the House of Commons, Catherine commented:
“Unlike the Conservatives, Labour gets that inspections are not only dreaded by schools but also ineffective at creating improvements for students. The next Labour Government will act, scrapping single-word judgements and reforming Ofsted, to deliver a system that will support high and rising standards across all of our schools.”