Warning for inspectors

Members will be aware that ASCL has had grave concerns about the ways in which some lead inspectors have been using the CVA Panda. We have been campaigning hard on this and we are therefore pleased to see that the following note appeared in Inspection Matters: Issue 7 published by Ofsted and sent to all inspectors in March.

"Inspection judgements: a further reminder to all inspectors that inspection judgements should be informed, but not determined, by the data, including the contextualised valued added (CVA) indicators, in the PANDA report.

"CVA data provides a powerful and important tool for analysing a school's effectiveness but it does not 'cap' any judgement. Inspectors are asked, please, to make this very clear to the schools that they inspect, and to ensure that they take full account of the school's own analyses of data.

"Inspectors should take full responsibility for the judgements they make and those judgements, and the grades which reflect them, should not be changed subsequently, other than in exceptional circumstances (when the lead inspector should always be consulted)."

Therefore, no inspector should be telling members anything like, "The CVA Panda limits the grade that we can give..."

If inspectors do this, members should make an immediate record of the inspector's statement, use this note to challenge it and inform Keith Dennis, ASCL's Inspections Consultant at keith.dennis@ascl.org.uk