Nursery World - Labour pledges to scrap Ofsted

A Labour Government would axe Ofsted and replace it with local authority ‘health checks' for childcare providers and schools.

In an interview with The Observer ahead of her speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday, shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said that England’s school inspectors were fuelling a ‘crisis in teacher recruitment’ and Ofsted’s rating system does not give parents a ‘clear understanding of how good a school is’.

A Labour government would scrap Ofsted and replace it with a ‘two-phase’ inspection system, under which schools and childcare providers would be subjected to regular ‘health checks’ led by local authorities. Where concerns arose, more in-depth inspections would be carried out by full-time, trained inspectors.

Ms Rayner said, ‘I believe Ofsted measures poverty. It measures deprivation. It doesn’t measure excellence. I think Ofsted has to measure excellence. It’s driving these competitive league tables.

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