Responding to a speech to be delivered by His Majesty's Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver to ASCL's Annual Conference on Friday 13th March, deploring 'the quiet curse of low expectations' and describing Ofsted's new framework as 'more exacting', Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“We are pleased to see the chief inspector shares school leaders’ ambition to see every child succeed and thrive, regardless of their background. No-one has higher aspirations for the children and young people of this country than school leaders. It is they who turn up day in, day out with their teams to go above and beyond for their pupils. They consistently step in where other services have stepped back, acting as teachers, counsellors and social workers every day of the week. They are doing so against a backdrop of ever more challenging circumstances and increasingly stretched resources. We have seen the rhetoric of low expectations repeated time and time again, and yet we are not clear where these are supposed to originate from.

“It is deeply disappointing to see confirmation that Ofsted has designed a framework that will see a higher proportion of schools receive a ‘needs attention’ grade than the old ‘requires improvement’ grade, and that Ofsted are publicly making a link between the two. Given the tragic circumstances that created the catalyst for the changes to inspection, it is quite remarkable that Ofsted has seen fit to rachet up the pressure on schools and school leaders.”