300 schools have avoided inspections for ten years

A LOOPHOLE that lets schools escape official Ofsted inspections has left nearly 300 unchecked for ten years or more.

A National Audit Office report warns that some of these may now be slipping behind academically

Schools rated ‘outstanding’ are let off re-inspections unless their results show a serious dip or parents begin to complain.

The aim is to let high-flying schools concentrate on teaching without having to worry about inspections.

But the NAO’s audit of Ofsted found that 1,620 schools had not been inspected for six years or more, including 296 which have gone without for more than a decade and a small number for up to 13 years.

Now Ofsted itself wants an end to the exemption because it lets schools avoid inspection forever if they stay below the radar after an ‘outstanding’ rating.

Director of corporate strategy Luke Tryl said some schools may now have slipped to ‘middling’, adding: ‘We don’t think the exemption is sustainable. It is one of the biggest factors undermining confidence in the reliability of our judgements.’

‘We’re at the limit of what we can do’

Ofsted is unable to close the loophole by itself and is lobbying for a change in the relevant law so inspectors would visit outstanding primaries every six years and secondaries every five to seven years.

The NAO findings also raise the prospect of some ‘outstanding’ schools failing Ofsted’s new ‘British Values’ criteria.

Under rules introduced after the ‘Trojan Horse’ Islamic extremism scare, all schools must teach gender equality, tolerance of gay people and respect for democracy.

The report also found Ofsted was missing inspection targets amid high staff turnover and falling budgets – the watchdog spent 52 per cent less in real terms in 2017-18 than it did in 1999-2000.

Ofsted says that at the turn of the millennium, a team of 16 to 17 inspectors would go into secondary schools for a whole week every six or seven years. Now a ‘good’ school gets two inspectors for one day every four years. One in ‘special measures’ gets four inspectors for two days with a re-inspection within 30 months.

Mr Tryl said: ‘We’re at the limit of what we can do. We can’t pretend that we’re offering the same level of inspection.’