Amanda Spielman

And we’re off – Lucy Powell has followed up on Andy Burnham’s speech about providing high-quality technical education routes that are valued and respected by students, parents and employers. The new Education Secretary is eye-poppingly adrift in her analysis and assertions. It is true to say, as she does, that we have far too many young people not in education or working (NEETs). But it is ridiculous to blame this on the Michael Gove-era school curriculum. Until four years ago the number of NEETs was at its lowest for decades.

Ofsted published a note on its areas of research interest earlier this month, setting out more than 100 questions grouped under seven themes. It explicitly links these to the current chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver’s priorities and also states that the list aligns with the Department for Education’s research interests. It is a revealing and depressing document – both in what it says and also in what it omits. Above all, it tells us that Ofsted isn’t much interested in actual education any more. Just six questions are directed mainly at what makes and sustains good education for all children, of which three are about the impact of AI on mainstream education, two on apprenticeships and one on adult skills bootcamps. This is in itself jaw-dropping.

To understand why education reform – and school improvement – is so hard it helps to get inside the mind of the officials who are supposed to be driving higher standards. This week Jonathan Slater, a former Department for Education permanent secretary, published a report for UCL Policy Lab that perfectly illustrates many senior officials’ poor understanding of schools and of accountability in particular.  Slater is, admirably, determined to improve educational outcomes for poorer children. But in my view he is also appallingly ignorant about how to actually achieve improvement. He repeats the call – from those anxious to cover up under-performance – to replace Ofsted inspections (other than for safeguarding) with a new ‘evaluation framework’.