School rated inadequate takes Ofsted to court

A school rated inadequate by Ofsted has begun a High Court challenge against the watchdog.

Lawyers representing All Saints Academy in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, argue that Ofsted did not give "sufficient reasons" for its conclusion.

The school wants a High Court judge to quash the inspection report but Ofsted said the claim should be dismissed.

The watchdog said the school had "consistently underperformed" in inspections.

All Saints' head Liz Furber was at the hearing, which is being staged in the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Barrister Paul Greatorex, from law firm Irwin Mitchell, who is representing the school, told the judge that the case was about Ofsted "losing its way".

Mr Greatorex said Ofsted judgments could "change lives".

He referred to the case of head teacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life in January 2023 while waiting for an Ofsted report to be published.

Mr Justice Cavanagh, who is overseeing the trial, heard that in November 2022, a two-day Ofsted inspection had taken place at the secondary comprehensive school with 655 pupils.

At the end of the inspection the school was told that "safeguarding" was "effective", four of six "key judgments" were good and two were "requires improvement", Mr Greatorex said.

Two months later the school was told that the inspection had been "deemed incomplete", he said.

A new inspection team collected "additional evidence" and Mrs Furber was told that "safeguarding" had been judged "ineffective" and the "overall effectiveness judgment" was "now inadequate".

Mr Greatorex claimed that the school had not been given "sufficient reasons, explanation or evidence" to enable it to understand the findings.

"They change lives, these judgments," Mr Greatorex told the judge. "People can lose their jobs … and in the case of Ruth Perry, lose their lives."

He said there was a "mystifying" and "steadfast" refusal by Ofsted to explain the findings it made.

Schools were given an "executive summary" which amounted to "two pages, three at the most", he added.

The amount of evidence filed by Ofsted was in "stark contrast" to the "brevity" of its All Saints' report, Mr Greatorex said.

Barrister Toby Fisher, who led Ofsted's legal team, told the judge, in a written argument, that the school's claim was "misconceived".

"The school faced the unusual, but not unique, situation where the provisional judgments shared by a team of Ofsted inspectors at the end of the first visit subsequently failed Ofsted's quality assurance and moderation processes, engaging Ofsted's gathering additional evidence protocol (GAE) and necessitating the GAE visit," he said.

"At the conclusion of the GAE visit, the judgments reached by inspectors on all the evidence gathered through both visits was considerably more negative."

He added: "That process, and outcome, was undoubtedly disappointing for the school and Ofsted apologised for not having got the first visit right. But it was not unfair in law." He said the school had "consistently underperformed" in Ofsted inspections. It had previously been rated as "requires improvement" several times and as inadequate in 2015. Two monitoring inspections were carried out in 2021, he added, with an outcome that "leaders and those responsible for governance were not taking effective action in order for the school to become a 'good' school". Mr Fisher said the school's claim should be dismissed. He said the circumstances surrounding the death of Mrs Perry were "irrelevant" to the case.

Rachael Smurthwaite, a specialist education lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, said, in a statement outside court: "The school is concerned not only about the content of the report and the procedure by which it was produced, but how a second team of inspectors could reach such very different conclusions to the first.

"The school has raised several matters regarding the inspection regime, which it believes are of national importance."

The case is due to end on Thursday.

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