National Education Union survey on State of Education: Ofsted

In the latest survey of National Education Union members, conducted ahead of Annual Conference in Harrogate and released to coincide with an urgent motion on Ofsted, over 12,000 teachers in English state schools told us about the impacts of inspection on the working lives of teachers, young people, and on the education system as a whole. Overwhelmingly, the findings paint a picture of the harm Ofsted causes.

The National Education Union is calling on Ofsted and the government to pause the introduction of a new inspection system to give time to adequately consult education professionals and ensure a new system that is supportive, effective and fair.

We found that:

• An Ofsted inspection – or the prospect of an Ofsted inspection - adds to the working hours of 78 per cent of teachers.
• Inspection also negatively affects the mental health of more than half (57 per cent), rising to almost two thirds among teachers in primary schools (64 per cent).
• 81 per cent of teachers responding to the survey told us that inspections fail to take full account of pupil need. This cuts across all roles, all phases, and all schools in areas of deprivation. It is most strongly felt by school leaders (89 per cent).
• Almost three quarters (72 per cent) do not believe that Ofsted is contributing to improvement in the education system.
• Just 4 per cent of teachers believe Ofsted is a ‘reliable and trusted arbiter of standards.'
• More broadly, there is widespread doubt that school accountability will be improved in the next five years. A majority (54 per cent) are either pessimistic or ‘very' pessimistic about the prospect.

Negative impacts of inspections

We asked members who work as teachers in England's state schools how inspection, or the prospect of inspection, affects their workload and wellbeing. Respondents could select more than one answer.

Around four-fifths of respondents (78 per cent) said that inspections add to their working hours, and two thirds (72 per cent) say it distorts workload and distracts from the core aspects of their work. For significant numbers, the spectre of Ofsted has a negative effect on home life (50 per cent) and has caused mental ill-health (57 per cent).

Just one in ten teachers (9 per cent) say they have not experienced any negative impact.

These impacts of inspection are felt disproportionately by primary teachers. 83 per cent see it as adding to their working hours, compared to 73 per cent in secondaries. Mental ill-health is also more prevalent (64 per cent), and an impact on home life is significantly higher too (57 per cent).

Ofsted increases working hours for the vast majority of school staff but is a greater factor for women, with 79 per cent highlighting Ofsted inspections as a cause of increased workload compared to 74 per cent of men.

The culture of being “Ofsted ready” is proving destructive for many. One teacher told us, “The Ofsted cloud hung over us for over two years (since the previous one), during which staff morale was at rock bottom and our workload was ridiculous.” Another added that in their school “there is now a culture of ‘well that's just the job' and we have to sacrifice our wellbeing to get it done.”

Mental health concerns are frequently mentioned in comments. “My mental health was strongly impacted after the last Ofsted inspection,” said one. “I was observed in three consecutive lessons – by that point I didn't even know what my name was…” Another told us “inspectors' conduct directly contributed to mental health issues and trauma” at their school.

A teacher in their fifties told us they would be taking early retirement in the near future. “I have worked in the same school since 1997 and it is sad to think that Ofsted will be the reason for retiring.”

Pupil Need

There is continued concern that Ofsted inspections are not up to the task of accounting for pupil need when making its verdicts on individual schools or settings.

Many respondents have significant concern that inspections take ‘no' account of pupil need. This was most profoundly felt by over half of those respondents working in leadership roles (53 per cent), those working in areas of greatest deprivation (54 per cent), and in primary and nursery schools in general (55 per cent).

Overall, 81 per cent agree that Ofsted has partial or total disregard for pupil need when making its assessments. Just 6 per cent think the inspectorate takes full account.

One respondent told us that, in their view, Ofsted “do not look at wider factors like student development, trauma, [or] access to services that students and families need to improve quality of life.” The exasperation of another teacher was clear: “We teach some of the most deprived students and I genuinely couldn't believe how blind [the inspectors] were to this.”

Teacher Sentiment

Attitudes toward Ofsted within the teaching workforce remain negative across the board. The State of Education survey was conducted after recent changes made by Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, including mental health training for inspectors, but our findings show that together the adjustments fall well short of resolving the deep divide between the profession and the inspectorate. 

Four-fifths (80 per cent) do not believe that single-word judgements or sliding scales are a fair reflection of a school or setting's performance. This rises to 83 per cent among primary teachers, compared to 78 per cent in secondary and special schools.

Almost three quarters (72 per cent) do not believe that Ofsted is contributing to improvement in the education system, rising to 78 per cent in primaries. 64 per cent of teachers aged under thirty, who have less experience of Ofsted, agreed with this statement. Other age groups supported it more strongly, typically between 73-75 per cent.

Overall, just 4 per cent agreed that Ofsted is “a reliable and trusted arbiter of standards.” 68 per cent disagreed, with this rising to 74 per cent among school leaders.

80 per cent agreed with the statement that inspections introduce “unsustainable or harmful levels of burden into the system.” This is most acutely felt in primaries, where 84 per cent of respondents agreed. Three quarters of teachers under thirty (74 per cent) shared this sentiment. It further reflects the view of the 78 per cent of teachers overall who told us in the previous question that inspection, or the prospect of inspection, adds to their workload.

Some teachers who have recently undergone inspection reported little improvement from the changes made this year: “Ofsted say they take staff mental health into account but after an inspection recently this is not the case.”

The culture of fear remains. One teacher who has experienced a recent inspection noted how negative comments in the report had been taken up by the leadership team at their school: “The SLT have had a knee-jerk response to some of the comments and increased our workload as a result.”

One respondent dismissed recent announcements around report cards and a cosmetic shift away from single-word judgements. “The government's new planned report card still has single- or two-word judgements which headteachers will be trying to work towards and therefore passing unnecessary stress onto staff to make sure the school is ‘exemplary' in all areas of the new report card system - which is not reducing the stress of single-word judgements.”

The Future of Accountability

The profession remains unpersuaded that there is any prospect of meaningful improvements to school accountability, including the inspection system, within the current parliament.

The new inspection system is currently out to consultation and was announced during the period of this survey (on 3 February). Our findings show that Ofsted and government have a lot of work to do if they are to turn around a system of inspection that is so widely considered to be unreliable, harmful for wellbeing, and unable to capture the complexity of a school.

Teachers across every subset – including school phase, governance type and role – were negative about the prospect of there being any improvements to school accountability. Primary teachers were again the most negative, with 22 per cent “very pessimistic” about the future and an additional 35 per cent “pessimistic”. Overall, this sentiment applied to 54 per cent of respondents.

Only one in ten have optimism for school accountability in the future.

A respondent told us, “I was hopeful Ofsted would be improved with [a] new government as I thought a narrative report would be better than one-word judgements. But I am not hopeful after what I have now seen.”

“This will be the reason I leave teaching,” one teacher told us. “It's not fit for purpose and is undoubtedly the biggest cause of stress in school.” Another added that, in their view, “Ofsted should be a single, massively limited tool in a much broader framework, but it has become the be-all and end-all. This doesn't improve outcomes for pupils at all.”

Commenting on the findings of the survey, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

“As is clear from these findings, Ofsted has completely lost the trust of the teaching profession. Those on the front-line continue to regard the inspectorate in the most negative terms.

“A leopard never changes its spots. Ofsted's ongoing consultation process is a chance for the inspectorate to create something fit for purpose. But teachers are telling us they see no progress and are already unimpressed with the new grading approach. Ofsted is still playing the same old tune.

“The reality is that Ofsted's culture of fear leads to unsustainable workload, damages mental health and drives many out of the classroom. It is a broken model.

“We need to see radical reform – but reform must be right and cannot be rushed through for the sake of it. November is too soon to build a system with the support of the profession. November is too soon for schools to properly prepare for yet another inspection framework.

“We call on Ofsted and the education secretary to pause and listen closely to the profession before it is too late. The aim for all of us must be a new system that is supportive, effective and fair. Right now, hardly any teacher believes Ofsted meets that standard.”

Editor's Note

The online survey of National Education Union members was conducted between 28 January – 9 February 2025.

We received responses from teachers, support staff and other members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This release focuses on the responses from 12,171 teachers in English state schools, reweighted by personal and professional characteristics in line with data from the most recent School Workforce Census.

Deprivation is calculated using IDACI bands, band 1 corresponds to the least deprived schools and band 5 to the most. The school's IDACI band is taken from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/monthly-management-information-ofsteds-school-inspections-outcomes .