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. Oliver is His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills – the clue is in the title. He should have a sustained interest in educational excellence even, and especially, when it is – astonishingly – a low priority for government. There are many unresolved questions about aspects of education quality, so the omissions cannot be justified on the basis that no further research is needed.

DfE and Ofsted are making Keir Starmer’s ‘tepid bath of managed decline’ a reality

Sadly, the recent changes to education inspection show that Oliver has little interest in education. Almost all real scrutiny of education has been removed from inspection, and judgements about a school’s quality of education now have to be made from its test and exam results plus a single conversation and walk around a school. This is in itself depressing. That the change has in part been forced on Ofsted by the drastic erosion of government funding for school inspections over the past 25 years doesn’t make it any less bad.

This change has had damaging consequences. Trainers are already telling schools that it doesn’t matter what they teach anymore because Ofsted won’t look. Among other things, this frees schools to cut back on anything that won’t be tested, including everything except English and maths in primary schools and subjects that few children carry on post-14 to GCSE. Schools won’t shout about this because it offers them shortcuts and quick fixes. But parents should care deeply about this hollowing out.

If the concept of education quality has been narrowed to bare test outcomes, what exactly are Ofsted (and the Department for Education – DfE) interested in then?

Here the answer leaps off the page. Some three-quarters of the questions in the note are entirely or mainly about children who tick disadvantage boxes. Warm and caring words drip off the pages: children who are vulnerable, have additional needs, face the highest barriers. Most questions are about almost anything but actual classroom teaching – inclusion, attendance, admissions, exclusions and family support all feature. It is right and good to be interested in these children and in these aspects of education and social care. But this extreme focus has several problems.

First, it is a strong statement that no one in government has much interest in the majority of children who aren’t disadvantaged. Yet the future of the country depends on these children at least as much as on their more disadvantaged peers. A country that has no interest in educational excellence is showing little interest in its own future. With this narrow focus, DfE and Ofsted are making Keir Starmer’s ‘tepid bath of managed decline’ a reality.

Next, as parents come to realise the extent of state indifference to their children, their confidence in the fairness of the school system, already wobbly, will be destroyed. To illustrate this, consider the fury with which people would react if told that the police would no longer take action on a crime or a doctor would not treat a patient because the individual did not tick a disadvantage box. As in many other areas of public policy and provision, if taken too far: a ‘caring’ focus becomes a focus of division and contention.

Thirdly, some of the questions reflect ignorance or intentional blindness about genuine differences. Most children in social care have special needs, in many cases conditions that they were born with – physical, mental or both. Sometimes these needs have contributed to their being in care, for example when parents who also have health or education needs have been unable to care for children properly, even with support. It is vacuous to treat the inevitable fact that such children are more likely to be in care as a matter of ‘over or under-representation’ and hence a disparity to be eliminated.

An over-emphasis on equalisation of outcomes between categories of children also mirrors some disastrous public sector failures. Take the recent case of Valdo Calocane, the Nottingham student with serious mental health problems who was free to kill in part because services were anxious to avoid disproportionate sectioning of black patients. If a child needs to be taken into care, they should be taken into care, and the social workers making the decision shouldn’t have to worry about whether the next Ofsted inspection of the local authority’s children’s services will criticise them for disproportionality.

Lastly, an important research insight is that generally speaking, there isn’t one kind of education that is good for disadvantaged children and another that is good for the rest. A coherent, carefully sequenced curriculum taught effectively by competent teachers in a calm and well-managed environment is the most important thing we can give children. Poor outcomes for disadvantaged children often signpost underlying weaknesses in curriculum and teaching that are best remedied by sorting out those weaknesses, rather than by over-complicating education with many layers of targeted interventions. Pushing schools towards highly atomised models costs a fortune, degrades education quality and burns out teachers.