Tracey O'Brien has been a school leader in London for over 15 years in a variety of roles, including deputy headteacher, acting headteacher, and currently headteacher. She has been responsible for all aspects of school leadership, including improving teaching and learning, delivering high-quality CPD, planning school self-review and evaluation (Ofsted readiness), and leading on behaviour and inclusion. She has worked for London Challenge supporting other schools, and set up and became the director of one of the early Teaching Schools. Tracey has written leadership courses for middle and senior leaders, delivered teaching programmes as an AST and was awarded one of the few London Commissioner Teacher roles. Her previous publication, School self-review - a sensible approach, was very well received, and led her to examine the English school inspection process in greater depth.
This timely book examines what a meaningful school accountability system could look like in England. The book starts with a deep dive into our current inspection model, discussing some of the current pressures within the system, and comparing our inspection approach to that of other countries and sectors. It moves on to show how Ofsted and school inspections are perceived and portrayed - using first-hand accounts, academic papers, government publications, and media reports - and pulls together some of the current thinking on how the model could be improved. The author ends with her own proposals for a more meaningful and humane school accountability system. She suggests we rethink what we do, and how we do it, with a call for wide-ranging consultation leading to evidence-informed reform of the school inspection process.