This is an updated version of an article I wrote in 2019.

You know those awful television documentaries in which the presenters (it’s usually a double act) continually display their inability to ask interesting questions and probe beneath the surface? While they exclaim “Wow!” at the start of every sentence, we learn the what, but never the why or the how.

I thought it might be fun to imagine an inspection of a Computing department conducted as one of those documentaries. What might it look like?

Fortunately, such an inability to explore interesting and sensible questions would not be found in a real inspection. Would it?? From reading various Twitter threads, I suspect inspectors would, these days, ask such searching and insightful questions as “How come not much staff training went on during lockdown?”, and “How come the school has prioritised children’s wellbeing rather than their education?”

If you don’t think my conjectures have any basis in fact, read Inspection reports: Scratching the Surface. The author, Julie Price Grimshaw, has scrutinised many recent Ofsted reports, and notes:

Many years ago, Ofsted inspectors used to be impressed at kids’ ICT skills if their work looked nice, apparently unaware that by using templates or wizards even the most computer-illiterate person could produce a decent-looking document or PowerPoint presentation in no seconds flat. I suppose things have moved beyond that now, but I can’t help thinking that, given some inspectors’ seeming lack of common sense, it might be a good idea for a subject leader to produce a massive, impressive-looking staff training manual just for the purpose of showing inspectors. Put plenty of charts and tables in it, populated with teachers’ names, along with an outline syllabus. Why would I not be surprised were I to learn that an inspector’s reaction on first seeing such a tome would be “Wow!”?

I’m not offering that as a piece of advice by the way! But I can’t help wondering….