The school inspection body has announced that it will be continuing its one word assessment rating, but, in deference to recent criticism, this word will now be arbitrarily selected from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Inspectors will be instructed that the selected word should offer no hint of a judgemental call : so positive, or negative, descriptors will be replaced by vegetable names, cloud types, architectural features or whatever whimsy may scamper through the assessors mind at the time.
A trial run out of this policy has resulted in St. Robnolds Infants School, Penge being assessed as 'tourmaline', whilst the neighbouring Bryden Academy is now rated as 'exfoliant'.
Whilst this new policy will reduce levels of anxiety and stress within the industry and eliminate all those gaudy banners now seen hanging on school railings, it should also play merry hob with families playing the catchment area game, who will now have to rationalise between Ofsted ratings of 'ormolu','distillate' and 'plinth'.
author: FlashArry
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