The eminent French philosopher Michel Foucault in his writings on social control was interested in the power of what he called the observational gaze. He pointed out how a prison like Bentham’s famous Panopticon was designed so that every cell could be viewed from the centre because being viewed continuously gave the warders power over the prisoners and was part of what punishment entailed. However, as prisons and punishment developed over the next two hundred years the observational process became more subtle and concealed. Today, the hidden CCTV camera makes Bentham’s architectural dream superfluous but the observational gaze more potent. Foucault also pointed out how, faced with this observational gaze, ordinary people submit to its power and become complicit actors in a drama where they are striving to be normal but are, as reality television constantly illustrates, being anything but.

What has this got to do with OFSTED inspection in 2004? Ask any teacher whether he or she behaves normally in the presence of that inspectorial gaze and the honest answer is no. To a greater or lesser degree, all teachers objectify themselves as the person they think the inspector wants them to be. They smooth off the rough edges, rehearse more, watch their language, and do not take risks in a process that Foucault describes as normalisation and which is designed - in terms of the social control agenda - to highlight the gap between normality and deviancy or, in terms of school inspection, to demarcate the gap between satisfactory and unsatisfactory teaching and learning. However, a greater element of social control can be gained from embedding that normalisation in the structure of the organism. Imagine the power in making that process underpin the life of the school and how better to do that than to let individuals and organisations objectify themselves and root out their own deviants before that inspectorial gaze arrives?

And that, of course, is the model for inspection in the new Framework. The S4 form which asks the school about its own self-evaluation may not be the Spanish Inquisition or the work of the Witchfinder General but it comes from the same stable. Its first question, ‘How Effective is your School?’ comes with a 1-7 rating scale and then asks ‘How do you know?’. Using the same interrogative mode, it goes on to ask about improvement, the actions taken since the previous inspection, achievement, how the school is viewed by others, about the quality of teaching and learning, the effectiveness of assessment, the curriculum, pupil welfare, leadership and management, and the barriers to improvement. For all of these questions, there is the same rating scale and a constant demand for evidence. Faced with a form like this, the human tendency is to talk up what you know you do well but to find someone else to blame for any self-confessed weaknesses.

OFSTED asks for evidence but what does it mean? The latest version of the Handbook contains what is described as an ‘evidence tree’ which moves from aspects of evidence that have low reliability, such as the intentions of teachers and planned reforms, to aspects of evidence that have greater reliability such as the analysis of performance indicators. The school’s own self-evaluations probably come somewhere in the middle but it is performance data (test and examination results) which will show if the school has really improved and tell the managers that they know it has.

So, if your results have gone up since the last inspection over and above expectations and national improvements, form S4 is easy to complete. But, if they have gone down or stayed the same, you will appear to be blustering and apologetic. Worse still, form S4 is a central document in the formation of pre-inspection hypotheses.

Pre-inspection hypotheses are another double-edged sword. At one level, they make perfect sense. There is a now a wealth of data available to an inspection team before it sets foot inside a school. Recent performance outcomes, the other data in the PANDA form, the outcomes from action planning following the previous inspection and the findings from the school’s self-evaluation processes can all be examined. Linking all this to form S4, allows the inspection team to develop its own hypotheses about what is good about the school but also about its weaknesses. Testing these hypotheses during the inspection provides the mechanism for not revisiting high-quality provision and gives an opportunity to focus on areas where the school is facing challenges. OFSTED expects the pre-inspection hypotheses to involve a mix of the positive and negative but the balance between these and the observational time and effort devoted to them will vary from school to school.

The danger is that a negative pre-inspection hypothesis can easily condition what is seen. If a team member has an expectation that something will be amiss then, all things being equal, he or she is quite likely to find the evidence. Also, it is questionable as to how far areas of weakness in a school need to be probed. For example, if the school self-evaluation has identified one department as weak, perhaps because the team leader is close to retirement and out of touch or because recruitment in that subject area is difficult, there is little point in OFSTED undermining morale still further by making swingeing critical comments. There is a sense in which schools, particularly those in challenging circumstances, may be being asked to find sacrificial cows to slaughter.

For schools facing an inspection, it is worth devoting a considerable amount of time to the S4 form. It is not a weekend’s work! One option is to ask all senior staff to complete the form so that the headteacher can then compile a version based on their understandings. Another is to shamefacedly talk up the school on the form so that the inspection team then has to negotiate its judgments downwards.

In the end, the new framework will settle down over time but the rumours of a 30% increase in the number of schools which have serious weaknesses or which are recommended for special measures is worrying. OFSTED argues that the new inspection protocols should not add significantly to the workload of schools. For successful, high-performing schools this may well be true but, for the vast majority, inspection is now a little more intrusive and threatening than it used to be.