ABSTRACT
The Office for Standards in Education's (OFSTED) published the first edition of the Handbook for the Inspection of Schools in 1993. Upon this document rests the whole of the OFSTED system of inspection because, as part of the Handbook, there is the Framework, which specifically sets out to tell inspectors how and what to inspect. The main problem arises from the fact that the Framework, the obligatory part of the Handbook, has to reside in written language. The working practices of OFSTED have been designed specifically to exclude the possibility of an interpretative community. Inspection teams and team leaders do not meet to share experiences and understandings. The Framework opens with a 'Code of conduct'. Inspectors are instructed to come to corporate judgements. The demand that inspectors be 'objective' is indicative of this 1930s/1940s mindset which is obvious in so many parts of the Framework.
