Since the 1992 Education Act inaugurated national arrangements for inspection, schools have operated within an 'inspection climate' which pervades every aspect of school life on a continual basis. The significance of OFSTED inspections cannot be overestimated. They are often the most challenging, searching, uncompromising and stressful events teacher have ever experienced. What effects do they have on teachers and their work, on their self and role, and on school policy and ethos? Drawing on case studies from contrasting primary schools over a three- year period, this book reveals how OFSTED inspections were received within primary schools. It meets the need for detailed, rigorous research into inspections and their effects on teachers.

Bob Jeffrey is Research Fellow at the Open University and has published research, together with Peter Woods, on teacher creativity, primary teacher discourses on work, pupils' perspectives of creative learning and the restructuring of primary teachers' work. Peter Woods is Professor of Education at the Open University. He has written extensively in the areas of teacher and pupil interaction, teacher creativity, and the methodology of ethnographic research.