Satisfactory? It’s just not good enough

Ofsted wants to change schools’ ‘satisfactory’ rating to ‘requires improvement’. According to Cameron, it’s no longer enough for a school to be ‘just good enough’.

Hmm. ‘Satisfactory’ means different things in different contexts. If you’re asked to make a sandwich and you make a sandwich, you’ve performed that task in a satisfactory way. If you’re asked to cook a banquet for the Queen and you do that, you’ve performed that task in a satisfactory way too.

Changing the words feels like a pointless, box-ticking exercise. If the government really wants to see an improvement, shouldn’t they change their expectations instead?