Opinion: Ofsted report is missing the big picture

I wouldn't want to suggest they overlap, but they speak to the same agenda - and I align myself with Harris. He questions the applicability of curriculum and syllabus to a youth work context in which dialogue and negotiation have to be the order of the day. Put bluntly, and perhaps crudely, a preplanned curriculum framework for street-based practice is like forcing square pegs into round holes. It carries the risk of losing sight of core youth work principles and jeopardising the place of detached work within the repertoire of valued youth work practice.

The Ofsted report is quite damning of detached work, maintaining that although the quality of practice is reasonable, it does not produce the same levels of achievement as centre-based and project-based work. This contention is advanced in the usual dry style we have come to expect from Ofsted reports, but it smacks of scientific judgment. Harris would point out that detached work hardly operates on the same playing field. He is generous to a fault in commending youth work in other arenas, but argues forcefully that detached work is a different ball game.