Ofsted has set out a raft of changes today following the biggest consultation in its history.
These include notifying leaders of forthcoming inspections on a Monday, reforming its inspection framework ahead of the rollout of report cards and new safeguarding letters.
It comes after ministers yesterday axed single-phrase overall grades for schools with immediate effect.
The ‘Big Listen’ consultation sought the views of school staff, education organisations and parents on schools, safeguarding, SEND, teacher training, social care and further education.
Some 16,033 people responded to the consultation, including feedback from 10,000 teachers, leaders and other professionals who work in schools.
Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said: “You have spoken, we have listened, and now it is time to act.”
Here is what you need to know…
1. ‘The call’ will come on Monday
A key change will see Ofsted give leaders notice of all routine, graded and ungraded, inspections on a Monday, in new a approach set to be piloted over Autumn term.
So, heads will know by Monday afternoon if an inspection is planned for that week.
Inspectors will then visit schools on a Tuesday and Wednesday and write reports on Thursdays.
On Fridays, Ofsted bosses will “lead a rigorous consistency review of inspection finding” and activities such as lead inspector training will also take place.
2. New framework and report cards…
Ofsted has pledged to consult “later this academic year” on creating a reformed education inspection framework (EIF) for schools, early years and FE and skills.
This will heed lessons from the Big Listen and be necessary to accommodate the government’s pledge to rollout report cards from September 2025.
Ofsted said it wanted to “introduce rubrics that offer clear criteria for inspections and can support leaders to self-evaluate their practice” as part of the EIF reform.
The inspectorate also wants to make inspection more collaborative and supportive, a key issue flagged through the consultation, by using these “rubrics” to guide chats between inspectors and leaders about a school’s strengths and areas for improvement.
Ofsted said it will make it clearer what schools should improve, but not tell them how to improve, in a nod to leaders’ “independence and expertise”.
It will also make sure the inspection process is appropriate to the school phase and type, take contexts into account, Ofsted said.
3. …but ‘excellent’ curriculum focus to stay
However, Oliver wants to avoid “change for change’s sake” and intends for “excellent” aspects of the EIF, such as focus on the curriculum and early reading, to be kept.
Oliver said Ofsted will start informally consulting on report cards from today, working on this through autumn to develop a model.
He hopes to formally consult between January and Easter and for Ofsted to do piloting and training of its workforce after Easter.
4. Reports will show ‘area insights’…
The new report cards will include “area insights”. The service will “visualise local area data” across all areas Ofsted inspects and regulates, to give parents more information and to help inspectors understand local context.
Ofsted wants the service to set out what it is like to be a child in any area, from childminder provision and both school phases, all the way up to a post-16 provider or a training provider.
“This will transform the way parents and carers can find out about schools, including the experiences that all children have in their local area, particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged children,” Ofsted said.
It hopes the service will identify places that need extra help from the government to support vulnerable children.
5. …and new inclusion ‘criterion’
Ofsted will consult on introducing a “criterion”, understood to be Ofsted’s new word for sub judgments, for inclusion within the report card.
This will “evaluate whether schools are providing high-quality support for disadvantaged and vulnerable children”.
And Oliver said Ofsted “want to look at an evidenced based review of the pupil premium” as part of this work.
The tricky issue of how inclusivity will me measured will be consulted on.
But Oliver said he is “starting from the position of local schools for local children”, with settings risking being graded down if they turn SEND children away.
He also told Schools Week he believed attendance was “worthy of highlighting on it’s own”, suggesting that may become a criterion too.
6. Grace period for safeguarding fixes
From this month, Ofsted will pilot a new approach to safeguarding reporting in graded inspections.
If a school is ‘good’ or better in all other areas but fails in safeguarding, and inspectors think the leadership has the capacity to fix this, they can call the inspection incomplete and return within three months to complete it, withholding judgment in the meantime.
This won’t involve “reopening and rejudging the areas that we have found to be good or outstanding elsewhere,” Oliver said.
But Ofsted will only allow this if school leaders agree to send a letter, which Ofsted will produce, to parents, explaining the situation.
The report cards will also include “a separate safeguarding criterion”, distinct from leadership and management.
And Ofsted will make it clearer what inspectors are looking for when they review a school’s central record.
7. Ofsted Academy to train staff
As previously revealed by Schools Week, the inspectorate plans to launch a service called “Ofsted Academy” this Autumn.
It said this would collate all its induction, training, learning, development and “good practice work” in a single place and “transform” how it recruits and trains staff.
The resource will also include face-to-face training and development and will develop an “insights library” to share exemplary practice in the sectors it inspects and regulates.
“As part of the Academy, we will introduce secondments for inspectors to spend time working in providers. This will make sure their practice remains current, especially focusing on working across groups of providers,” Ofsted said.
8. New national hubs and reference groups
Ofsted said its current regional model had “created inconsistency” in how it carries out some of its work.
So, it is setting up six national hubs, led by regional directors, each specialising in a specific area of its work.
For instance, one hub will centralise all complaints about Ofsted, which will be investigated independently of their region of origin.
Other hubs will focus on areas such as inspection welfare, support and guidance and quality assurance and professional standards and “provider intelligence and area insights”.
Ofsted said it had also set up seven external reference groups, across areas such as curriculum, teaching and assessment, behaviour and attendance and inclusion.
These will provide independent advice and challenge and share ideas and feedback, including on its frameworks.
9. Sharing the evidence base
In a bid to increase transparency, Ofsted said it will do user research to look at recording and transcribing the final feedback meetings and sharing these with leaders.
Ofsted has also signalled a willingness to “better share the evidence that underpins our reports directly with leaders”, to help heads understand how it reaches its conclusions.
10. Complaint changes made permanent
In response to allegations that its complaints process often felt like it was marking its own homework, Ofsted has piloted complaints panels for the schools and early years sectors.
These include external sector representatives who review whether it has handled a sample of complaints fairly and in line with its policy.
Ofsted said it will make this a permanent feature of its complaints processes across all areas.
11. MAT and LA inspections, but not quite yet
Ofsted said it will work with ministers on upcoming legislation to allow it to inspect multi-academy trusts, but has not put a timescale on the reform.
The inspectorate also “strongly” believes the reform should be expanded to cover all school groups
It said this would help to improve standards across the system and “make sure accountability reflects decision-making, separating schools from the trusts in which they sit”.
Oliver believes trust-level inspections will be a medium to longer term project.
He said he thinks “there is a way of providing both an individual report to a school and looking at the group responsible”.
12. Culture change needed
The inspectorate said its “most challenging” Big Listen feedback was about its culture.
A NatCen survey, commissioned by Ofsted, of 4,349 parents and carers, found a quarter disagreed that the inspectorate could be trusted. Just 49 per cent said it could be.
Schools were much less likely to say Ofsted “achieved its ambition of being trusted” compared to other providers, according to findings by IFF Research.
Just 29 per cent of schools agreed with the statement compared to 47 per cent for teacher development providers, and up to 72 per cent for social care.
