Improving the way Ofsted inspects education

Would you like to learn more about our proposed new report cards, or how we’ll inspect inclusion?

Ofsted is consulting on changes to our education inspections. Host Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks to Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston (National Director, Education) and Claire Stewart (Deputy Director, Inclusive Education) about our consultation proposals, including our new report cards, inclusion grade and education inspection toolkits.

Take part in our consultation here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education.

 

Transcript

 

Mark Leech: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today we're going to be talking about the consultation that we're currently running looking at improvements to the way we inspect education. So that's education right from early years right through schools and into further education and skills. And I'm joined by Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Lee Owston, the National Director for Education, and Claire Stewart, who is Deputy Director for Inclusive Education. Our consultation began in February, and it runs until the 28th of April. We're recording this in March so we can reflect a little bit on what we're starting to hear back from the consultation. We've been out meeting lots of people from the sectors that we inspect and regulate, and also meeting with parents groups and others, so we can talk a little bit about feedback and what we're hearing and hopefully answer some of the things that maybe people would like to hear us talk about. So, if I could turn to you Martyn first, just around a bit of the background to what we're trying to achieve here. We obviously had a huge consultation exercise last year, the Big Listen, which has shaped a lot of these proposals. What in a nutshell, are we trying to achieve with the changes we're making to education inspection?

 

Martyn Oliver: Yeah, thanks, Mark, and it's really good to be joined by Lee, and I'm really particularly delighted that we are joined by Claire, because isn't it great that we've now got a Deputy Director who's in charge of just inclusivity, because inclusion is a massive part of our work. And so if I go back to what happened just after I started, I was really clear that I wanted to listen to the system we launched, I think it was last March, the Big Listen, the largest consultation, the largest piece of listening work at Ofsted has ever done. Over 20,000 or so took part in our survey then we had independent surveys looking at parents, what do they think, what providers think, and indeed, children. And in the end, it's about 30,000 people. And they came back with some really strong messages. Some of them are hard for us to hear about a gap in trust. And then some of the messages were really positive about the things that we should do going forward. And some of them were things like, our framework is focusing on the right things currently, with a focus on the curriculum, and that's really important. But our framework is a generic framework across early years, primary, secondary, further education, initial teacher training education, independent schools and people didn't recognise their uniqueness, and so Lee and I were really keen to develop a framework going forward which looked at that uniqueness. We also wanted to pay attention to the context. We heard we weren't spending enough time looking at the context of inspections. The stress and pressure of inspection was a huge part of what we heard. And so, this framework that we're consulting on now isn't just about the actual design of what we will inspect. I think probably even more important than that, to be honest, is how we go about inspecting it. And we've really thought long and hard about that.

 

Mark Leech: Thank you. So, one of the challenges that we have at Ofsted is how we balance the needs of parents with the people that we inspect. So, we hear different things. And you've spoken about the Big Listen, and we heard different things from parents than we heard perhaps, from leaders in schools or in nurseries. And I suppose the area where this really comes together in the proposals that we've put out for consultation is in the way that we report, which is a really big change, isn't it?

 

Martyn Oliver: Oh yeah, the way that we're proposing to report now in 2025 going forwards, will be, I think, probably the biggest change since we were developed back in 1992 because predominantly, we've always relied upon a single word to describe the overall effectiveness of a nursery or a childminder or a school or a college. And we heard this in the Big Listen, but we also heard it from the government when they were elected, was that the single word judgment lacked nuance and complexity of the providers, and it was low information and high stakes and high accountability. We did independent research that I mentioned a few moments ago, and the independent research for providers was very clear: Remove the single word judgment, the overall effectiveness grade, and they talked about replacing it with a narrative describing the strengths of schools or bullet points. And I think it was their third option was to say or show some grades for the sub judgments of areas, but not the overall area. That same research independently carried out on parents said, we want clarity of the grades, but we don't want the single word judgment. And so designing this idea of a report card, dropping that single word grade was to try and lean into the nuance, lean into the complexity, provide written forms of strengths and areas for development that the system’s really clearly asked for, but also provide the clarity on sub judgment and grade that parents asked for, and that's where the idea behind the report card came into. And I get that because it's different, it's going to feel like a big challenge and a big change. I mean, one of the things that I think from my early conversations with people is they're struggling to understand that a provider could be both needing to pay attention to something and be strong at something else. You could be both things across that one institution in different areas. And I think that's right, because if I go back to being a head teacher, and I had quite a few outstanding schools. And even in my outstanding schools, I used to think to myself, yeah, but I know it isn't all outstanding. There are some aspects of it that I'm working on, and the idea of the report card is to try to get underneath that and be of more use.

 

Mark Leech: So I mean, from a parent's point of view as well, I suppose that, you know, they're going to be used to seeing this with their own children, you know, their own children will have things they're really excelling at in other areas where perhaps they're they need a bit more help. So, it's that sort of approach to a school to a nursery to a further education college.

 

Martyn Oliver: Exactly. It's leaning into that complexity and trying our best to help that provider recognise their strengths, recognise what they're working on, or perhaps sometimes point out to them things that they didn't perhaps know about themselves and be of use on that journey. And it's also, I think, really important alongside our consultation, which you can find on our website, gov.uk, the Department of Education is also running a separate consultation, completely independent of ours about how they might use our information to look at accountability on the system. So, there are two types of consultation out there, and I'd encourage people to go and find them both.

 

Mark Leech: Yeah, I think that's really important, isn't it? Because I think people do misunderstand that relationship, even people who work in education, the fact that we are the inspectorate. We go out, we inspect a school, we give a series of grades related to what to what we see. We're not responsible for the next step. So, the next step, be it some sort of support for that school, be it some sort of intervention that sits with government, as you say, there's a separate consultation on that. So, on the new report card, we're going to be using a new grading scale, so it's got five points to it, and it runs from causing concern at the lowest end, attention needed, secure, strong and exemplary. So, people have been talking a lot about these, these five grades. Martyn, perhaps if you and Lee could talk us through what those grades mean and how they'd be applied?

 

Martyn Oliver: Yeah, absolutely. So, the idea is behind the report card, as I said, was to provide more nuanced, more complex information about the wide range of things that providers do, whether you're in a childminder or a nursery or a school or a college. In law, we have to tell the Department for Education if there's an unacceptable standard of education taking place, and so we call that the lowest grade here ‘causing concern’. And if a school or a child model a college falls into that category, that's when we would bring the Department for Education in. And that's why it's important that people look at our consultation, and they also look at the Department for Education's consultation on how they might use our information. So that's the lowest grade causing concern. I'm just going to jump quickly then to ‘secure’. Secure is where we would start all of our inspections at. We would expect everyone to hit the secure standard. It should give parents a great deal of confidence when they see that people are meeting that secure standard. Now, once you've got that secure standard, and you've got that unacceptable standard causing concern, I think it's really important that you've got something in the middle, because if you don't, it's a cliff edge, you're either secure or you fall off and you're unacceptable. And that would be too much pressure on the system. So, I think you need something as a halfway house. It's not an unacceptable standard. It is acceptable. But if you don't pay attention to it, it could be a problem. Now, Lee's got quite a nice way of describing this. Lee, you told me it's a bit like, like an MOT.

 

Lee Owston: Absolutely so in my mind, attention needed, it’s a bit like when you take your car in for an MOT and they'll say, well, Lee, you can certainly drive your car home today, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. You can still use it, but actually, unless you kind of take a look at your back left tire and you kind of keep an eye on the wear and tear, the next time you come in for your mot, it's probably going to be unacceptable in terms of the standard that we've set, and that's what we wanted to introduce in terms of between secure and causing concern. Catching settings before they fall, giving them the opportunity to address something before it becomes a major issue, and that's why we came up with attention needed. It's for the attention of leaders within that particular establishment, and of course, it's then up to them to seek the support if they need it, to put whatever aspect of practice that might be.

 

Martyn Oliver: Yeah, and I also think it might be useful for parents, because they might choose to use that information when they go in and talk to their child's school, for example, and say ‘what are you doing about this in your setting?’ and allow the school to explain the actions that they're taking. It should be, I think, helpful for both sides, because I think it's really important that schools work closely with parents, and actually that's one of the things that's in our toolkit that we look at that. So, that gets us then to secure needs attention or attention needed and causing concern. But I don't think that's enough. There's some fantastic performance out there, and if we don't recognise those who are going beyond the secure standard, then that would be a huge, wide range of providers, from those who just made it through to those who are doing something so good that it really is standing out, and that's why we've developed strong or strong practice.

 

Lee Owston: Yeah, and we recognise in lots of the feedback we're already receiving, whether that's through the consultation questionnaire or that's when we're talking directly to leaders, that there's more work for us to do there, certainly to really clarify what is the difference between being secure, doing everything that you need to, in terms of the statutory outcomes and expectations and frameworks, and then strong in terms of going beyond that. And we know there are schools out there that rightly go above and beyond what the kind of expectation or the core standard might be that's been set, and of course, we're working through so what are those features of strong practice that we want to put into our toolkit and very clearly state in our toolkit so people can see the difference between being secure, being strong, what that means and in terms of potential features that may be may be exemplary.

 

Martyn Oliver: Yeah. Now the bit that I found was really exciting about this is Ofsted’s unique role. It should be beholden upon Ofsted to see where we see someone is so strong that something they're doing maybe world class. I mean, I was in a school in the Northwest where I was watching how the school had paid attention to the needs of children with additional needs, whether a special educational needs or they had a vulnerability because they were perhaps a looked after child. Every single teacher had a clear idea of every child and their vulnerability and their disadvantage background in their class. Every single additional adult, a teaching assistant, had that same information. All the leaders had the same information. And the way that those three groups worked together to wrap around these children was absolutely incredible. Some of the best I've seen in 28 years of walking into schools. That would be an example where I would say, that's exemplary, that is incredible. And I think that other schools could learn from that, if that school was willing to share it. And that's where Ofsted, unique role wants to come in in sharing that exemplary practice.

 

Lee Owston: And I would add to that to say, that it's highly unlikely that leaders, settings will be exemplary across the board. And we want to make a very clear distinction, don't we, between how Ofsted and inspection has operated in the past and how we are proposing to operate in the future. So, for example, we don't want people to equate what we do now i.e. outstanding with exemplary. You can't make that kind of leap, or that jump between one system and another, and that's why it's important that we do explain exemplary, because it's about the feature of practice that's exemplary, rather than saying it's an entire aspect or evaluation area within our toolkit.

 

Martyn Oliver: That's also what we heard in the Big Listen. There was a lack of trust that people had in the grades we've given, and so that's why I think this is a really important moment for Ofsted to reset and to rebuild trust, reset its relationship with those that we inspect and develop a new way of reporting, both to parents and to the providers that leans into that nuance, leans into that complexity, which is why we have those areas and why we have those grades. But it's really important that what we're actually asking is nothing new.

 

Mark Leech: So, before we get on to how we inspect and I want to come back to a word that you've dropped in there a couple of times, which is toolkit. So, we'll come back to that, but just to pick up on the report cards, then people will see more grades, so five grades, and they'll certainly see a lot more areas that those grades are applied to. So Lee, do you want to just run through? And I know it's different if you're if you're a nursery to a school to a college to a apprenticeship provider, but what sort of things are we looking at?

 

Lee Owston: So you'll of course see lots of things that you're very familiar with. In fact, there shouldn't be anything in our toolkit that you think, oh, that's brand new. I've never heard of that before, with the exception of inclusion, and I think Claire will come in later and talk about inclusion. But for example, you will see leadership and governance, that leaders and governors are responsible for taking forward the high-quality education and care for the children and the learners in their particular community. You'll see in there, curriculum, what is it that we want children and learners to be working through in terms of their program of study. Teaching is in there. We've importantly called it developing teaching, because it's about how leaders are offering support and development to their staff, so they can be the absolute best in terms of what they deliver for children and young people. You'll see in their behaviour, attendance, personal development, so lots of things that we already know and are familiar with. However, the important difference is that we've separated them out so that no longer aggregated into one overarching judgment, but actually we've disaggregated them. We've separated them out into their constituent parts, because it's important that we're able to evaluate and grade all of the great things that leaders are doing. And let's celebrate that success where it exists, and an awful lot of it exists. But also, let's use the opportunity of inspection to reassure leaders that whatever they've got on their desk today, whatever priorities they're working through, that actually they're the right ones. They've got the right actions in place, and even if they're not seeing the finished article yet, that we can say, but you're going in the right direction, and there are some green shoots. And then the other function of inspection, linked to what we were describing earlier, around attention needed, is that with fresh eyes, as an independent person visiting a college or a school or a nursery, I can say, and look, you might just want to turn your attention to these things next. They're not on your radar today, but I think they should be in the future, because if you don't, they're probably going to be a concern when we come back in 4,5,6 years time, depending on the remit. So, in terms of how we work through inspection, it's important to see all of the proposals as one big package, because ultimately, it's about how it all fits together, not only what we look at, but as I'm really passionate about how inspection feels. When I or my inspectors come out and visit leaders in their settings, what does it feel like and that interaction, that conversation, and that dialog, and we've got a range of measures in our proposals that I encourage everybody to look at, because it is about seeing all of it together so that we can change the culture and make inspection the best it possibly can be.

 

Mark Leech: I want to bring Claire in because we heard a bit there about inclusion. It is a new thing that we're focusing on through the inspection. It will get a standalone grade of its own. It's been something that people have been talking about in the education sector and discussing how this is going to work. So, Claire, what light can you shed on first of all, what we mean by inclusion, and I know there's been some work done talking to various people in the sector who are experts in this field, to help define what we should be looking at. And then how we inspect it and how we apply that.

 

Claire Stewart: It's a really tricky question, isn't it, what do we mean by inclusion? And you'll see in our consultation that we've got a working definition, and we've used that to help us inform our work through the toolkits on inclusion and that grade. And we're really keen to hear people's views on that working definition. What we're really looking for, though, is that providers and settings know their students, they know their pupils, they understand what barriers they might be facing to education. Disadvantage and vulnerability isn't a fixed state, is it? You know, pupils can move in and out of being vulnerable, and it's about how leaders can show us that they understand their pupils and that they're able to try and meet their needs and remove some of those barriers, and, of course, how they support those students with SEND (special educational needs and/or disabilities) as well. So, I think that's really, really important. I'm really excited that we've got this standalone grade on inclusion. I think that really shows just how important it is for everyone at Ofsted and for the wider education sector. It's really really important. I'm also really excited that if you look at the toolkits, it's actually throughout a lot of those other grades as well. So we're thinking about how inclusive is the curriculum, how inclusive is the teaching, what are the behaviour policies like, and how do we meet the needs of some of those really vulnerable, disadvantaged children, those students that might have SEND and also thinking about how providers also think about those really highly able pupils as well, and how they meet their needs.

 

Mark Leech: It is quite broad in that sense, isn't it? It is really looking at pupils from different sorts of backgrounds, pupils with different levels of ability and how they are included.

 

Martyn Oliver: So I was really keen to see inclusion be at the heart of it. And look, it's early days, but I was talking to a very senior person representing the work of local authorities, and they were saying that, since we've started talking about inclusion the last 13-14 months, if you get it right for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, you get it right for everyone. This very senior person said, since you've been talking about inclusion, we're noticing the system suddenly opening more resource bases. We're noticing changes in admissions. Makes you realise how important it is that we get this right, because the intended consequence of what Ofsted does is so impactful, just as the unintended consequences. And that's why we're doing a consultation because we don't want to have an unintended consequences. And we definitely do want to have those intended consequences that will raise standards and improve the lives, especially of the most vulnerable.

 

Mark Leech: No, definitely. And talking about what we're seeing a bit of in the consultation, and I'll bring Claire back in, perhaps, on this is a bit of concern around around the inclusion grade that to take schools as the sort of example here that schools might be sort of penalised for failures in the wider SEND system. So, for a long time, people have spoken about the SEND system being under enormous strain. It's often described as a broken system. I think it's really important talking about those unintended consequences that we don't end up with schools sort of carrying the can for wider problems in the in the system. So, Claire, can you talk a little bit about that and perhaps reassure some of the listeners about how we'll go about looking at SEND within that area of inclusion?

 

Claire Stewart: Absolutely, there's a lot of positivity in what we're seeing initially in the consultation responses around that focus on inclusion, it is so important, and it's something that parents are really keen on, but absolutely recognise the kind of concerns that schools will have. What we are really looking for is that schools know and understand the needs of their pupils and how they try to lower those barriers to learning for those pupils, whatever they might be. We understand the context of those schools that they're sitting in, we do hear about the wider SEND system, and we understand the challenges there. So, we're not expecting schools to kind of do things that are totally outside of their control. What we are wanting to see is that teachers and leaders understand their pupils and that they are trying to mitigate those barriers as much as they can with the resources that they've got.

 

Mark Leech: I think that's really helpful to hear. So we've talked a lot about the different grades and the different areas that we're going to be looking at and, once or twice we've mentioned toolkits, so we should really get on to some of some of that area now, which is more about how we are proposing to inspect from November this year, so that's when we're looking to bring these changes in. Lee, do you want to talk a little bit about what these toolkits are, and a bit more as you alluded to earlier, around the feel of inspection, and what we're trying to do there. It's one of the areas that has come up a lot in the kind of debate that's been going on about Ofsted, about how head teachers and leaders in nurseries and further education colleges, how they feel when they're being inspected.

 

Lee Owston: Yeah, that that term toolkit, we've chosen that term. Look, we might not stick with it depends what people tell us as part of the part of the consultation, but it is a word we're using to describe a set of materials that are as helpful and supportive as possible in terms of continuous improvement. And yes, we'll be using them at the point of inspection to support an evaluation and a grade, but we would hope that leaders, wherever they are in the education system, would be able to use those same materials to support whatever it is that they have to do next in their day-to-day work. And in doing that, we've been very conscious to craft each toolkit, and there's one for each remit that we inspect and or regulate – so, registered early years, state funded schools, non-association, independent schools, further education and skills and initial teacher education – so, we've tried to make sure that we speak directly to those different remits. We've crafted them all around the statutory. guidance and the professional frameworks that exist within each of those remits. So, to give you an example, our registered early years toolkit is crafted around the EYFS, the Early Years Foundation Stage, the statutory document the government have set as the expectation in terms of what all registered early years settings should be doing. So, this is not about Ofsted telling people what they should do. I want to be able to come in as an inspector and evaluate how well you are following through on all of the things that you're expected to do that has been set by government. And in schools, we have things like ‘Keeping children safe in education’, we have teacher standards, we have the special educational needs code of practice. And of course, in colleges, we have the 16 to 19 study programme guidance, we have apprenticeship standards. So, every remit to varying degrees has a core set of materials set by government that lay out the expectations of how they're supposed to work. Inspection will just key into those and, as we described earlier, the secure column, that middle column in the toolkit, is really carefully crafted against those statutory expectations and professional frameworks. It's deliberately more detailed in that middle column, because we've tried to capture all of the guidance that exists. So, we hope that when people look at the toolkit, they will recognize that it isn't anything other than what they would usually be expected to work within. The other challenge was to make them as crystal clear and as accessible as possible. I recognise that sometimes we can all look, as it currently exists, one bullet point, let's just say, under ‘good’ currently, and because they're written in such high level language, and there's such a summary of lots of things that we can all come to understand and interpret them in different ways, and that's where we can get lots of criticism about inconsistency because are we all looking at the same thing and understanding it in the same way? So, I want to reassure people that, yes, the toolkits do look like there is more. But what I really tried to do is take out of my mind, as the principal inspector for the organisation, the thought processes that I go through, and try to put them in everyday language onto the page so that nothing is hidden, nothing is secret, everybody is well aware of the steps that we go through and the expectations that we have linked to, as I said, that statutory guidance and those professional frameworks. Now there's more work for us to do, because I'm pretty sure there'll be bits of it, bits of the toolkits, standards that we could be even sharper at describing. But I think the message about not being additional or other and making it as accessible as possible is certainly the right direction that we should be going in.

 

Martyn Oliver: We launched a consultation, we said openly that we know that strong needs to be better defined. And we could have run all sorts of test visits out in the sector for months and then launched the consultation, but I was determined, and again, it's a part of the Big Listen to be open and transparent, and that's why we didn't do that. We made sure that the system knows that there won't be any clandestine testing taking place. We'll be out there openly and transparently saying we're now out in schools or out in early years, out in colleges, testing. And that's why we expect to see that bit get better. And so, in the consultation responses, I'd really love it if people came back with supported definitions to how to strengthen, strong. I think that'd be great. And the other part of behind the toolkit now, we do not want people to go writing self-evaluation form. We don't want that. If there's nine areas we're looking at, we don't want head teachers to produce nine ring box files of evidence, but we do know that the best leaders will evaluate, self-evaluate where they stand. And because the toolkits are written against those professional standards, and if anyone hasn't done this, if people are listening to this and they're a teacher or a parent of a child in a school, just pop onto the internet and have a look at professional standards to be a teacher. The day that you qualified from initial teacher education to become a qualified teacher. It's got two parts, part A and part B. Look at part A in particular. There's an awful lot in there about delivering high quality curriculum, high quality assessment, supporting children to achieve well. Once you read that language, then look at our toolkit. You'll see where it's coming from. And I've had messages already from an executive head, who runs a large group of schools in the north of England, not my old one that I used to run, I quickly hasten to add, and they said that they're finding the toolkit so helpful because they're evaluating their school and they're now leaning into what we've already put in our draft to help them be as sharp as they can, about the great elements that make up great provision, and that's where the tool comes in.

 

Mark Leech: We’ve heard an awful lot. We've talked about grades, we've talked about the evaluation areas, we've talked about the toolkits and how the inspections will work. Talked about inclusion, which has been really helpful. I think we could probably talk for a lot longer. I think I'm going to suggest to people listening that they go to our website, gov.uk/Ofsted, where you can read all of the proposals and take part in the consultation. We genuinely want to hear back from people out there, from parents in particular. We want to hear back from people who are working in the sector. We want to hear back about the sort of big picture, but also some of the details. Are we getting the wording right in the toolkit, are we explaining ourselves clearly enough in the report card, so lots and lots of areas for people to feedback on. You have until the 28th of April. So, it just leaves me to thank Sir Martyn, Lee and Claire for joining me today, and thank you all for listening.