Ofsted is “confused” about its role in school admissions, a trust chief executive has warned.
Jonny Uttley, CEO of The Education Alliance multi-academy trust, made the comments in a Vlog webinar on Ofsted’s report card system, which aired this afternoon.
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He welcomed the increased focus on inclusion in Ofsted’s new framework, but raised concerns that the watchdog is “refusing” to scrutinise schools that “push” students out.
“Ofsted, in the past, has shown no interest in who attends the school and who doesn’t, and continues to show no interest in that whatsoever,” said Mr Uttley, who sits on a taskforce on inclusion set up by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank.
From November, the schools watchdog will judge schools across six different evaluation areas using a five-point grading scale.
While inclusion is a central focus for the framework, objections and variations to admission arrangements are left to the school adjudicator to rule on.
Chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver rejected calls to inspect admissions when pressed by MPs on Tuesday, saying Ofsted did not have the power to do so.
However, Mr Uttley said that he was not referring to “the legal issues around [the] application of admissions policies”, which he said “are indeed for the schools adjudicator”.
Instead, he wanted Ofsted to look at intake data showing how inclusive a school is - for instance, how many children have moved into elective home education, and the use of managed moves.
“Ofsted have seemingly refused to look at that,” he said.
‘Huge missed opportunity’ on inclusion
“It’s entirely possible for a school to push away vulnerable young people under this framework and still score highly on inclusion because the young people who are in the school are being well served,” he warned.
Ofsted seemed “confused” about its role in school admissions, he said.
“Institutionally, there’s been a huge missed opportunity in rethinking the approach to how we inspect individual schools as part of a school system,” Mr Uttley said.
More on Ofsted’s new inspection framework
Experts have shared Mr Uttley’s concerns.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the union has identified the lack of admissions inspection “as a gap when considering a truly inclusive school system”.
“If the government is serious about inclusion, ASCL would welcome a review of the admissions code as part of their vision for inclusive mainstream, rather than trying to achieve this through yet more inspection.”
Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at ASCL, told MPs that Ofsted’s proposals mean only inclusion within the school is inspected, not “the representation of the SEND needs in the local area”.
And Geoff Barton, chair of the IPPR taskforce and former ASCL general secretary, has also raised concerns that Ofsted’s inclusion plan would be “diluted” without an admissions focus.
Danger of talking leaders into ‘doom and gloom’
Amid concerns about the new inspection system, Cathie Paine, CEO of REAch2, said that trust leaders need to do more to “talk up” the inspection system to staff.
Speaking in the Vlog webinar, she said: “We’ve got to get our shoulders to the wheel around talking this up in terms of school leaders and teachers’ ability to be able to manage this change with support.”
“We are in grave danger sometimes of just talking ourselves into doom and gloom,” Ms Paine warned.
Manny Botwe, headteacher at Tytherington School and former ASCL president, agreed that leaders needed to help staff feel supported during the changes.
“There’s a phrase, ‘control the controllables’, which I often talk to staff around,” Mr Botwe said.
“Your Ofsted outcome is not fixed; that doesn’t define you. There’s so much more that goes on in schools,” he added.
Ofsted declined to comment.
