Ofsted’s new inspection framework will mean school leaders no longer face “surprises” at the end of the day about what inspectors have found, leaders have been told.
The watchdog’s national director of education, Lee Owston, outlined plans for the new report-card inspections at the Schools North East’s annual summit in Newcastle last week.
He also told the event that Ofsted has been in discussion with the Department for Education after concerns were raised about the inspectorate’s new inclusion category not looking at why pupils leave a school.
On the format of the new inspections, Mr Owston said that because leaders will be alongside inspectors for a lot of the activity, “we can reflect as we go, in conversation”.
He added: “No more will we have end-of-day surprises. Nothing should come as a surprise because you’ve seen what we’ve seen, or if you haven’t, somebody’s come to get you to say,’ This is what we’ve observed. Is that typical? Is there more that we could do? Is there somebody else I need to speak to?’”
He also told the event that Ofsted will be sharing “provisional grades as we work with you, with early feedback. We will cover all of the points you can expect to see in the report card. Again, no surprises.”
Ofsted looking into inclusion concerns
Mr Owston was asked at the event why Ofsted’s focus on inclusion does not including looking at which pupils are leaving a school.
The question followed widespread concern about how Ofsted plans to inspect inclusion, which is one of the six evaluation areas the inspectorate will grade schools on using a new five-point scale through its new report cards. These report-card inspections are set to be rolled out next month.
Geoff Barton, who is leading the IPPR Inclusion Taskforce, told Vlog last month that it would be be wrong to judge schools as strong on inclusion if they are happy for some local students “to be sent in a taxi elsewhere”.
And he said that unless Ofsted takes admissions into account, “any discussion of inclusion will be diluted”.
Ofsted has said that it doesn’t have the power to inspect on admissions, which is the responsibility of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.
At a Vlog webinar event this week MAT leader Jonny Uttley suggested that the watchdog was confused about its role in admissions, which he said goes beyond formal admissions rules.
He said: “Ofsted won’t look at who attends a school, who doesn’t, who leaves and why. This is about so much more than whether admissions policies stand up to legal scrutiny - it is at the heart of discussions about inclusion.”
At the Schools North East event, Mr Owston said: “This is a question we often get asked. There are conversations we have with the DfE about how we can resolve this presumed tension about who is looking at which parts of the system and how do we join all the information. ”
Mr Owston also talked about how the structure of inspections will change.
“Rather than starting inspections with a meeting at a desk, where everybody feels they need pieces of paper and files of evidence to support them, we want inspection to start with a learning walk out and about around your school,” he said.
Schools can talk about internal data
Under the previous inspection framework, Ofsted said it would not look at internal data from a school.
Although this is not changing in the new inspections, Mr Owston told the conference that schools will be able to tell inspectors what they think their own data tells them about the quality of their provision.
He added: “Now, I don’t want you to think that we’re suddenly going to go back to where I take it off you and go and analyse it and come back and say, ‘That’s not what it’s telling me.’
“That is not what we are returning to. I will simply ask the question, ‘What’s it telling you? …What’s it telling you about where your strengths lie, and what’s it telling you about what you want to do?’”
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