Ofsted’s chief inspector has told MPs that new inspection report cards will allow the government and the watchdog to hold schools to “higher levels of account than ever before” and will also provide more nuanced findings.
Appearing before MPs on the Commons Education Select Committee this morning, Sir Martyn Oliver said Ofsted wants to have a greater understanding of the contexts in which schools work, while continuing to hold them to account.
Ofsted is set to consult on a new inspection framework as it moves to a report card model for inspections from September this year.
Sir Martyn told the committee that he believed the changes being planned would allow the government and Ofsted to “hold the system to higher levels of account than ever before, while still removing that single-word [inspection judgement]”.
Here are seven things we learned today from Sir Martyn’s appearance in front of the committee.
1. Ofsted’s quality-of-education judgement does not allow for nuance
Sir Martyn told MPs that Ofsted will “recognise the context in which people work and still have high standards” by “separating out some of the judgements” in the inspection system.
He highlighted that Ofsted’s current quality-of-education judgement comprises the curriculum, the quality of teaching and the outcomes that pupils achieve.
“And because all of those three really important areas are wrapped into one single-word judgement, it allows no nuance,” Sir Martyn said.
He added that the “beauty” of report cards is that you can have a judgement that says “that is not good enough and that bit is very good and you can be both because you are not held by a single-word judgement trying to describe it all”.
Today’s meeting took place weeks before Ofsted is set to launch its consultation on the new inspection framework and report card, which will replace single-word judgements.
It is trialling its plans for new inspections in a small number of volunteer schools from this week.
Proposals for the inspection report card were leaked to the media late last year, with Tes revealing that teaching and curriculum could be inspected as separate judgements.
The quality-of-education judgement was created with the launch of the current education Inspection framework in September 2019. Under Sir Martyn’s predecessor, Amanda Spielman, Ofsted shifted to having an increased focus on the curriculum.
2. Sir Martyn wants a focus on vulnerable pupils and area-wide performance
Sir Martyn told the committee that focusing on vulnerable pupils and mapping a child’s experience across education and services were his “two clear priorities” on taking the job of chief inspector.
He added that a report card could “lean into both of those” in his view, but Ofsted must make sure that any changes do not “drive workload” and are “proportionate”.
On the education of vulnerable children, Sir Martyn told MPs that he did not think this had been talked about “enough in the past”.
Sir Martyn also wants Ofsted to focus on the “journey of a child in an area”. The watchdog “has a duty” to tell parents what it is it like to be a child growing up in an area and accessing local services, he added.
3. Chief inspector sets out the areas that report cards should focus on
The Ofsted chief gave MPs an overview of what he believed the new inspection report cards should cover.
This included leadership and governance, teaching, behaviour and attitudes, inclusion, outcomes and curriculum.
On inclusion, he told MPs that Ofsted has a “duty” to support the government’s efforts to reform the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system.
“We have a duty here, even though we are independent, to support government in its ambitions for special educational needs children, because the system doesn’t work right now. It’s a lose-lose situation. It is broken.”
He also emphasised that the creation of a new report card is the responsibility of the Department for Education, rather than Ofsted.
4. Sir Martyn defends omitting a question on single-word judgements from Big Listen
When pressed by MPs on why Ofsted’s Big Listen consultation did not specifically ask a question about people’s views on single-word judgements, Sir Martyn said it would have been “irresponsible” for the inspectorate to have asked this.
“It would have been completely irresponsible of a non-departmental public body” to challenge the government’s accountability system, Sir Martyn said, adding that it would have caused “disarray”.
At the time of the consultation, the government could intervene if a school received an “inadequate” or two successive “requires improvement” judgements. Labour scrapped single-word judgements with immediate effect in September last year.
Sir Martyn’s comments come after concerns were raised by education unions and others in the sector that the importance of Ofsted single-word judgements was not emphasised enough in the original consultation.
He defended Ofsted’s consultation, stating that views on single-word judgements came through “loud and clear” in the Big Listen response, adding that the inspectorate included text boxes in the consultation for respondents to add additional feedback.
5. Ofsted has ‘work to do’ on employing inspectors with trust experience
Sir Martyn once again stressed his commitment to introducing inspections of multi-academy trusts.
“Ofsted should look at all groups and all responsible bodies running education, children’s services and skills everywhere,” Sir Martyn said.
Experts have previously warned that Ofsted does not have enough experience in its workforce to inspect trusts effectively.
Sir Martyn admitted that he has a “lot of work to do” to employ more inspectors with trust experience so that Ofsted can “match our expertise to the expertise of the people in the system”.
He also raised concerns about creating an “additional burden” through inspecting MATs, and said the idea of schools and trusts having two different types of inspections “bothers me a lot”.
But he agreed that trust inspections would be “worthwhile”, adding: “No one should be able to hide anywhere, in any shadow, and not be within the view of Ofsted.”
Labour has pledged to introduce Ofsted inspections of trusts.
6. No progress on annual safeguarding check
The Ofsted chief and Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, are yet to have “advanced conversations” about Labour’s manifesto commitment to introduce annual safeguarding inspections, the committee was told.
“We haven’t had a great deal of discussions, but we have been clear that it’s a sensible thing to do to have a separate safeguarding judgment,” he told the committee.
Until this happens, Sir Martyn said that Ofsted will continue to inspect safeguarding, but he added that he can “quite easily decouple that from our inspection framework and move it into that annual piece of work” once required to do so.
Sir Martyn also believes that Ofsted should be the organisation to carry out the annual check. However, he said he does not think safeguarding is the most important issue that schools are facing right now.
“If you said, ‘Do you think children safeguarding in schools is the burning bush?’, my answer would be ‘no’.”
7. Ofsted needs a role in complaints process
The Ofsted chief defended the watchdog overseeing the process for complaints about inspectors.
He was asked by committee chair Helen Hayes why Ofsted resisted having an independent body handling complaints about inspections.
The Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO) makes recommendations to Ofsted about the handling of the complaint, but cannot change or challenge the outcome of an inspection report.
Sir Martyn argued that Ofsted needs to have some part in the complaints process because it is the body that collects the evidence.
“You couldn’t make a judgement unless you sent a separate team...back into that school to take the evidence again”, he said, adding that this would involve committing the school to “complete another separate inspection”.
“So it has to be about us finding the evidence, gathering the evidence, and then making sure that that evidence meets the framework going forward,” Sir Martyn told MPs.
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