Ofsted has published its annual report today - the seventh and final one under current chief inspector Amanda Spielman.
In it, she warns that the social contract between schools and families has been fractured, resulting in poor behaviour and attendance problems.
The report also sets out the challenges faced by schools as a result of recruitment and retention challenges.
However, Ms Spielman says that she believes the report shows that there are reasons to be optimistic about the education system.
Here are the key findings from Ofsted’s 2022-23 annual report:
Teacher shortages impacting schools
In her commentary, Ms Spielman highlights recruitment and retention issues as one of the “current realities in education and social care”.
Ofsted’s annual report notes that staff shortages are having numerous negative impacts on schools, including “reducing expert teaching”, “increasing stress”, “limiting intervention when children struggle”, and “creating a barrier to teachers accessing training and development”.
The watchdog also says it is still seeing a “growing shortage” of qualified and experienced early years staff, reporting that in nurseries and preschools, one in five staff “has no relevant early years qualification”, and the proportion of unqualified staff has increased from 16 per cent in 2020 to 21 per cent this year.
‘Fractured’ social contract
The social contract between parents and schools has been “fractured”, says Ms Spielman in Ofsted’s annual report.
“Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that this contract has been fractured, both in absenteeism and in behaviour,” she says.
School absence was flagged by the report as a “stubborn problem” since the pandemic, particularly in secondary schools. The report notes that both “overall absence” and “persistent and severe absences” are all too high.
Ofsted says it also remains concerned about behavioural issues. The report says that its research suggests pupil behaviour has worsened in many schools since the pandemic.
It adds that persistent disruptive behaviour can harm learning and the wider school experience for many pupils. In the latest statistics, it accounted for nearly half the reasons recorded for suspensions.
Ofsted says that the top three reasons for both suspensions and permanent exclusions in secondary schools are “persistent disruptive behaviour”, “physical assault against a pupil” and “verbal abuse or threatening behaviour against an adult”.
Slight drop in number of ‘outstanding’ schools
The report says that it has carried out the “highest number of inspections completed in the last five years”, with the inspectorate conducting 7,240 inspections of state-funded schools in 2022-23.
Ofsted reported that 89 per cent of all schools were judged “good” or “outstanding” at their most recent inspection, a slight increase from 88 per cent at the end of last year.
However, there has been a slight drop in the proportion of schools judged “outstanding”, decreasing from 18 per cent last year to 16 per cent this year.
This shift is down to many formerly “outstanding” schools not retaining that grade when reinspected, the school inspectorate says.
For most of the last decade, “outstanding”-rated schools were exempt from routine inspection but Ofsted started reinspecting them as part of its regular inspections from the 2021-22 academic year.
Three-quarters (75 per cent) of schools previously rated “requires improvement” improved to “good” or “outstanding”, and 97 per cent of previously “inadequate”-rated schools improved.
Subject reports show improving picture but Ofsted concerned about RE
Ofsted’s report highlights a “broadly improving picture” across most, but not all, subjects.
In a summary of its thematic reports, it says the status of many foundation subjects has improved. It adds that in many cases, leaders ensure more time for teaching subjects such as “geography, history and art and design”.
The teaching of reading is also “generally strong”, the report says.
But the inspectorate also notes that in “too many primary and secondary schools”, the religious education that pupils receive is of a “poor quality and not fit for purpose”, leaving pupils ill-equipped for more complex aspects of society as a result.
The report recommended that the government should provide clear expectations about RE provision in schools, as the “lack of clarity and support from government makes schools’ job harder”.
A similar trend was also seen in PE, with schools not always ensuring that the broad range of activities required for the subject “contribute enough to developing pupils’ knowledge and skills”.
In many secondary schools, pupils do not benefit from a “broad and ambitious music curriculum”, the report also says.
Widespread SEND concerns
High demand for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and mental health services is particularly straining limited resources, Ofsted’s report warns.
It adds that many local authorities are struggling to meet demands and that many pupils who are awaiting specialist placements are being referred to alternative provision indefinitely or their parents see no option other than homeschooling, “which suppresses the real scale of the issue”.
The report also notes that in all phases of education, support for pupils with SEND is too variable.
It adds: “In some schools, teachers focus too heavily on adapting activities so that pupils can complete the immediate task, for example by providing sentence starters. However, they do not consider how they could address gaps in those pupils’ knowledge or skills to enable them to learn increasingly complex content.”
Spielman ‘incredibly disappointed’ over powers to tackle illegal schools
During a briefing launching the new report, Ms Spielman said she was “incredibly disappointed” that legislation to give Ofsted greater powers to investigate illegal schools has fallen away.
While it was a “high priority” to Ms Spielman in her role as chief inspector, she said it was “desperately disappointing” that children attending such settings are “still in limbo”.
This year, Ofsted opened 190 investigations into suspected illegal schools, conducted 110 inspections and issued 25 warning notices to settings that appeared to be breaking the law.
The report highlighted how the Schools Bill, which was “intended to close loopholes in the registration system and to strengthen Ofsted’s powers to investigate unregistered schools”, was dropped in December 2022.
As a result, the inspectorate says that weaknesses in the legal framework “continue to hamper our efforts to investigate unregistered schools and prosecute offenders”.
As well as illegal schools, Ofsted noted that not all alternative provision needs to be registered or inspected, which has led “to a wide disparity of provision for some of the most vulnerable children”.
The report also called for legislation for a register of children not in school to “improve information - locally and nationally - and to introduce new safeguards so that no child misses out on a suitable education”.
Ofsted faces budget constraints
In her report commentary, Ms Spielman says that, relative to school budgets, the current government allocation to school inspection is about a quarter of what it was 20 years ago.
She adds: “To illustrate this, the entirety of our work on state secondary schools (including all training and overheads) now has to be done with the budget of one moderately large secondary school.
“This means that school inspections are necessarily shorter and more intense; reports are necessarily briefer; and many strands of our work that help build school sector goodwill and reinforce our value to the sector, government and others are having to be progressively curtailed.”
