Ofsted has said it will resume school inspections next week using only its full-time HMI staff.
The inspectorate will not be asking serving heads and school leaders who are contracted as Ofsted inspectors to carry out inspection work - which means the majority of its workforce will not be available.
The watchdog posted on Twitter today to confirm that school inspections will still be going ahead from next week.
It has said schools that are significantly affected by Covid staff absence can request an inspection deferral and has told Tes this will decided on a case-by-case basis.
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1/2 We’re not carrying out any inspections this week. When inspections resume, we will encourage schools, colleges and nurseries that are significantly impacted by COVID-related staff absence to request a deferral.
- Ofsted (@Ofstednews) January 5, 2022
The tweet said: “We’re not carrying out any inspections this week. When inspections resume we will encourage schools, colleges and nurseries that are significantly impacted by Covid-related staff absence to request a deferral.
Ofsted school inspections to continue
“About 800 Ofsted inspectors work in schools and inspect part-time. We’re not asking any of them to work for us just now - so they can concentrate on their jobs as school leaders. Our full-time inspectors (HMI) will continue inspecting. We have just under 200 schools HMI.”
The government had indicated at the weekend that Ofsted inspections were set to be scaled back at the start of this term as part of its response to rising Omicron cases.
The inspectorate currently contracts around 1,170 school Ofsted inspectors, more than 800 of whom are serving headteachers and senior leaders, according to figures from the watchdog provided to Tes last month.
Tes has asked Ofsted how many of its scheduled inspections it expects to be able to carry out this term and how it will prioritise schools it will inspect with a reduced workforce.
Ofsted had already planned to pause inspections for the first week of the spring term so secondary schools could carry out Covid-19 testing of returning students.
Last term the Association of School and College Leaders repeatedly called for schools to be able to defer inspections on request because of the Covid disruption they faced.
Figures published at the end of last term showed that more than 20 schools that requested a referral were rejected by Ofsted.
Earlier in the term Tes revealed that around one-third of Covid inspection deferral requests from schools had been turned down by the inspection watchdog.
