School leaders will be more involved in ungraded inspections from September as Ofsted aims to “reduce the burden” on subject leads, the schools watchdog has confirmed.
Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver announced that ungraded inspections would no longer include deep dives at the NAHT school leaders’ union conference in May.
In a new blog post, Lee Owston, Ofsted’s national director for education, said that headteachers and senior leaders will be “central” to the new ungraded inspections from September.
During deep dives, Ofsted chooses a group of subjects to scrutinise by talking to leaders, teachers and pupils, conducting joint lesson visits with school leaders and looking at pupils’ work.
However, some primary leaders have warned that they are expected to have a deeper knowledge of subject areas than their setting allows them to.
Ofsted will be publishing the new inspection handbooks in September this year.
The change comes as Ofsted is due to report the findings of its Big Listen consultation, which aims to seek views from the education sector on inspection reform, in September.
Here is all you need to know about the new approach to ungraded inspections from the autumn term.
What will the pre-inspection call involve?
The day before the on-site inspection begins, the lead inspector will call the school leader to discuss the upcoming inspection and give them a chance to discuss the school’s context and anything the leader still feels they need to tackle.
Ofsted will “actively encourage” headteachers to have another staff member with them who can also contribute to the conversation.
In the call, the lead inspector will ask the head questions - this could be on data, from looking at the school’s website or from the school’s previous inspection report.
Areas of focus for the inspection will also be agreed on the phone call. The call will consider things that “the inspector wants to look at” and those that are particularly important to the school - such as “something the school has been working on, or something related to its particular context”, the blog said.
How will Ofsted inspect subjects?
Instead of deep dives into individual subjects, inspectors will now look at a group of subjects together, the blog added.
“In a primary school, they’re likely to look at early English and early mathematics together as a group so they can make sure that schools are getting these important basics right,” it continued.
In a secondary school, there could be a focus on the “core subjects” and another focus on “vocational subjects”.
Ofsted also could focus on specific aspects across subjects, such as what a school has been doing to improve assessment. The lead inspector could then go with the headteacher or another senior leader to visit lessons in a group of subjects and discuss the impact of this new assessment work.
Mr Owston also said that there will usually be one or two other areas of focus, too, which will be decided in the initial phone call and “tailored” to the school.
“These might be related to personal development, behaviour, attendance or something that includes all of these,” the blog added.
How will inspections change for heads and subject leads?
Ofsted has said that it is aiming to reduce the burden of inspection on subject leaders. When the watchdog introduced the Education Inspection Framework in 2019, it placed an increased emphasis on subject leads through its deep dives.
These subject-specific deep dives will no longer take place in an ungraded inspection.
Mr Owston’s blog adds: “Headteachers and senior leaders have said that they sometimes feel out of the loop with deep dives because they’re not part of that process. But headteachers and senior leaders will be central to the new ungraded inspections.
“These inspections will focus more on a dialogue between headteachers and their senior leaders. So, while we will still want to have conversations with subject leads, they won’t be as intensive.”
Mr Owston said that some of the conversations that Ofsted will have during ungraded inspections may be “challenging”. He added that the changes being made “will allow for a proper conversation between professionals”.
For the latest education news and analysis delivered directly to your inbox every weekday morning, sign up to the Tes Daily newsletter
