Ofsted is planning to create a new toolkit for schools when it launches its inspection framework next year, with modifications specifically to meet the needs of special schools and alternative provision.
The watchdog will include plans for the new toolkit as part of the consultation it launches in January 2025 about the creation of a new inspection framework.
Adam Sproston, the lead His Majesty’s Inspector (HMI) for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision, said that Ofsted wanted to ensure its reformed inspection framework is “more suitable” for the inspection of SEND in mainstream schools, special schools and alternative provision.
Ofsted to ‘make appropriate modifications’ to main toolkit
Speaking at a Tes Trusts in Education event this week, he said: “We are going to build on the main schools toolkit with appropriate modifications to special schools and AP…so that the distinctiveness of the sector is represented more strongly in our work.”
The toolkit is set to provide clear criteria for inspections and support leaders in self-evaluating their practice.
This aim was previously set out by Ofsted in its response to the Big Listen consultation, where it committed to providing a set of “rubrics”.
Its response document had said these would “make the inspection process more collaborative” and would be used to “guide conversations between inspectors and providers about their strengths and areas for improvement”.
Now the watchdog is describing this information as a toolkit for schools, which will accompany the new inspection framework.
‘Strong consensus’ inspectors should pay closer attention to SEND
Describing how the toolkit would be adapted to ensure it was relevant to special schools and AP, Mr Sproston added: “What we’re looking at doing here is designing a toolkit that will work for schools, but actually acknowledges that at the moment, in the framework, there are some bullet points that are less likely to be applicable [to special schools and AP].
“So we want to make a toolkit for everyone. We’re working with the sector and the external reference group to gather feedback on these proposals.”
Mr Sproston told the event in Manchester that, during Ofsted’s Big Listen consultation, parents with a child or children with SEND told the inspectorate they “do feel excluded from the inspection process, and they believe that their views are not always adequately considered”.
He also said that there was a “strong consensus from children, parents and professionals that they want to see inspectors paying closer attention to the quality of SEND support in schools”.
New inspections to focus on inclusion
Ofsted is set to launch a consultation on a new inspection framework in January. Unions expressed concerns earlier this term that Ofsted should not be allowed to develop plans for this framework behind closed doors and that the sector should be involved ahead of the formal consultation.
At the start of the academic year, the government announced that overall single-word effectiveness judgements were being scrapped with immediate effect and that a new report card system would be introduced from September 2025.
Ofsted has said that its new school inspections will have a focus on inclusion.
At a recent speech to the Confederation of School Trusts conference, chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver told trust leaders that as part of this Ofsted will not “penalise” schools that use suspensions and exclusions “legitimately”.
He added that “schools must meet the needs of all their local children”.
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