Ofsted has produced a new video promoting its new visits to schools following an angry reaction to the plans from school leaders.
In the video, the inspectorate’s acting national director, education, Chris Russell stresses that the new visits are not inspections and will not be graded.
He says that Ofsted will publish “a brief letter” afterwards to allow parents to “understand what is happening inside their child’s school”.
The video says that the inspectorate is piloting the new visits this month with the full programme launching next month.
The visits are designed to see how schools are supporting children’s return to full-time education following the disruption caused by the Covid-19 lockdown in March this year.
However, the watchdog’s plan to publish letters with findings about individual schools after these visits has sparked a strong reaction from school leaders’ unions last week.
The Association of School and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the National Governance Association wrote to the chief inspector Amanda Spielman urging Ofsted to rethink its plans.
In a Youtube video published this week, Mr Russell says that the return to schools in 2020 will be “quite unlike anything we have experienced before,” for pupils, teachers and Ofsted itself.
He adds: “From September, we are piloting school and college visits. The full programme of these visits will then start in October and will include schools and colleges across England.
“These aren’t inspections and they won’t be graded. We want to understand how schools and colleges are approaching the new school year.
“We’ll publish a brief letter afterwards so that parents can understand what is happening inside their child’s school.
“And we’ll also report on the national picture so that the education sector, the government and the public can get a real sense of how education is returning after lockdown.”
He later adds: “The most important thing now is getting children and young people back into school and college and to make sure they can pick up their education for the new year.
“So we want to help with that in the autumn by understanding and sharing how things are working for pupils, staff and students across England.”
Mr Russell said Ofsted was “looking forward to having good constructive conversations with school and college leaders and telling the wider world how this generation is getting back to learning.”
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