Future of Education Inspection

March 2015

Principles of inspection reform

Ensure we inspect the right things well in a cost-effective way.

Provide comparable and accurate information for parents, carers, learners and employers to inform their choices.

Trigger timely improvement action before standards slip too far.

Be of rigorous quality to be of value and credible to the profession and public.

Be proportionate with sufficient emphasis on underperforming or declining providers – both to ensure maximum impact, value for money, and to prevent good providers expending time and energy on unnecessary inspection preparation.

Overview of reform proposals ‘Better inspection for all’

Further education and skills

Non-association

independent schools

New common inspection framework (CIF)

Short inspections for good providers

Two-year-old offer

Baseline exercise

Direct contracting of inspectors and changes to workforce

Maintained schools and academies

Early Years

‘Better inspection for all’ consultation

A very large response:

4,400 through the online consultation

330 attendees at regional events

115 parents and 180 pupils at focus groups.

Responses to all questions were highly positive and proposals were supported by all groups.

Inspection pilots –last term we conducted consultative pilots in schools and further education and skills providers to test our methodology.

New Common Inspection Framework

A Common Inspection Framework for schools, further education and skills (FES) providers, non-association independent schools and registered early years providers from September 2015. Inspectors will make the same graded judgements on the same areas across all the remits:

leadership and management;

teaching, learning and assessment;

personal development, behaviour and welfare;

outcomes for children and learners.

and greater emphasis on safeguarding and curriculum.

This will provide greater clarity, coherence and comparability for users, learners, parents and employers.

Short Inspections for good providers

Frequent, shorter inspections for good schools, academies and FES providers – approximately every three years.

More proportionate: the right sort of inspections at the right time.

Designed to ask if the quality of provision is being sustained, and what is the capacity of leaders to drive improvement?

Help support rising standards with much greater professional dialogue.

More regular reporting to parents, carers, learners and employers.

Identify decline early or give schools and providers opportunity to demonstrate improvement sooner.

Our future operating model

We are continually looking at ways in which we can improve and build on our commitment to achieving the highest standards in the quality and consistency of our inspections.

Alongside the major changes to the way we inspect, we are making significant changes in how we manage the delivery of our inspections.

From 1 September 2015, we will contract with inspectors directly to carry out schools and further education and skills inspections.

Additional Inspectors will be called Ofsted Inspectors (OIs)

These new arrangements will allow us to have direct involvement and control over the selection and management of OIs and more flexibility over their deployment.

Next steps

April and May - Further pilot inspections to test the Common Inspection Framework and short inspections, and gathering input from key stakeholders on inspection documents ready for launch.

June: Launch inspection materials and hold 8 regional conferences to help providers and inspectors get ready for inspection arrangements in September 2015. We will publish:

(i) the new Common Inspection Framework

(ii) supporting handbooks

(iii) good practice materials to support providers and inspectors in preparing for new inspection arrangements from September 2015.

Please encourage your members to sign up to attend!! Details coming to gov.uk/ofsted very shortly.

Come and work with us If you’re an education professional within schools, children’s

centres or post-16 provision, we’d like you to consider joining our inspection teams on a basis that works for you and us. Please register your interest at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted/about/recruitment#how-to-become-an-inspector.

We currently have vacancies for HMI roles and secondments; please visit www.ofstedhmi.co.uk for further information.

Why? Opportunity for peer review; continuous professional development and training; use the insight, knowledge and skills gained from training and inspections in your own provision.