The debate about the effect of the new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework and it’s impact on disadvantaged students is well under way. Last week leading CEOs Sir Dan Moynihan, Harris Federation, and Martyn Oliver, Outwood Grange Academies Trust, labelled the framework ‘middle class’, and claimed it would ‘damage outcomes for disadvantaged children’.
These comments were centred around shortening Key Stage 3 to allow disadvantaged students three years to sit their GCSEs. Ofsted has argued no preference over length of Key Stage 3, but some indications have shown schools with longer GCSE programmes may be penalised under the new framework.
New investigation by Schools Week has suggested that a standard length of Key Stage 3 has little impact on outcomes. Looking at Harris Federation’s St John’s Wood and comparing 49 similar schools through FFT Datalab’s Schools Like Yours Tool, it found that it had comparable Progress 8 scores, with small differences for those with a shorter Key Stage 3.
This debate focuses on a very specific aspect of the new framework, and small sample sizes from the first inspections mean it is not yet possible to accurately judge the effects of the new framework. Furthermore, many schools will now be taking a fresh look at their curriculum, so current outcomes are a legacy of past measures, and it may be some years before the impact of new curricula are seen.
Early indications in the North East show that last term (September-November), under the new inspection framework, the region has seen proportionally more schools upgraded than anywhere else in the country. Around 23% of North East schools saw their grade improve, compared to a national average of 16%. Equally, the region had fewer schools downgraded, proportionally almost half as many as the national average.
This is very promising and given high levels of deprivation in the region, this suggests that the new Education Inspection Framework does not adversely affect schools in disadvantaged areas, and may even be seen to go towards levelling the playing field for these schools which performed poorly under the previous framework, which failed to take context into account. However, these indications are based on a small number of inspections completed, so no accurate conclusions can yet be drawn. Schools North East will continue to monitor outcomes to look at the effect of the new framework in the North East.