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Ofsted Report 2017: Its focus for the Future

In the 88-page Annual Report released by Ofsted this week, the inspectorate laid out their main foci for the future in the areas where they believe needs most support, and monitoring.

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, said: “Part of our role is to support their efforts by focusing on those remaining areas of provision that are less than good and highlighting the need for improvement.

“As long as some children and learners are less well served than others, and as long as some people in this country are given educational advantages that others don’t share, there is still more to be done.”

The areas that Ofsted have outlined as those which will drive their focus in the next 12 months:

  • Focus on persistently underperforming schools:

There is a small but persistent group of underperforming schools that have not improved enough over very many years. This includes some whose underperformance has lasted for a decade or more. All of these have received considerable attention and investment from external agencies. None of these interventions has worked. The focus on ‘Opportunity areas’ is a welcome innovation. However, more may be required.

  • Seek out more MATs and school leaders to help with underperformance, rather than relying on a few:

The solution to the problem of school underperformance is often to look to the strongest providers and most accomplished professionals to effect change. In education, we are seeing that these institutions and individuals are spread too thinly. The system is asking a lot of the best multi-academy trusts and school leaders. It is not clear that a small group of large, high-performing trusts has the capacity to provide all the help that is needed.

  • Use test scores to analyse if the curriculum is being taught correctly:

We have learned over the past 10 years that increases in test scores do not necessarily reflect a real improvement in education standards. While tests are important and useful, they do not, and can never, reflect the entirety of what pupils need to learn. Exams should exist in the service of the curriculum rather than the other way round.

  • Increase help and protection for those most vulnerable:

Children who need help and protection is still the area of social care that is most in need of improvement. We are now seeing greater attention being given to good basic social care practice. It is in the local authorities that have emphasised getting the basics right that we have seen improved outcomes for children.

  • Revisit the challenges in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’:

Our early years inspections, whether of a Reception Year, nursery, pre-school or a childminder, are made with reference to the expectations of the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’. However, our survey this year showed a number of weaknesses in this as a guide for children’s learning. We found that schools that are best at preparing children for Year 1 are going beyond the framework and setting more challenging expectations.

  • Crack down on Religious Schools ‘flouting’ British values:

 Many parents feel it is important that their children are educated according to their own cultural beliefs and community norms; and with an increasingly diverse population, these norms can now differ considerably. Yet the effective functioning of British society depends on some fundamental shared values as well as a culture of mutual tolerance and respect. We have found an increasing number of conservative religious schools where the legal requirements that set the expectations for shared values and tolerance clash with community expectations. The schools are, therefore, deliberately choosing not to meet these standards. This tension is also leading to the creation of illegal ‘schools’ that avoid teaching the unifying messages taught in the vast majority of schools in England. Both of these situations are of great concern.

  • Focus on market regulation and incentives, and attract operators that are ‘committed to high-quality learning’:

This year, the case of learndirect limited has shown that no provider is too big to fail. This raises a question for us and for government about failure in market regulation and whether incentives drive the right behaviour. The apprenticeship levy is raising a very substantial amount of money to fund training. This carries the risk of attracting operators that are not committed to high-quality learning, as we saw, for example, with Train to Gain. We also see a high dependence on a small number of large providers in some areas of social care, such as children’s homes.

  • Understand what works to stop abusive behaviour for children who need social care services:

Domestic abuse is the most common factor in the lives of children who need social care services. Our joint inspections this year found that while there is a need to prevent, protect and repair the effects of domestic abuse, it is really only protection that is being given consistent attention. In particular, everyone needs to place more emphasis on tackling perpetrators and understanding what works to stop abusive behaviour.

  • Improve care and education for children in Young Offender Institutions:

Secure children’s homes are doing well for children and young people. By contrast, outcomes for children and young people in young offender institutions and secure training centres are much less good, and sometimes extremely poor. Lessons need to be learned urgently about how best to educate and take care of children in the secure estate.

  • Improve provisions for SEND children without an education, health and care plan:
    Children and young people identified as needing SEND (special educational needs and disability) support but who do not have an education, health and care plan often have a much poorer experience of the education system than their peers. In the local authorities we inspected, leaders were not clear how their actions were improving outcomes for these children and young people. Some parents reported that they had been asked to keep their children at home because leaders said that they could not meet their children’s needs. This is unacceptable.

Along with these key focuses, Ofsted have outlined other areas for where they will improve practice, enhance relationships and develop their services:

  • develop the 2019 education inspection framework, building on the best evidence from research
  • reflect on their inspection practice and further develop understanding of what makes inspection as valid and reliable as it can be
  • start their new inspections of local authority children’s services (ILACS), which will be a more proportionate system of inspection, focusing on the quality and impact of social care practice
  • undertake research into why some schools get trapped in cycles of underperformance, with the aim of understanding better why interventions to date have not worked, and therefore what they, and others, might need to do differently
  • continue discussions with the DfE over better oversight of MATs, including a role for Ofsted
  • support prosecutions of unregistered schools, and continuing discussions with government about the legislative barriers to Ofsted doing so effectively
  • highlight how some of the best faith-based institutions meet their obligations under equalities law, in a way that is in line with their religious beliefs
  • undertake research into the needs and context of children whose behaviour is very challenging for the people around them
  • continue to minimise any burdens of inspection across all of the remits Ofsted inspect; inspection should not create a compliance culture or put up barriers to achieving excellence
  • review their inspection of apprenticeships in the context of the new apprenticeship levy, including how they inspect sub-contractors
  • work with the DfE to assess the impact of the introduction of 30 hours’ free childcare
  • continue their programme of curriculum research.

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