The government has announced plans for universal school inspections: Ofsted will visit all schools judged to be outstanding within the next five years, bringing an end to the era of some schools going over a decade without inspection
The change will mean schools rated as outstanding by Ofsted will no longer be exempt from routine inspection, as is currently the case, and underlines the government’s position that school inspection serves a vital purpose in improving standards and behaviour.
Under the proposals in the consultation being launched on 10 January, all outstanding schools and colleges will be brought back into a regular inspection cycle – with Ofsted visiting every four to five years. This will affect around 3,700 schools and colleges rated outstanding when the exemption is lifted in September.
Ending the exemption, which was introduced in 2012, will mean all parents have up-to-date information about every school and can be confident that their children’s schools are continuing to deliver the best education. It will also help to maintain the rising standards that have enabled schools to help pupils get to grips with the new, more demanding curriculum at both primary and secondary level.
Last year the Department for Education announced plans to remove the exemption that means schools judged outstanding by Ofsted are not subject to routine inspection.
The proposals in the consultation, which will be subject to parliamentary approval, will prioritise those schools that have gone the longest without inspection. Ofsted is preparing so that it is ready to inspect from September 2020.
It means every school in the country will receive regular inspection, giving parents a clear picture of the standard of schools in their area.
The exemption was introduced in 2012 in part so that Ofsted could focus on failing and underperforming schools. Standards have risen since then, with the percentage of schools graded inadequate or require improvement dropping from 33% in 2012 to just 14% in August 2019, so now is the right time to end the exemption and restore universal inspection.
Category: Ofsted
Ofsted’s Schools Pre-Inspection Data & Insight team will be removing historic inspection data summary reports (IDSRs) from the DfE’s Analyse School Performance (ASP).
This does not affect your latest (2019) IDSR.
Any user wishing to keep a copy of their historic IDSRs is advised to download and save their IDSRs before they are removed later in November.
This will coincide with the provisional 2019 secondary IDSR release.
Should you have any IDSR data queries, please contact the Schools Pre-Inspection Data & Insight team at: School.Performance.Data@ofsted.gov.uk
Ofsted’s Schools Pre-Inspection Data and Insight Team have published the primary inspection data summary report (IDSR) prototype for 2019 data. This is to allow users to become accustomed to the changes before they come into effect. You can find this here: Using Ofsted’s IDSR
Important notes
§ during November 2019, we will be removing historic IDSRs from Analyse School Performance. Any users wishing to keep a copy of their historic IDSRs are advised to download and save their IDSRs before they are removed later in the autumn term
§ the sentences in the IDSR are dynamically generated. As such, schools may have a different number of sentences as well as content. This prototype represents one fictional school only
§ this prototype has been compiled prior to the build of the final IDSR product. As such, content may be subject to alterations and amendments.
IDSR changes
In preparing for the EIF, we have re-developed the IDSR. The IDSR will contain fewer charts and will be shorter in length than previous versions. The new IDSR has been designed to:
§ Reduce the time spent preparing for an inspection.
§ Provide interpretation of the data for inspectors.
§ Minimise the focus on small groups that distract the conversation away from meeting the needs of all pupils.
§ The report will continue to highlight important data trends and differences from national data. Existing contextual information will also remain but will be presented in the charts that were in the 2017 IDSR.
What’s new in the IDSR?
The new IDSR has:
§ New contextual information including workforce census data, financial data, MAT and local authority information and school links.
§ New subject attainment sentences at key stage 4 to highlight potential subject areas to focus on.
§ Introduction of attainment trend charts.
§ Re-structured primary report to focus on subjects across the school, such as reading/literacy.
§ Reduced focus on pupil group performance. Group performance measures will now only be highlighted when they differ from that of all pupils.
§ Expanded destinations data, to include breakdown of pupil destinations for the past three years.
What else is changing?
The IDSR will become a new ‘service’ and have its own dedicated area in DfE Sign-In.
Schools will still be able to access their IDSR through DfE’s Analyse School Performance by following a link to the new IDSR service. Schools can then download and save their IDSR as previously. There will not be a requirement for new login details.
The team will be publishing a brand-new guidance document which combines the previous primary and secondary documents. This will coincide with the first 2019 IDSR release.
We are pleased to congratulate Noel Park Primary School on their recent Outstanding Ofsted report.
Read more here (external link)
In September 2018 Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector for Ofsted, announced her intention to develop a 2019 Ofsted inspection framework with curriculum as a central focus. The rationale for this, she outlined, was because Ofsted has previously placed “too much weight on test and exam results”.
Ofsted has now published the consultation of its draft framework for the inspection of maintained and academy schools (external link), to take effect from September 2019. Ofsted intended for a single “quality of education” judgement to replace the existing “quality of teaching, learning and assessment” and “outcomes for pupils” categories. The proposals are that inspectors will focus on a provider’s curriculum intent, implementation and impact, and pupil performance will not be considered in isolation but in the context of the school curriculum. The aim is to “de-intensify the inspection focus on performance data and place more emphasis on the substance of education and what matters most to learners and practitioners.” The framework proposals are based on in-depth research carried out by Ofsted. Read more here (external link). The closing date for the consultation is 5 April 2019.
Haringey is officially top of the class when it comes to education – with more Good or Outstanding schools than any other borough in the country. Every school in Haringey now has the official OFSTED rating of Good or Outstanding, after Tiverton Primary School joined the ranks last week (external link)
Only two other boroughs in the country are in the exclusive 100% per cent club and Haringey has the highest number of schools.
Haringey is committed to ensuring that all of our children get the very best start in life, including high quality education on their doorstep. In recent years, this has included:
- A great start in the early years, with children achieving a ‘Good Level of Development’ in the top quartile in London and over 90% of all early years settings rated Good or Outstanding;
- Key Stage 2 results above national average and in the London top quartile for those working at Greater Depth;
- Among the best progress from KS2 to GCSE with pupils achieving nearly one-third of a grade more than others from the same starting points nationally;
- The best GCSE results in the country for our looked after children in 2016.
We have a number of exciting developments that will continue to push Haringey forward, including:
- The launch of the Haringey Education Partnership – a new school led approach to improving and supporting our schools;
- The STEM Commission – designed to improve access to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) – see the article below giving an update on STEM in Haringey.
Ofsted’s annual report for 2016/17 was published on Wednesday 13 December. This is the first annual report since Amanda Spielman took the helm as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) in February this year.
The report sets out the key themes that have arisen from inspections over the year. Key findings relating to schools include:
- the majority of schools are performing well: 89% are currently rated ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’
- there is a subsection of schools which have been persistently judged less than ‘good’, with over 700 judged ‘requires improvement’ or ‘satisfactory’ at their last two inspections
- schools in deprived areas are more likely to be judged ‘requires improvement’ though there are examples of schools in challenging circumstances which have turned their performance around
- weak governance was among common features of secondary schools which have persistently underperformed
- too many schools are sacrificing breadth of curriculum in order to prepare pupils for statutory assessments in both primary and secondary phases
The report also highlighted that, despite the government issuing academy orders to every ‘inadequate’ school since April 2016, there are 113 maintained schools that have not converted at least nine months after receiving this judgement.
A summary of common problems in multi-academy trusts (MATs) which have had focused inspections was given. With respect to governance, Ofsted highlighted a lack of clear schemes of delegation, over-dependence on school leaders, a lack of understanding of data, and unclear strategies for use of pupil premium funding.
Read the report in full (external link)
It has been announced that Ofsted will go ahead with reform of the short inspections system following a recent consultation. Since 2015, schools previously judged ‘good’ have received short one day inspections that do not result in a full set of judgements but are converted to a full inspection if inspectors do not find sufficient evidence that a school remains ‘good’.
From January 2018, there will be four possible outcomes from a short inspection:
- if inspectors are confident that the school remains ‘good’, the school will receive a letter confirming this; another short inspection will take place in approximately 2- 3 years (in line with the existing system);
- if there are “serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education”, the school will receive a full inspection within 48 hours;
- if inspectors suspect that there has been a decline and the school is no longer ‘good’, the school will receive a letter setting out the findings and a full inspection will take place “typically within one to two years but no later than five years since the previous full section 5 inspection”;
- if inspectors believe that there has been an improvement towards ‘outstanding’, the school will receive a letter setting out the findings and a full inspection within two years.
Read Ofsted’s full report on the consultation outcome (external link)