Tag Archives: ofsted

Judgement not a status.

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These is the final words from the DfE about Ofsted inspections. They are taken from a statistical release on the judgement of Ofsted about ‘free schools’ released today and follow on from the DfE announcing earlier in the summer that the proportion of free schools rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted was higher than in other state-funded schools inspected. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/357764/Free_schools_-_Ofsted_grades_v3.pdf

The DfE now states that:

“there are the differences in the sizes of groups when comparing free schools to all schools. At the time of the press release, Ofsted had inspected and published reports for 62 free schools, but overall around 20,000 schools are subject to Ofsted inspection. These different group sizes should be taken into account when making comparisons. Additionally, given the small number of free schools inspected to date, the percentage of free schools rated outstanding may be subject to some volatility. Just a few additional inspection grades could have a substantial impact either way on the proportion rated outstanding.

Finally, only a minority of open free schools has been inspected to date. At the time of the press statement, 36% of all open free schools had been inspected. Added to this, only free schools which opened in 2011 and 2012 have been subject to inspection so far. Caution should therefore be taken when drawing conclusions about the performance of all open free schools and when comparing free schools to other schools. However Ofsted inspection grades provide a valuable source of information, in the absence of attainment data, to begin to judge the performance of free schools.”

I was interested to read this as I am having issues with the DfE’s announcement over the readiness of schools to cope with the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals. In August, the DfE surveyed local authorities about community and voluntary schools preparedness, but didn’t ask about academies and free schools since local authorities aren’t responsible for them and didn’t have anything to do with the capital allocations. I asked the DfE for the position with the academies and the 3 free schools in Oxfordshire; silence was followed by an evasive reply. I still don’t know what the answer is. Were they as well prepared, or better prepared than community and voluntary schools? Does the DfE even know? Did the Funding Agency conduct the same survey as was required of local authorities?

The national announcement seems to suggest that they did and if it didn’t include the data from academies and free schools but didn’t make that clear perhaps we can expect another statistical release along the lines of the one about inspection grades.

Returning to that topic, it is interesting to see that three of the four schools that opened in 2011 that were inspected and were rated outstanding were primary schools and only one was a secondary school. But, many free schools started with the primary age-groups as that is where the pressing need for places was and still is. Overall, it would be interesting to see what the list looked like if inspections of studio schools and university technical colleges were added to the numbers to create a list of non-standard schools for mainstream children.

Finally, it is good to know that Ofsted provides a judgement that applied at the point in time when the judgement was made and related to the provision that was on offer at that point in time. As the DfE release concludes, ‘It is a judgement and not a status’.

Ofsted changes ITT inspection rules again

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The latest changes by Ofsted to the inspection of initial teacher training announced today look interesting on the surface, but may be fraught with some interesting issues.

The two stage inspection process; Stage 1 in the summer term, and Stage 2 in the autumn following the completion of training assumes inspectors will visit many more schools to see NQTs teaching in their first term than has been the case in the recent past. Indeed, they may almost take on the role of the former LA adviser dropping in to see how an NQT is progressing.

The new process raises interesting challenges for providers. For instance, the reference will take on a new role. A trainee that has only been in mono-cultural school settings teaching a specific subject might warrant a more caution reference when applying for a post in a multicultural setting dealing with many students whose first language isn’t English. Similarly, it might lead to specific subject certification, such as ‘this NQT is has only taught history during their training, and cannot be deemed to be suitable to teach humanities without further preparation’. If the school appoints the NQT, and the HMI doesn’t like the RE lesson observed because of the material used, does that reflect badly on the ITT provider? The same issue might arise where a primary trainee was appointed to teach a mixed-age class having never experienced that situation in training: does the ITT provider bear the responsibility for the observed outcome? And what of undergraduate trainees that might not normally teach in the final summer term of their course? Will special placements now need to be arranged to satisfy Ofsted?

The summer term may also be too late to observe trainees effectively, especially those in UTCs, Studio Schools, or sixth form colleges where the majority of students might be on examination leave. At the very least, these students might have different timetables to those in 11-16 schools and their primary colleagues. I would personally favour a window between February and May for the observation phase, as ITT providers should by then be indentifying those students that are making good progress, and those that need additional help to reach the required standard. That is one of the benefits of HE and SCITT provision over some forms of School Direct in that the training provider can tailor the placements more directly to the needs of the trainee.

At the end of the day, we need to train enough teachers for all schools, and if the Ofsted process does not match outcomes to training, there is a risk that won’t happen.  Of course, since academies can employ anyone, it is difficult to see how Ofsted can judge training provision against teachers seen where the ITT provider has specifically stated that the trainee is not suitable for the post. That raises interesting questions for providers going forward, and for partnership agreements with School Direct. ITT providers will want to know how they will be judged on the part of a training regime they offer where they have no relationship with the trainee, and where they eventually work. Unless that scenario is discussed, the risk to HE and SCITTs will be greater than to the same training provision offered through School Direct: but perhaps that the logic behind the change.

 

 

 

 

Ofsted inspects academy chains

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Until Monday afternoon I was under the illusion that Ofsted didn’t inspect academy chains. I knew that it did inspect the schools that were under the control of academy chains, but not, I believed, the management of the chain responsible for the schools. This was unlike the situation with local authorities, where Ofsted has the power to inspect, and has exercised it regularly over recent years.

However, the Hansard record of Education Questions in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon shows how wrong I was. In answer to a question from a Labour member, as to whether it was time to inspect academy chains, Mr Gove, our literary mastermind masquerading as Secretary of State for Education, replied with the statement that:

Michael Gove: Ofsted already inspects academy chains. It has inspected both E-ACT and AET.’

Now assuredly, Mr Gove already knew when taking Education Questions that Ofsted would be publishing a damming report the following day on the standard of education at many schools in the E-ACT chain; and would put several of the chain’s schools into special measures. Possibly the most damming feature of the Ofsted report was the assertion by the heads of at least some of the schools inspected said that the academy chain had required them to top-slice their Pupil Premium cash and remit the top-slice to the administration. This was the very policy that local authorities were castigated for and the reason why budgets were taken away from them and handed directly to schools. In this instance, it wasn’t even apparent to the school leaders how the cash top-sliced had been used to further the aims behind the Pupil Premium scheme of helping with the improvement of the education of disadvantaged pupils.

As Ofsted put the fact in their letter to E-ACT that: During the inspections, senior staff informed inspectors that E-ACT had, until 1 September 2013, deducted a proportion of the pupil premium funding from each academy. It is unclear how these deducted funds are being used to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.

You can read the Ofsted letter to E-Act here: file:///C:/Users/John/Downloads/E-ACT%20Multi-Academy%20Trust%20inspection%20outcome%20letter.pdf

If Ofsted has also inspected the academy chain, as the Secretary of State said, then no doubt there is another report waiting to be published that will clear up the issue of what happened to this Pupil Premium money, and how large the transfer of cash actually was over what might have been a two or three year period. Should the chain be expected to repay this cash to the schools concerned, and also, in this present litigious culture, are lawyers already looking to see whether pupils whose education was regarded as unsatisfactory have a legal case against the chain under some aspect of the civil law that they might not have against a public authority undertaking the same duty?

Never mind the quality, feel the width

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The announcement today by Ofsted that it proposes to change the inspection framework for ITE partnerships from May, effectively immediately after the 13 week consultation period ends, http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/proposed-revisions-framework-for-inspecting-initial-teacher-education-consultation-document suggests there is still no answer to the basic question; who is in overall charge of teacher supply policy?

In a year where there are already insufficient trainee teachers in some subjects, making it harder to enter and then to pass the preparation period risks making that situation worse. If that happens, who will teach the children in those schools that cannot recruit a teacher; and will these schools be in the leafy suburbs or the inner cities?

It is now time someone took overall control of how we train and then offer employment to teachers. Are schools and higher education departments of education agents of central government or independent operators in market-based environment working within a regulatory framework?

For design and technology students, a subject area of key importance where the government had difficulty securing enough training places for 2014, presumably because recruitment had been so poor in 2013, the notion of changing the ‘standard of professional dress’ needed in the kitchen or workshop might be open to debate. Will such teachers now need one set of clothes for when they are with their tutor group, and another when they are actually teaching? Will this promote a return to the use of academic gowns as cover-ups for shabby suits, patched elbows, and no doubt the ties that male teachers will be required to wear at all times.

More seriously, providers have no control over where their former trainees find a teaching job. Many years ago I questioned the problem of trainees that learnt their craft skills in a cathedral city, but ended up working in an inner city. The cultural and other shocks for the successes of our education system learning to work as teachers with the whole range of learners have been brought home very clearly in the two recent TV series. Preparing teachers for the ‘real world’ in its many manifestations is a key part of training, but at present using their skills and qualities to best effect as they emerge during training isn’t part of the deal.

Are Ofsted really pointing to a disconnect in the profession between training and employment that has affected the primary sector ever since training was taken away from the employers and moved to higher education, where training for selective schools and the independent sector already mostly took place to the extent that there was any training at all.

Ofsted, do at least seem to be on the side of the need for a training requirement; otherwise what’s the point of the framework? However it isn’t clear whether they support the notion of any school-based trainees teaching from day or accept the need for some initial input such as the 30 days offered by Teach First. What may be more important is how trainees in schools with few behaviour-management issues are prepared for more challenging situations where they might eventually want or be required to work? Is training entirely in one school a good idea, or does a period in more than one school enhance and deepen the experience of learning how to become a teacher?

It seems to me that changing the framework for inspection without clear ministerial guidance on the training process, and its link to employment, is like putting the mobile phone before the mast to update the cart before the horse analogy.

You cannot penalise a provider that has no control over where a trainee takes a job unless you make it an absolute requirement as to what needs to be covered during the training period, and make that the same for all providers.

Ofsted, the NCTL through the DfE, and the employers of teachers, all need to sort out a framework for producing both enough teachers, and teachers of high quality so that we can move the school system forward. At present, what is emerging is a muddle that might have serious consequences for teacher supply at a time when the school population is rising rapidly.

Back to the future: the return of the Advisory Teacher

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Ofsted is clearly becoming the linchpin in what looks like the increasing nationalisation of our school system. The idea of national teachers parachuted into the shires by officials in London in order to demonstrate good practice to under-performing teachers would have been unthinkable some years ago. But, as I have said before, those who are able to  access resources can be in the driving seat when it comes to facilitating change.

For the past quarter of a century successive governments have denied local authorities the right to intervene in their local schools by ensuring that funds that could be used for such purposes were transferred into school budgets, only to see the cash all too often end up unused in school bank accounts. However, when faced with a school system across London in meltdown a decade ago the notional of a regional challenge was born, even if it didn’t extend to central government listening to what was being said about future pupil numbers and the need for extra places. Despite the success of London Challenge in raising achievement in the capital’s schools, the local evening paper, the Evening Standard, has still seen the need to become involved in a large-scale reading campaign across the city region, demonstrating the importance of community involvement in raising standards of learning.

For some time I have been pointing out the message about rural under-performance that Ofsted has finally acknowledged. Indeed, the poor performance in Oxfordshire and Oxford City in particular, has been a theme I initiated nearly three years ago now, and was coincidentally discussed at a public meeting in the city last night arranged by the city church of St Michael at the North Gate. We were reminded at that meeting that the Oxford City Council, although it has no education brief, was able to find £1.4 million to invest in projects to raise attainment in local schools, whereas the county would have been questioned as to such cash hadn’t been passed to schools?

I firmly believe that a world-class education system starts in the primary schools, where the foundations of learning are developed. Primary schools are essentially local in nature, and many in rural areas are the hub of their communities. For that reason I believe they need to be part of the local democratic structure and, as in London, the challenge should be for the locally elected members to lead the drive for improvement. If they fail, then perhaps an interim board should be imposed, but most local communities won’t fail given access to the appropriate resources.

Indeed, the idea of national superstars descending on schools to show how teaching is done properly must already be causing a film-maker somewhere to be salivating at the mouth. You can just see the plot; a talented but hapless outsider descends on remote village school to show teachers how to improve the literacy of their children …. I leave you to finish the plot. Much more important is to provide a local focus using the best in the way previous generations of local authority leaders developed advisory services, and in the 1980s the concept of advisory teachers, where best practice was spread using local professionals with a stake in their communities. All that was destroyed when, what is usually now referred to as the ‘middle tier’ of the education system, was dismantled by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

By all means parachute in outsiders if there is no local talent, but I doubt any local government area is totally devoid of successful teachers able to pass on their success to others. Such locally based schemes might also be cheaper than a visit from ‘the team from the Ministry’ but it wouldn’t fit into a model of a national school system where every school reports directly to Westminster and local authorities are too often cast as the villain of the piece.

For anyone who believes in local democracy, Ofsted may have joined me in identifying a serious problem, but their proposed solution is not one I can endorse.