Shortly before the summer holiday I went on a briefing session on the new Ofsted framework for school leaders. I’ve tried to tease out some of the most important issues for heads of department – as you read below remember that I’m not an Ofsted inspection and that I’m commenting on notes that I made during the briefing session.
The Ofsted Framework is changing early next year (subject to Royal Assent) so what does that mean for teachers and school leaders.
What is changing?
Ofsted is trying to make the framework more manageable, simplifying and streamlining the inspection process. The number of key judgements will be reduced to four, plus an overall judgement. The new judgements will be:
- Achievement
- Quality of teaching
- Leadership and management
- Behaviour and safety
The overall judgement will take account of the four judgements above and also how well the school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
What does this mean for the classroom teacher?
I’m told that the classroom teacher won’t notice a huge difference over previous inspections. There may be more lesson observations as inspectors try to get a handle on achievement, teaching and behaviour, and there could still be part-lesson observations. There may even be bespoke observations, for example if there is belief that there is insufficient challenge in maths, starts of lessons/activities could be sampled instead. Teachers will still receive feedback at the end of an observation. Joint observations will still be conducted (to help moderate judgements about teaching and learning made by the school as part of the self-evaluation process).
There will also be a greater focus on the teaching of literacy across the school, and inspectors will be looking to gather information about the impact that teaching has on learning over time. Progress (as well as raw attainment) will be important as well.
What does this mean to subject leaders?
With the culling of key judgements and abolition of the compulsory SEF, it may be time to look again at your own self-evaluation procedures, perhaps focussing more attention to the four key judgements (as listed above).
There will be a greater focus on reading and literacy so if you haven’t already embraced literacy across the curriculum, now might be a good time to start putting this into effect. Whilst there is no separate judgement for literacy, it will be looked at as part of the key judgements. Pilot schools recommend that there is a literacy component to lesson planning pro forma.
There will no longer be judgements for special educational needs (SEN) and school specialisms but they will be looked at as part of the new key judgements.
Behaviour is more important than ever, with the message coming both from government and from Ofsted. The inspection team will try to collect evidence to show what behaviour is typically like rather than just the behaviour they see during the inspection. This could include pupil or parental feedback and exclusion records.
There will no longer be reference to contextual value added (CVA) figures, and inspectors will revert to using value added measures as in the past. Tracking information and baseline data will be very important to help demonstrate progress and justify the school’s approach. Make sure as a department you have a good handle on progress and can demonstrate this if asked.
Inspectors will also be looking to see more of focus on formative assessment and it may be worth revisiting this in departmental meetings. Inspectors will want to see the impact teaching has on learning over time, and may look at student work and corresponding data.
School leaders will be focussed on improving outcomes and narrowing the gap. Self-evaluation, monitoring and teaching, capacity for improvement and compliance with statutory requirements will form part of the leadership and management judgement. Departmental leaders will be expected to have in place strategies, structures and approaches which are bringing about improvement, and to show how barriers to learning are overcome.
It is also worth mentioning that inspection teams will only have Raiseonline data and the last inspection report, any other information will be provided by the school (and in a format of the school’s own choice).
That’s the crux of it! I’m no expert but I’m happy to try and answer any comments or respond to feedback below.
Image © Blue Square Thing on Flickr
