Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-70)

MR DAVID BELL, MRS MIRIAM ROSEN, MR ROBERT GREEN, MR MAURICE SMITH AND MR JONATHAN THOMPSON

3 NOVEMBER 2004

  Q60 Paul Holmes: A question that links back partly to what we were asking about young offenders' institutions which was, how far do you take into account when you are inspecting the particular circumstances of the institution and your answer was, no, we apply the same yardstick effectively. I am sure that is the same answer now with colleges. I know that FE colleges feel that sometimes this works out quite unfairly because, for example, you are applying a yardstick largely designed for students studying GCSEs and A levels, level two and level three, but you are applying it sometimes to a college where 94% of the people there might be adults doing short courses of one kind or another which do not have the same outcome—quantitative outcome or measurable outcome—and therefore the colleges feel they get some pretty unfair judgment.

  Mr Bell: I think to be fair we have been quite open about that. In fact, that was one of the reasons why, in conjunction with the Learning Skills Council, the DfES and the Adult Learning Inspectorate we published our consultation paper about getting a more rounded set of measures to deal in some ways with exactly the points that you are making. If you were looking, for example, at 16-19 provision in a school or Sixth form centre you are not then just looking at the output measures, what percentage of youngsters get this, that and the other; you are actually going to look at the progress those youngsters made: how many started, how many finished. We are absolutely behind that. Also on the point about adult education, that point is made too; we want to find more robust measures. There was a very warm reaction in the main to those proposals. The idea—just in case you are not aware of this—is that these should be piloted. I have to say, I have some concern at a suggestion that this may not now take place in schools when it was expected because the idea was for this to be kicked off in 2005-06 for pilot with full implementation in 2006. There does seem to be some suggestion from the department that it will not be possible for a variety of reasons for schools to come fully on stream with these rounded measures until 2008. I actually believe for exactly the reasons that you believe that that is not reasonable. I think if we are going to get proper measures of performance that enable us to make those comparisons—and coming back to the bit about providing public information—it should be a priority to get that into the schools system as well as the colleges system. I am absolutely behind you on this one. We think it is very important to get that rounded set of measures.

  Q61 Paul Holmes: You say it is important in the schools as well, but obviously it is more of a problem specifically in colleges where, for example, you have the inclusion programmes, you have a lot of adult learners coming in from work based learning where they might do the NVQ part of a modern apprenticeship but not do the key skills and therefore that would be judged a failure, yet to that individual it is a great success.

  Mr Bell: One of the other proposals at the moment of course is to look at measuring precisely that kind of performance on the part of adults and there is a scheme to do that. I do not think there is any unwillingness on the part of the inspectorates nor the LSC to do this. Of course, it is fair to say that when the Adult Learning Inspectorate is looking at its single remit for work based learning for post-19 adults, they are going to take account of exactly the sorts of things that you have described. I do think that it is right that we have a broader range of measures; I do think it is right that the complexity of provision that often surrounds the way adults learn because of the variety of circumstances should be reflected in colleges. The only other comment I would make about that is that we do know there are general further education colleges doing all the things that you have described and are doing an outstanding job. We named some of them last year and there are some more this year that are doing that kind of job. Going back to the point about primary schools, more can be expected because some can do it, it is exactly the case—even if all these problems about success measures and so on—the same is true, there are outstandingly good general further education driven colleges providing that provision. I think one of the things that we would say that continues to concern us is greater polarisation between those that are really good in the GFE sector and those that continue to provide an inadequate standard of education and training.

  Q62 Paul Holmes: You said that one of the benefits of Ofsted inspection across the board is that it shines a light on what is happening. For that to be effective there should be some fairness in the comparisons the consumer will then make in looking at reports that they have pulled down off the Internet. Again there is a feeling that if you look, for example, at an 11 to 18/19 school then the post-16 part of it is quite a small part of the inspection, whereas the same report looking at an FE college is throwing the entire spotlight purely and simply on the post-16 section. Would you get some unfair comparisons there because it is such a small part of the report in one institution but it is the whole focus on another one?

  Mr Bell: In some ways that goes back to your point, we know that a lot of young people aged 16-19 are educated in those colleges and therefore it is right that they get that priority. By the same token, of course, the whole purpose of doing joint inspection with the Adult Learning Inspectorate is to get that rounded picture of what a college is doing. I think our evidence from the most successful general further education colleges—we are really talking about this group at the moment—is that they can combine high quality provision for 16-19 year olds with high quality provision for adults. I do not think it is a fair charge that somehow we are in a sense providing a disproportionate focus on the 16-19 provision within a college. I think we are doing what we should be doing which is recognising that that provision in many colleges—most colleges—is significant, as is the adult work alongside it.

  Q63 Paul Holmes: How far is there any attempt to overcome the overlapping ends of inspection whereby an FE college, for example, has Ofsted, it has the Adult Learning Inspectorate, it has the Quality Assurance Agency, it has some monitoring by the Learning and Skills Council and then it has groups like Health and Safety Executive coming in as well. Is there anything in the pipeline on that?

  Mr Bell: I am sure you will be aware that Sir Andrew Foster has been looking at this issue of relationship in his wider survey of bureaucracy in the post-16 sector. From my recent conversation with him he is certainly encouraged by what the inspectorates are doing and are proposing to do in the future along the lines that we suggested. The issue of the Quality Assurance Agency is, of course, an issue where you have higher education and further education and we are talking to the QAA about rationalising that. I think it gets slightly more difficult when you get into the activities of others. The Health and Safety Executive, for example, have a different set of statutory responsibilities which I think we would all accept. I think where there is an issue for us in the future—and the LSC recognises this—is that we do not subject colleges to what is seen to be a disproportionate burden. They have to provide one set of information for inspectors but on the other hand they have the LSC coming along and asking for additional information. We are actually in the process of discussing with the LSC how we can rationalise those information demands. It is in everyone's interest to do that.

  Q64 Mr Pollard: A New Relationship with Schools proposes a number of changes to the school inspection regime, smaller teams for example, and the requirement for a lay inspector will be removed. Do you have any conclusions about the role of lay inspectors in the new regime?

  Mr Bell: As you know, as part of the original statute that was set up Ofsted required a lay inspector to be on every inspection team. That, in many ways, was sustainable when you had largish teams covering absolutely everything subject by subject and all the other things that are covered in a school. My view has been that if we are moving to a system where you have got a much shorter inspection, you have many fewer inspectors inspecting, that it would not make sense to have a lay inspector on every inspection. There is also a practical point. We would not have enough anyway. I would make another point about lay inspectors: there are some lay inspectors who have worked for Ofsted for the past 12 years who have done over 250 inspections. Many of them are very effective inspectors. I think I do question, however, whether you are a lay inspector if you have done 250 inspections. I think you are an inspector and you are a good inspector if you continue to be used, but I am not sure that you are a lay inspector. To ensure that we continue to tap that expertise in the future we will offer the opportunity for currently designated lay inspectors to become inspectors under the new system. They will be able to apply. There is one more comment I would make about that. We also have to be very clear about the public perception of this. If we had the possibility of one or two inspectors as will be the case inspecting smallish primary schools, I have to think about how it would be perceived by the school if one of those people, however competent they were as an inspector, had no professional educational background. I have to think about that as well. That is why we think that designated people as lay inspectors in a very different inspection system does not make sense but we want to continue to use the best of the people we have.

  Q65 Mr Pollard: My constituents take school inspections very seriously and value highly Ofsted reports on schools that they may wish to send their children to. In fact, in my constituency house prices are higher closer to schools with the best Ofsted inspection. That is a fact of the matter and yet you are removing the role of parents in this or reducing the need. Why?

  Mr Bell: We are not removing the role of parents. It is very important to make that point. A couple of weeks ago we published on our website our consultation document on the user perspective. I mentioned earlier that we have been carrying out pilot inspections; we have carried out 70 pilot inspections. We have recently spoken to parents and pupils who have been subject to this new system to get their perspective. We have had no negative feedback from parents; in fact, very much the opposite. The parents have felt that the system that we have has enabled them at slightly shorter notice to say what they wanted to say, there was no difficulty expressing their views and there was no difficulty communicating with the school. By no stretch of the imagination do we want to remove that parental voice and we have some other suggestions about how we might generate the views of parents in this consultation document. What we will not have in the future, it is fair to say, is the parents meeting in advance of inspection. I have to say—I have again said this publicly—that I think our evidence suggests that that was becoming of increasingly limited value. We have done this twice now and we are actually beginning to find that in most cases there is a very poor turnout to parents' meetings in advance of inspection. Often these meetings were dominated by a very single issue about my child kind of point. Those can be useful because they might illustrate something more about the school, but inspectors obviously have to say that they cannot really take and pursue individual cases. I think our view is that the removal of the parents' meeting in advance is not going to disadvantage parents given that very few of them are now taking up the opportunity to attend, but we must ensure in the new system that we continue to capture the voice of parents.

  Q66 Mr Pollard: You mentioned voices, how will the voice of students be heard?

  Mr Bell: I continue to emphasis the point that students are a major focus of what inspectors do when they are there and again we have carried out some post-inspection research with students under the pilot inspections. Again they have said that inspectors were approachable, they had plenty of opportunity to inspect, they were quite struck with pupils' comments, they were quite struck by the extent to which inspectors almost went out of their way to talk to the pupils. I think we can capture the voice of pupils. Any inspector, however short on an inspection, is only worth their salt if they get out there and talk to the students. I say get out there, that is in a lesson or in the playground or school yard or lunchtime or break time and so on. I am very confident that we will continue to capture the voice of pupils and students.[5]

  Q67 Mr Turner: Could I ask something which in a way follows on from Kerry but in a way relates to joined-up inspections and that is that it seems to me there are very few agencies which are prepared to look at the single example—and you have just given a very good reason why not—and then see whether lessons can be learned about the institution. In the case of special educational needs—which I know I am a bit obsessive about—a parent is told that the local government ombudsman cannot get involved because there is another remedy; the remedy is tribunal, the tribunal will only look at the individual case. The ombudsman will only look at the individual case but at least it is a bit more public and there is the opportunity for interaction with the school. If you are not prepared to look at individual cases—perhaps a number of them—and draw out from them the lessons either in the school or in the   joined-up inspections which you intend to undertake, then I do not honestly think you are doing your job.

  Mr Bell: Can I pick up on the joined-up inspection because I think there is a very interesting case study here, if I can put it that way. The Social Services Inspectorate as was—the CSCI as is now—has a history of looking at individual case files as part of its work with local authorities. One of the very interesting questions that we have been debating with the CSCI is how you, in doing children's services inspections, capture the big picture at the same time as focussing down on those individual case files. Interestingly that will be a feature and will continue to be a feature of inspection with CSI so when we are doing children's services inspections they will be exactly what you have described. The problem with that, of course, is—and this has been very interesting for Ofsted because this has not been part of our methodology in the past—how many case files do you look at to get the picture? Probably what you are not trying to do is to say that it has to be X to constitute a statistical valid sample; what you are actually saying is, if we take a number of different cases of different types, there are some interesting issues that can emerge out of this. There  is an opportunity—and there will be an opportunity—under our joint children's services inspection. I am not sure, however, that that really gets at what you are asking because really, in a sense, I think you are asking about what happens if an individual parent in an individual school has a concern about a child's special educational needs and can you not look at some of those to get an insight into what the school is doing. The reality is, even at the moment where inspections involve far more inspectors and more days, it is just not practical to do it. I am not sure I have an answer for that because I am not convinced that it is the job of inspection to, as it were, pursue those individual cases. Inspectors, of course, have to look at groups of students and pupils. I do think we will have the opportunity—as we do now—to look at the provision a school says it is making for pupils with special educational needs and try to test that out, but I do accept that that is not quite the same as doing what I think you are suggesting, which is to take a whole set of individual case files and pursue them at the school level.

  Q68 Mr Turner: At present it seems we concentrate on the mass rather than the particular needs and maybe looking at those outlines will help, but I was disappointed in glancing through this document to see that there is a reference to the performance of special schools but you do not have a reference as far as I can see in any detail to the performance of the   schools with regard to pupils with special educational needs. In an atmosphere where there is pressure to close special schools—although the Government would deny it, it seems to be happening at local government level—I think parents need some guarantees about the treatment of pupils with special educational needs in the mainstream sector.

  Mr Bell: What I have said so far, of course, is not to suggest that we do not comment on the subject of special educational needs because just a couple of weeks ago we talked about inclusion in the schools and I was very much at pains to point out that inclusion is not a sort of ideology where you close every special school and put every child into mainstream. That is very clear in our report and I have been very clear in my public utterances on the subject. We have commented on particular issues—youngsters with behavioural difficulties, youngsters who are in hospital—and we have commented recently on youngsters who have particular disabilities, so we can do it at that kind of macro level. I hope I would reassure you that for Ofsted and for me personally it is a very important issue for us to keep looking at but again I will just come back to where you started, I am not sure we can quite look at that level of individual analysis to draw out lessons about the whole school.

  Q69 Mr Turner: Will you look at health service provision in your joined-up inspections?

  Mr Bell: Yes. In fact one of the key partners in our work is the Health Care Commission. I probably should say a little bit about that, of course, and the interesting issue for children's services inspection is that it operates really at two levels. We have a very clear responsibility to inspect local authority provision for children. That is part of the remit letter that I have been sent in terms of reporting and using some of that data to feed into the comprehensive performance assessment of local authorities. We are also actually required to report on children's services more generally which takes you elsewhere into the public sector—health, for example—and the voluntary sector. The Health Care Commission would say that they do not have, in a sense, the rich data that in the main education and children's social services has about children's services, if I can put it that way. They do not have that. They are going to have to work that up over time so there is going to be a time lag before the Health Care Commission is able to contribute absolutely the evidence we might want to see, but I am really, really keen that we do this because we actually know in relation to children's special educational needs that it is often that interface between the local authorities services and the health service services where things fall down. Probably in the immediate short term one of the things that we can look at, even if we do not have all the data about children's related health services, we can look at—and will look at—those relationships: how are they conducted, how are they carried out? You will probably be aware as well, Mr Turner, that the Government is looking at Pathfinder Children's Trusts, in other words how do you in some ways get greater formalisation of these arrangements. I think those will be quite an interesting test bed for models where you get greater connection between education, social services for children and health services.

  Q70 Mr Turner: Finally, just reverting to school self-evaluation, how much of what you expect to inspect under this model will be what schools themselves—as they become more differentiated, as the choice agenda develops—are offering to parents which may be different from what is offered by other schools and how successful they are in meeting their aspirations and parents' aspirations?

  Mr Bell: I think that is the virtue of starting with the school self-evaluation as part of the evidence base because you should be able, in good self-evaluation, to get a very quick impression of that: what is this school doing that is unique and different? What is the offer that it is providing to parents and pupils? We want to start at that level. I think it is very important to capture the individuality of the school, at the same time not falling into the trap of saying that this is so different that we cannot really apply a national framework of inspection because it is so different. I think it is really important to capture that. The evidence in the pilot inspections—the 70 or so that we have done so far—suggests that we are getting at that. I have not heard—and we have taken a lot of soundings from schools who have been on the receiving end of these pilots—of schools where we have not just captured the particular flavour of this school. I can think of examples of specialist schools that have been inspected; I can think of examples of schools that have put a particular emphasis on particular aspects of the curriculum or whatever. We seem to have been able to capture that. The faith dimension, for example, it is very important to chart the schools, to make sure that that is seen as part of their ethos. Again, we have captured that. I think actually, in a funny sort of way, if you use that self-evaluation as a starting point without being driven by it you can get at what the school wants to do that is unique and different and special.

  Chairman: Thank you for those answers. I now want to move on to questions in our inquiry into education outside the classroom.





5   Note: See (OFS 16). Back


 
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