Memorandum submitted by The Association
of Professionals in Education and Children's Trust (Aspect)
1. The Association of Professionals in Education
and Children's Trusts (Aspect), formerly the National Association
of Educational Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants (NAEIAC),
offers the following comments on the work of Ofsted to the House
of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee, for consideration
prior to its meeting with Ms Gilbert in May 2008. As the representative
body for inspectors and other school improvement professionals,
Aspect enjoys regular contact and dialogue with HMCI, Ofsted officials
and Ofsted contractors over issues of current concern to our members
and to local authorities, schools and colleges, as well as with
DCSF and relevant national agencies in the education and children's
services arena.
SUMMARY OF
SUBMISSION
2. Our submission may be summarised as follows:
The announcement, within the Government's Children's
Plan, that Ofsted will be reviewing the present school inspection
framework for England, in order to reflect a broader range of
school-level indicators related to the five outcomes for children
highlighted by the Every Child Matters agenda, raises a
set of practical issues which will need to be considered and resolved
in designing an effective, rigorous and potentially more proportionate
inspection system for 2009 onwards.
REVIEW OF
SCHOOL INSPECTION
FRAMEWORK
3. The DCSF's Children's Plan for England,
published by Secretary of State Ed Balls in December 2007, contains
a significant and welcome reference to the development of "strong
school level indicators that, taken together, measure a school's
contribution to pupil wellbeing, using existing indicators ...
and developing new ones, for example for bullying, obesity, entrance
to the youth justice system and destinations on leaving".
The plan confirms that Ofsted has been requested to duly reflect
these indicators in designing the cycle of school inspections
to start in 2009, in order to strengthen the accountability of
schools and also of local Children's Trusts. The Plan further
confirms that this process of review of the Section 5 inspection
framework will coincide with a greater emphasis on inspection
according to risk. An Ofsted consultation paper on these changes
is therefore expected shortly, and Aspect has already been involved
in dialogue over these developments via the Ofsted Inspectors'
Forum. We believe that all schools should be actively engaged
with the Every Child Matters agenda, which is not yet the
case on available research evidence, and that a revised inspection
framework can assist progress towards this objective.
4. While we certainly recognise the importance
of building effective links between local schools and colleges
and other children's services, as positively encouraged by the
ECM agenda, we also acknowledge other significant factors justifying
a level of review of the current framework. These include:
(i) the slow but visible and logical trend towards
more inter-school partnerships and federations,
(ii) significant developments in curriculum reform
affecting both the primary and secondary phases, as well as the
emergence of the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), and
(iii) the increasing weight rightly attached
to personalised learning and to pupils' and parents' opinions
of school performance. We also note the emphasis on achieving
a yet more proportionate school inspection system, reflecting
broader trends within public sector inspection arrangements.
5. The following points arise, among others,
in light of the above considerations:
(i) Classroom observation remains important to
the continued rigour of a school inspection regime since learning
and teaching are at the heart of school-based activity. Current
full inspections and Reduced Tariff Inspections (RTIs)—the
latter reflecting the concept of "lighter touch" inspection
for higher-performing schools—often involve only 10-minute
lesson observation sessions, which, as we have previously pointed
out to the select committee, can prove frustrating not only for
inspectors but also for the teachers and support staff involved.
In devising an even more proportionate inspection system, it is
important to identify and retain an effective element of classroom
observation which can be accepted as credible by inspectors and
school-based staff alike.
(ii) Future inspection arrangements for clusters
or federations of schools, which may vary considerably in their
precise local form, should supplement—and not reduce or
replace—the continued formal inspection of individual local
schools and colleges, in order to sustain the basic accountability
of schools to parents, local communities and society at large.
(iii) Effective liaison is required between Ofsted
inspectors and the local authority school improvement professionals
who regularly support and challenge the same local schools, in
order to share relevant information over a school's performance
and its consequent categorisation for the purposes of determining
the level of inspection required under a more tailored and proportionate
Ofsted system. Useful lessons can be learned from Scotland about
closer and effective working between inspectors and local authority
school improvement officers, and the ongoing problem of varying
effectiveness of School Improvement Partners (SIPs) will need
to be considered and resolved through higher-level training and
professional development provision.
(iv) Appropriate training will certainly be required
for school inspectors to work under the revised Ofsted framework
from September 2009 onwards, given the introduction of a broader
range of school-level indicators relating to the five ECM outcomes.
Inspectors have already worked in the context of certain ECM-related
grade descriptions, but it has at times been difficult to apply
these with full confidence when undertaking short inspections.
New training therefore represents a key facet of the broader inspection
workforce strategy which will be required to ensure the efficient
implementation of the revised framework over the period ahead.
(v) The nature of the process for securing the
input of pupils and parents to an inspection should be carefully
designed to both recognise the principle of their genuine involvement
and remain manageable for the inspectors themselves, given practical
constraints on inspectors' time. There can be a considerable volume
of communication to be absorbed. Administrative support to handle
this specific aspect of an inspection tends presently to be available
for RTIs but should be considered for all inspections as this
workload is likely to grow.
(vi) The re-designation of schools for determining
specialist status is now allied to the Ofsted inspection system
and will presumably continue to be so. School leaders are often
particularly concerned over this matter and highlight this in
dialogue with inspectors. Moves towards a still more proportionate
inspection regime should duly allow for this factor, especially
if currently high-performing schools are to receive an even "lighter-touch"
process.
(vii) The duty placed on schools since 2007 to
promote community cohesion, under the Education and Inspections
Act 2006, is to be reflected in Ofsted inspection reports from
September this year. While pilots have been conducted to ascertain
suitable approaches to the implementation of this duty, inspectors
will need further clarification since this affects teaching and
learning, the school curriculum, equal opportunities at several
levels and community engagement and extended services.
FURTHER INFORMATION
6. Aspect trusts that the above points will
be of interest to the Children, Schools and Families Committee,
and would be willing to respond to any requests for further information
which may assist the Committee's deliberations on the work of
Ofsted in this period of significant change linked to the ECM
agenda.
April 2008
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