The role and performance of Ofsted

Memorandum submitted by National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS)

Executive Summary

In the submission NASS and its member schools raise concerns about the consistency of inspectors carrying out education and care inspections in our sector. We note the crucial role that Ofsted inspections play in our sector in acting as a quality mark for placing Local Authorities. NASS draws the attention of the Committee to the difficulties experienced by those offering education and care provision in respect of "joint" inspections. However, NASS urges the Government not to make this more difficult for providers by creating a separate care regulator.

Background to NASS

The National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS) is a membership organisation catering for approximately 6000 very vulnerable children and young people. It provides information, support and training to its members in order to benefit and advance the education of children and young people with SEN. NASS is delighted to contribute to this inquiry into the role and performance of Ofsted.

NASS is the only national organisation representing special schools in the voluntary and private sectors. NASS works in partnership with key national and regional organisations and acts as the voice for Non Maintained and Independent Special Schools (NMISS).

NASS currently represents almost 190 schools across England and Wales . All are currently inspected by Ofsted, either as Non-maintained special schools, under the same framework as local authority special schools, or as Independent Schools under S162a of the 2002 Education Act. Additionally, Ofsted also inspects the care provision of schools with residential facilities. Schools providing fewer than 295 days residential care a year are registered and inspected as Residential Special Schools where as those offering more than 295 days a year are registered and inspected as Children’s Homes. This gives our sector a wealth of experience of Ofsted and its inspection regimes.

General Points about Ofsted

NASS members’ impression of Ofsted performance in carrying out its work is very mixed. Lack of consistency within and between the range of inspection frameworks can cause problems for schools and NASS members highlight this as their greatest concern. Within education inspection, there are differences in the knowledge and experience of inspectors, specifically in relation to their knowledge of SEN. The core group of SEN trained HMIs within Ofsted is valued highly but they are rarely used for inspections within the Non-Maintained sector, where registered inspectors are the norm.

The transfer of care inspections from CSCI to Ofsted was traumatic for many schools. We lost strong positive relationships with care inspectors that had, in some cases, been developed over many years. The loss of the "advice and guidance" function was also acutely felt in our sector. However, we believe that Ofsted has worked hard over the past couple of years to address concerns and we have seen a notable improvement in care inspection practice. A change of regulator is always hugely disruptive to providers and NASS is keen that the Government does not consider separating out care and education inspections without a major assessment of how this will impact on providers. NASS would argue that the current economic climate is already presenting providers with considerable challenge and that any change of inspection body would be particularly unwelcome.

Inspection

What should the purpose be of Ofsted inspections?

Inspections should be against clear regulatory frameworks but the process of inspection should support and challenge schools to achieve and sustain excellent outcomes for children and young people. NASS members have missed the additional advice and guidance function of inspection, which used to be present in CSCI care inspections.

What is the impact of the inspection process?

NASS member schools rely on placements being made by Local Authorities (LAs). LAs clearly only want to purchase placements from good and outstanding schools and the key means of judging this are Ofsted reports. Consequently, inspections are crucial to the ongoing business of our sector. A good report can sustain admissions whilst a poor report may lead to LAs withdrawing pupils from the school. Where there are serious concerns about the safety or standards at a school this is appropriate. However, in the era of "limiting judgements", particularly in relation to safeguarding, procedural issues, such as a central register of CRB checks being not quite in the required format, can result in a school being labelled "unsatisfactory" and struggling to admit children. In a general context of inconsistency of inspections, this is of great concern to NASS and its member schools.

What is the impression of the consistency and quality of inspection teams in the Ofsted inspection process?

NASS members are concerned that there is inconsistency in how inspectors inspect our sector across education and care. The vast majority of our schools receive inspections of both education and care and there are particular concerns about how joint inspections work in theory and practice.

A number of areas where practice is felt to be particularly inconsistent were raised by a number of members:

· Restriction of liberty versus keeping children safe

· Grading of safeguarding practice – particularly in respect of documentation

· Residential arrangements – particularly an issue where schools are additionally registered as Children’s Homes

· Medication policy and practice

· Agreement between education and care inspection teams during joint inspections

The final point is a major concern to NASS. At their best, joint inspections allow for a holistic inspection of provision which saves the school time and effort and allows the differing skills and experiences of inspectors to be combined to best advantage. In practice this rarely happens. A number of schools have reported stories of care and education inspection teams refusing to share rooms, barely speaking to each other and disagreeing with each other’s judgements. In one school, the education provision was judged "outstanding" whilst the care was rated as "inadequate" on the basis of a single issue which caused great dispute between the education and care inspector. Lack of clarity about what the service’s overall grade should be left the school with months of dispute to re-secure its overall "outstanding" grading.

Our schools cater for children with complex and low incidence special needs and disabilities. Our members value working with inspectors with in-depth, specialist knowledge of SEN. Conversely, working with inexperienced, registered inspectors who sometimes appear to operate on a "tick box" approach, causes great frustration.

What weight should be given to different factors within the inspection process?

All areas of a child’s development and wellbeing are important and NASS would like to see attention being given to more than just educational attainment. This is particularly important for children with complex special needs and disabilities where a holistic view of the child is needed in order to make judgements of progress and achievement. Safeguarding is a vital part of a school’s role and NASS believes that practice should be considered during inspection. However, we would like to see the focus move away from inspection of the minutiae of documentation and policies to a focus on the actual practice in schools which keeps children safe.

Accountability

Whether inspection of all organizations, setting and services to support children’s learning and welfare is best conducted by a single inspectorate

Despite initial difficulties with Ofsted assuming responsibilities for care inspections, NASS would be very wary of creating another new regulator for care inspection. Ofsted has worked hard to address concerns about care inspection process and practice and our experience is that this is consistently improving month on month. Change is very disruptive and costly for providers and now would be a very difficult time for schools to undertake a major change. Where providers have both education and care provision, working under a single inspectorate should, in theory, make life easier and allow for more joined up inspections. As we have reported, practice does not quite match this yet but there were greater difficulties when the two areas were inspected separately.

Whilst NASS is not keen to see another inspectorate created, we do think that Ofsted could draw on some of the positive advice and guidance functions of the former CSCI.

What should the role be of Ofsted in providing an accountability mechanism for schools operating with greater autonomy?

NASS member schools already operate with considerable autonomy. When Ofsted has concerns about a school the route back to the registering body – The Department for Education - is clear as is the range of actions that the Department might take. We see n o reason why this approach could not be used with Academies and Free Schools . However, an ongoing issue for non Local Authority maintained schools where concerns are identified is access to appropriate support and guidance. Whilst LAs provide support to maintained schools with identified weaknesses, there is no similar mechanism or funding for schools outside of LA control.

Conclusion

NASS has identified concerns about consistency across a number of key areas and, in particular, in joint care and education inspections. NASS believes that there is not a need to create a separate inspection body for care and welfare and that this will be unhelpful and disruptive to providers.

September 2010