Tag: Ofsted

Ofsted sets out proposals for fairer education inspections and new, more detailed report cards – GOV.UK

The Big Listen returned a clear message from parents, carers and professionals that the overall effectiveness grade should go, and that inspection reports should provide a more nuanced view of a provider’s strengths and areas for improvement. But there were different views on how to do that. Parents and carers favoured a clear assessment of a wider set of categories, while most professionals wanted narrative descriptions of performance. Today’s proposals aim to bring both preferences together.

Ofsted offers first look at new report cards for schools – BBC News

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the plans would generate a “new league table based on the sum of Ofsted judgements across at least 40 points of comparison”. It would be “bewildering for teachers and leaders, never mind the parents whose choices these reports are supposedly intended to guide”, he added. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the plans would “do little to reduce the enormous pressure school leaders are under”. Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said the five-point grading scale “maintains the current blunt, reductive approach that cannot capture the complexity of school life nor provide more meaningful information to parents”.

Improving the way Ofsted inspects education: consultation document – GOV.UK

The independent research we commissioned as part of the Big Listen polled other ways we could report on providers. Parents ranked ‘separate judgements for each inspection area’ highest (76% in favour). Professionals ranked this as the third highest (53% in favour). The highest rated options for professionals were ‘bullet point summaries of our findings’ (65% in favour) and ‘narrative descriptions’ (59% in favour). Taking this feedback into account, we propose using a 5-point scale to grade different areas of a provider’s work, such as ‘curriculum’ and ‘leadership’. Alongside grades, we will have short descriptions summarising our findings. These evaluations will make up our new education inspection report cards. There will be no overall effectiveness grade for early years, state-funded schools, non-association independent schools, FE and skills or ITE inspections.