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We want to make sure that Ofsted plays its part in ensuring children and young people in our social care system are happy, safe and able to reach their full potential. Take part by giving us your views: Improving the way Ofsted inspects children’s social care - GOV.UK
Transcript:
Tracey Metcalfe
My name is Tracey Metcalfe and I'm the Assistant Regional Director for Social Care and Regulation in the North East Yorkshire and Humber. We're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks, the Inspection of Local Authority Children's Services or ILACS for short, and the Social Care Inspection Framework, or SCIFF for short. So I'm here today with my colleagues, Dominic Stevens and Matthew Brazier. I'm going to ask colleagues to introduce themselves. Dominic.
Dominic Stevens
Hi. So I'm Dominic Stevens. I'm the programme lead for the ILACS Inspection Framework.
Matthew Brazier
Thanks, Tracy. Yeah, I'm Matthew Brazier and I do a similar job as Dominic, but I'm the programme director for the social care common inspection framework, which I'll explain a little bit more in a minute about what that means.
Tracey Metcalfe
Thanks so much, Matthew. Thanks both for joining me today. So we're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks. So could you both just briefly explain what these two inspection programmes are for and how they work for children? So I'm going to come to you first, Dominic.
Dominic Stevens
Thanks. So the ILACS framework, and as you've said, stands for Inspecting Local Authority Children's Services, is the framework we use when Ofsted acts as the inspectorate for all local authority children's services around the country. And we'll say a little bit more in a minute about what that means and how it might develop a little bit in the future.
Matthew Brazier
Social care common inspection framework, which is a bit of a mouthful, but that's a framework that looks at mainly regulated services. So things like children's homes, fostering services, residential family centres. And I think I probably should say a little bit about what regulated means. In other words, services that must meet certain standards of quality and safety that the organisations that provide these services have to register with Ofsted and follow certain guidelines and procedures.
Tracey Metcalfe
That's really helpful. And I wonder, Matthew, could we explore what's changing and why we're consultants? So, for example, can you tell me a little bit more about the vision for our revised frameworks in the SCIF, for example?
Matthew Brazier
We want our inspections to continue to act as a force for good. We want them to encourage the highest quality of practice and provision to ensure the best outcomes for children and their families. We've been working a lot with the government. We're ensuring that our frameworks reflect the reform agenda and to make sure that they align with changes to statutory guidance. We want to strengthen the way that ILACS and SCIFF talks to each other, to encourage providers and commissioners to work together, for example, to secure the right homes for children in the right places and ensure they meet the needs of all children, including especially those with complex lives. And to do this, we'll make the best use of our insights promptly and effectively, and we really need to reflect the shared responsibilities that local authorities and providers have for, after all, are the same children. And enduring relationships with the heart of inspection. And finally, and most importantly, we want to make sure we do all we can to hear the voices of children and their families, to help them participate in inspections. We really want to improve the way we feedback our findings to children and families. We've made some specific proposals in this consultation, but we also have set out an ambition for both the frameworks, what we want our inspections to do. One is that we want to make sure that there are different inspection frameworks talk to each other, that we make the best use of our evidence.
But perhaps most importantly, we want to make children's enduring relationships a central focus of both ILACS and SCIF. We want to make sure that children's connections and how that they're helped by services are really one of the most important questions that an inspector can ask. not just for children's relationships now, but also for their future as they approach adulthood. So that will be a real central part. Relationships have always been an important part of our inspection frameworks, but we want to make it front and centre.
Tracey Metcalfe
Yeah, so what you're talking about is putting children and young people and families right at the centre of our work across both frameworks.
Matthew Brazier
Another thing that we're we set out in the framework that we really want our inspections to encourage providers that are able to meet the needs of children with the most complex lives. We've been worried, not only us, I think everybody who works with children and families have been worried that some of the most vulnerable children are the most likely to experience instability. And we want to make sure that inspections really promote the work that helps those children. Because if we get it right, for the most disadvantaged the likelihood is that we'll get it right for all children.
Tracey Metcalfe
I just wonder if we could build on that and kind of briefly outline some of the key changes then we're proposing in the SCIF to do some of those things you're talking about.
Matthew Brazier
In the SCIF, not only do we want to make it clearer that we'll be taking a closer look at how relationships are promoted, we're proposing to have a separate outcome evaluation area on enduring relationships. So that's new. We're keeping the other evaluation areas that we have already. We're going to keep leadership and the impact on the impact of leaders. We're going to keep looking at making a judgment on the safety of children, but we want to add a new one on enduring relationships. That aligns with the government's ambition, and I think it aligns with the sector's view that this is the enduring relationship is so critical for children. So we hope that will be supported by the sector, but we're really interested in the views from everybody who answers the consultation about how we do that to make sure we're looking at the right things when we look at enduring relationships.
Tracey Metcalfe
Yeah, can I just take you, Matthew, for a moment to think about the focus on fostering? Because that is obviously something that we are going to be focusing on in the new framework. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Matthew Brazier
We're proposing to add an evaluation area on support to foster carers for inspections of independent fostering agencies. Again, everybody listening to this podcast will know that there's a real challenge to recruit enough foster carers for children. And it's really important that local authorities are able to recruit the right number and agents and fostering agencies are able to recruit the right number with the right skills and experience and that they're properly supported and that they stay in fostering. So we're going to look closely about how well agencies recruit foster carers and how well they support them. We hope that one of the changes that we're proposing for SCIFF is how we link more closely to ILACS and how those two frameworks talk to each other.
Tracey Metcalfe
Well, that brings us really nicely on to Dominic, actually.
Dominic Stevens
I mean, I think, first of all, I want to echo everything that Matthew has just said. And it's important as we go forward that we really further strengthen the synergy between the two frameworks and how they work together, and indeed with Ofsted's other frameworks. I think I'd also want to start, if it doesn't seem a little bit back to front, with the things that aren't going to change. I think it's really important to say that whatever changes we aspire to make, at their heart, these frameworks are absolutely focused on whether or not children's needs are being met. how well they're being safeguarded, how well they're being helped to keep in touch with people who matter to them. And those things absolutely continue through. And the desire here really is to reflect developing practice, reflect the changes that the DFE are ushering in, you know, and to strengthen even further how we inspect and the extent to which they actually act as a driver and they provide learning for the sector to improve improved services for children, which is the bottom line. So in terms of the specific changes, the DFE are already consulting on changes that would enable Ofsted to look more closely at how local authorities support families at an earlier stage, and in particular targeted early help and how they support families to stay together.
We propose to amend our inspection frameworks so that they're much more focused on this, and we're able to target our inspection time on looking at those services at a much earlier stage of intervention for children and their families. We want to make sure that all the judgments really do three things and these echo some of the things that Matthew was just touching on. It's about looking at how effectively local authorities engage children, families and their carers in being central to decision decision making about their lives and indeed to shape the services they receive going forward. It's also about how they help those children to create and maintain enduring relationships with families, friends and professionals who are important to them. And finally, how effectively the local authority works with other agencies to meet children's and families needs. Because as we go forward with this, early help in particular is a real multi-agency area. Other changes that the government are bringing forward involve the creation of multi-agency child protection teams that are already being piloted in a number of areas. So it's important that our frameworks keep pace with and match those changes. We're also consulting on measures to tackle the use of illegal unregistered children's homes.
Finally, I suppose I'd just like to say that we're looking at the time scales between inspections, because it's important that we get the balance right between inspection, oversight and providing learning on services to local authorities, but also on giving those same local authorities the space and time to improve. So the inspection burden isn't too heavy on them. So it's about being proportionate and getting it right. And of course, that's going to be part of our consultation.
Tracey Metcalfe
Thank you, Dominic. And I know we're also exploring other changes that will affect both the frameworks. Matthew, I just wonder, could you tell me a bit more about the proposed five point scale and what impact we think this will have for children?
Matthew Brazier
The children, young people and families whose experiences we look at are obviously not just helped by children's social care, you know, they'll attend nurseries, schools and colleges. And we think it's more helpful for children, parents, the wider general public, if we use the same scale for all our inspections. It'll also help us to link our judgments more closely to government expectations. And hopefully it will make it much clearer whether a local authority or a provider is meeting or exceeding or surpassing these expectations.
Tracey Metcalfe
Thanks, Matthew. That's really helpful. And Dominic, we're also exploring how we can improve the way we report on our inspections. Could you tell me a bit about proposals for report cards, for example?
Dominic Stevens
Yeah, certainly. And it sort of links to the last point that Matthew was making as well. And it's about creating greater consistency across all of the areas that Ofsted inspects and regulates, you know, whether it's nurseries, whether it's schools, local authority children's services or children's homes. So it's easy for professionals and particularly for families, for children to be able to look at a more consistent product. And I mean, I think at the moment we publish our reports as documents on our website, which is fine, but, you know, we think we can do better. So we propose to move to, you know, online report cards. that provide an accessible summary of the grades we've given and a drop down section that then gives more of the detail and it will allow readers to go to the specific section of the report they want more more easily as well as indeed to read to read the whole as they would at the moment. The report card includes key facts and figures to help readers to understand the context of our findings. You know, and this may be about the demography, the makeup of the local authority, but also some of the key performance figures which, you know, the Department for Education, Ofsted, you know, the public at large are interested in. So naturally we'll be consulting on what are the right facts and figures, the right data to put in as part of our consultation.
Tracey Metcalfe
Thanks, Dominic. And talking about that consultation, who do we want to hear from as part of our consultation?
Dominic Stevens
Everybody is the short answer. I mean, naturally, we will want to hear from large organisations that represent the sectors we inspect and regulate, you know, whether that's local authority children's services, children's homes, residential special schools. We want to hear from all of the large charities or bodies that have an involvement in this. We want to hear from our own staff within Ofsted. Naturally, we'll be speaking to them too, from a social worker sitting at a desk who has a bright idea. But, you know, most importantly, we want to hear from children, young people and their families. You know, we expect local authorities to listen to children, young people and families and use that to shape their services. It's absolutely right that Ofsted does exactly the same when we embark on a significant change to how we inspect and regulate.
Tracey Metcalfe
Yeah. And Matthew, how important is it that we hear from as many people as Dominic's describing?
Matthew Brazier
Well, we want what we do not just be based on what Ofsted thinks. We want it to be based on what everybody across the sector, including children, young people and family think. We want it to be a consensus. We won't always get agreement with everybody, but it is a genuine consultation. We really do want to know. We haven't made decisions about these proposals. We have some ideas, but we're generally interested in what people have to say and, you know, we'll adapt what we do as we hear people's responses. It'll help shape our testing of what we do as well, because before we actually reach a decision, we'll try out some of these proposals in either as an inspection or just test some elements of the proposals to make sure they work. We really need to make, if we, whatever we do decide upon, we've got to make sure that it will work for children and families. So they will think really carefully, listen to everybody really carefully about what they're telling us to make sure that we come to the right decisions.
Tracey Metcalfe
Yeah, that's really important. And Matthew, what will we do with the responses that you're talking about? You know, how does what people tell us feed into policy and development?
Matthew Brazier
We'll know who's replying because we'll ask people on what basis they're replying. You know, are they child in care, for example? Are they replying on the basis from an organisation? So we understand some of the context. It'll help us to identify themes. And at the end of the day, we're going to have to make a decision about what to do. But we will reply properly. We'll set out a formal response to this. We'll publish a report in due course, saying what we've explaining, what we've heard, what we're going to do and why we're doing it. And not everybody will be agreeing with us with what we're suggesting, but we need to explain carefully about why we might not be doing certain things, but why we're going down this particular road.
Tracey Metcalfe
And I guess, Dominic, listening to what Matthew's saying, how are you going to weigh up the different suggestions and the stories of children, young people's families experiences? How are you going to weigh up those different suggestions?
Dominic Stevens
The way that we've structured the questions will enable us to group them into specific areas. So some of it might be not that we're weighing one particular suggestion against another suggestion, but we've got lots of suggestions from individuals and different bodies. And in many of them, there's a common theme, issue or suggestion emerging. Naturally, we'll want responses from, you know, large organisations that may represent many hundreds or thousands of people. They may come up with some really good suggestions or comments. But there might be that one social worker at a desk somewhere who comes up with a really great idea, or one child or parent who comes up with a really great idea. So actually ideas can be of equal merit wherever they come from.
Tracey Metcalfe
And those experiences are vital to help us shape our thinking and to get this right, make sure we get it right for children and young people and their families. Well can I thank you both very much for your contributions. I think the message is that we can only make a difference to children's lives if we all work together and it's really important the message today about everyone getting involved in that consultation. The consultation is now live. you have until the 28th of September to fill it in. Look on Gov.UK or search Ofsted Social Care Consultation. We'll consider every response. We will publish our response in early 2027 and the revised framework will be published in February 2027.
Did you know Ofsted inspects out of school care for children under the age of 8? This can include activity-based clubs, wraparound care and holiday activities. Find out more about how we inspect in this podcast with guests Craig Jones from the School-Aged Childcare Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports.
Cait Mellow: Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. This time we're talking about school-age childcare. Did you know we inspect and regulate out-of-school care? I'm here with Wendy Ratcliff, HMI, the Principal Officer for Early Education at Ofsted. Caroline Hearn, the Specialist Advisor for Early Years at Ofsted. Craig Jones from School Age Child Care Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. What type of setting does this cover? After school, holiday clubs, wraparound sports? Caroline, talk us through that.
Caroline Hearn: I absolutely can. But before I start, I just want to say we are recording this July 2026. So, we're heading into the summer holidays. And just I think Wendy and I and all at Ofsted would want to say a big thank you to all the wraparound providers who, unlike a lot of sectors who are winding down potentially in schools for the summer, we know the wraparound providers are gearing up to what is very hot summer it's turning out to be. So huge thanks for all the work they do to keep children safe, happy and well educated over the summer. I think that's just a huge importance for us to say that. And then of course I can answer the question. So after school clubs, it's funny, it really depends on the register you're on rather than the type of provision. So the way the Department of Education set up the legislation, you've got the early years register, which is for children from birth to the 31st of August after their 5th birthday. And then you've got the later years registers for 5 to 8 and then the voluntary for older children. So it really depends on the ages of the children that you want to be caring for. And often we find those that offer that the around holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, all of those, that type of care provision, do also register on the early years register because we've got those children who go into school who are before the 31st of August, before their 5th birthday. So they are captured in that age group. And then within that, there's all the different provider types that we have that I've just mentioned. So really, I want to now just ask Wendy, I'm just really interested, and Dan and Craig, just looking at what Ofsted does in our inspection work, how have you found inspections? I've talked about all that wide range of provision that gets inspected. So I'm going to hand over to Wendy and Dan and Craig to talk a bit more about that.
Wendy Ratcliff:
Shall I just talk a little bit about the changes we've made to how we inspect registered early years, if you're on the early years register as out of school providers, then maybe Dan and Craig, you can tell us a little bit about what you're finding?
So if you are a provider that is registered on the early years register but only provide care exclusively to children at the beginning of or and end of the school day or during school holidays, you only need to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the DFE's early years foundation stage. Therefore, our inspectors, when they come to do your inspection, they're not going to grade particular evaluation areas, curriculum and teaching or achievement, because you don't have to meet the learning and development requirements. And that's the same for before and after school settings and holiday provision with children younger than reception age. If you have one of these settings, you must have regard to, but you do not have to meet those learning and development requirements of the EYFS. Inspectors do evaluate though, your safeguarding and welfare arrangements. They will confirm that your setting meets the requirements of the early years register. And if your setting is also on the compulsory or voluntary part of the childcare register, inspectors will need to check it meets those requirements. So inspectors will do a range of things in, you know, gathering that first hand evidence and having those discussions. working with leaders, taking leaders on the journey and working collaboratively throughout that inspection through kind of like shared observations, using the early years toolkit. I could say more, but let's bring Craig down in. What are you finding in terms of our inspections?
Craig Jones:
First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak and meet you guys as well. I guess we're finding that the scorecard, we're big fans of the scorecard and a lot of our providers are, it's something we've requested in relation to having an aspirational workforce. So they're not just looking at met or not met. And now we can have strong standards and if we can exceed them, amazing. So that's something obviously we couldn't get when outstanding good was changed to not met, which is fantastic. So I think that there's no doubt that that's something that we really want to strive for. And I think, again, it's sort of given the fire in providers’ bellies to really raise that quality as well. And I think the cycle of inspection, so clearly, we've obviously, everyone's got deadlines, we can see that. So there's quite a surge of activity to hit that three-year cycle, and we can see lots of inspections coming through at the end of the school term and during the school holiday periods as well, which clearly there's a lot of provisions that sort of register the same time. There's lots of providers start for the summer, so I can imagine Ofsted have got like a spike there. Our providers over our membership had over 100 inspections since November. So hopefully we can give a bit of feedback on that. But yeah, Dan, I think you've had one in Easter?
Dan Super:
We had two at Easter. So yeah, a quick little overview of who Super Sports are. So we only run holiday camps. That's what we do. It's been going nearly nine or 10 years now. Predominantly for years was mainly sports coaching camps. And then in the last two or three years, we've joined the early years register. We start taking children from age 3, as well as then the compulsory and voluntary registers. We run our camps every school holiday in independent schools. So in the kind of the private school facilities when those schools aren't running. Had previous knowledge. So last year had had a voluntary inspection at one of our locations, which was just more of a 45 minute, one hour inspection. Still wouldn't say very easy, but it was definitely easier than the full early years, which we had two this Easter, two weeks in a row back-to-back. And I enjoyed them, to be honest. It was, I was scared, I was nervous. It was, first time we'd been going nearly two years with early years, confident that we were, you know, that we're doing everything we needed to do. Had a lot of advice from, you know, SACA and other organisations that are there to support us. But you just always have that little worry of, until Ofsted are there, you know, to get to really, to really know. And it did, it went really well. We got strong across the board in all the areas. Both of the inspectors went through the toolkit on the day, the call the day before, then arranging a call in the afternoon, that was great. Felt like we knew the inspector before they arrived. Yeah, on the day, really supportive, definitely working together, felt supported all the way through and now confident and looking forward to another one.
Wendy:
And I just liked actually hearing you say about the planning call. That's actually something we are hearing across the sector, that the sector are welcoming it. And also, you know, thinking about that, notice and those telephone calls and the preparation in advance of actually being on site. And as you say, feeling like you've already built that professional relationship with the inspector. I think what's really important as well is something else she was saying there, it's saying about, we're confident we're doing what we're doing for our children is right. And I think that's a really key message for us, isn't it, Caroline, in terms of if you're doing what's right for your children, then you're doing what's right for Ofsted and you shouldn't be needing to do anything that isn't already set out in statutory or non-statutory guidance, which of course for early years is the early years foundation stage. And that's kind of like what the toolkit's based on. So we didn't want the toolkit to add extra workload to providers.
Caroline:
Yeah, it's a really interesting point you're raising there. And I'll just pick up on one thing you said there, Danny, that Les, you know, you were nervous. I think if you're vested in something and you really want to do well for children, which that's what the sector is there for, we want to do well for children, you're going to be invested in it, so you are going to have some nerves. So I think nerves are to be expected, but we need to work with you and help put you at your ease when we arrive and all the things that Wendy just about the planning call should all really help with that. You also talked about the difference in inspections though, it's really interesting. So the early years inspection, we're now moving to a four year window. So it was six, we're now every four. And then the later years, so if you're registered on the later years registers, that's a 10% sample. So you may or may not get an inspection. So you have, so you've had experience of both. But yeah, that's the difference between those registers and that's why that does just feel really different when you're out there having those different experiences because they are different by design.
Craig:
I think so. Certainly our sector is predominantly 5 plus. Now there will be school-aged childcares and the nature of it is that the children at full-time school and education. So therefore while there is 3 and four year olds, those 5, 6, 7, 8 plus are the core.
Caroline:
I mean, just have no doubt, we're always interested in all the children. It's just the legislation asks us to look at a certain age child. So it does seem like we're following around the four year old or not quite, you know, not quite 31st of all because after 5th birthday, five year old. But yeah, we're definitely interested in experiences for all children because that tells a lot about the setting and how relaxed children are and how much they're enjoying their experience and how confident they are. You still see all of that?
Wendy:
And thinking about that safeguarding culture. for example, that the safeguarding culture across the piece, of course, isn't it? And Dan, I know you touched on the call. I think the call is helpful. There's no doubt about it. And even just talking about the setting and getting the inspector's knowledge about even logistics around where do we park and where do we meet and so on, all those things that can sometimes take time before. And it feels like straight away the inspection is more around the children versus paperwork and policy, when obviously that's all important as well, but it feels like there's that, the duty of care requirement, feels like it's more focused on that than maybe, you know, a long time ago, maybe inspections were geared towards around paperwork, which again is still asked and deep dive in on those questions, but I think I like the idea of when the inspectors are in, they actually follow a trail and they'll follow a thread of something. So this team member, can we look at their recruitment? How did they start? What their process? Can we now speak to them? What training do they have? So it feels like it's end to end as well versus maybe before, maybe some providers have brought in their best people to go through an inspection. And now it feels like the inspection process is a lot more robust to to make sure that that's a, I guess, a measured outlook as well.
So following through those areas of inspection focus and, at the end of the day, what we want to do is we want to find out what it's like to be a child at this holiday play scheme. We want to find out what it's like to be a child at this breakfast club, this out of school, you know, provision. That's really important. And what it's like, typically like, not just on the day of inspection.
Caroline:
We've had some questions around, qualifications. And we're well aware that when it's school age childcare, not specifically three-year olds, that qualification is sort of deemed by the provider and the provider can choose what qualification, obviously mandatory safeguarding and whether they're providing food and so on, food hygiene, but that and paediatric first aid, but that feels like it's sometimes can be ambiguous. I know it's something that school-aged childcare association really pushing forward in relation to what kind of qualification framework or standard should there be for school-aged childcare, which again is not linked to the inspection. It's just trying to raise that quality as well. But Dan, you've got a lot of range of qualifications, don't you, from teachers and nursery team members to sports coaches and so on.
Dan:
Yeah, there's all of the younger coaches that are doing sports kind of leadership courses at school. We run our own ones of those now to give some key leadership. And then we touch on safeguarding in those, even for age 16 plus, just starting to teach them all about that. And then there's all the different national governing bodies for each of the sports that have their level ones, twos and threes. And obviously those sports coaching qualifications I don't think mean very much to Ofsted. It's more, that's more learning how to coach the sport. Those courses usually come with safeguarding qualifications. They have to get through the governing body.
Caroline:
We do recognise the qualifications. Anybody who's taken the time to go and get a qualification want to up their skill set, that's no bad thing. We're always really keen to see that. What we don't have is any specific qualifications because you've got EYFS. is there. Yes, we do recognise qualifications and you can see when a staff member is skilled and had some training, it's really good and really important. But I think that's one for the department to look at and look at the underpinning legislation and to help. with that, because I think, the sector are asking for that kind of to be a little bit more navigable, so to speak. Just looking at the sector and what's going on in the sector at the moment, people might find it interesting to know how there's been lots of government initiatives, lots of change at the moment. What's it like out there in the sector at the moment? How is it looking? Obviously, we see what we see through inspection, but you see what you see through the kind of sector growth.
Craig:
It's quite good actually. So you've got, I'll maybe talk from a maintain school background and then Dan from an independent. So maintained schools, we're definitely seeing more children with SEND challenges. I guess a range of whether children have got EHCP plans or not and how we can be, how can we make reasonable adjustments versus unreasonable adjustments. That's quite a grey area for providers. I think that's quite an area whereby we definitely need more upskilling and I know that lots of providers have various partnerships to help their team members. Cost of living has been challenging, no doubt about it, and the price of childcare is rising and that sort of goes in line with the national minimum wage increases and so on. So to make that sustainable and really make sure it's constantly striving to develop people. The challenge is making sure that the best people stay in the sector, I think. And certainly within wraparound childcare and school age childcare, you know, that split shift scenario of a breakfast club and an after school and then a holiday, right? How can we make that a real role that people feel? And it's great that we've got those different roles for people and backgrounds and all those people that do work in the sector. but I do feel that maybe that progression and that I think the qualification and the standard in the future could help that as well. So staff retention is a challenge, no doubt about it, but I see innovation from providers and how they develop and retain their people, whether that's engagement pieces throughout the term time, whether that's being full-time contracts versus just holiday or just term time, and then also providing that real flexibility. Some of our team members in the sector don't necessarily want to work Monday to Friday anymore. So having that option of working some of the peak days and we see Friday as a real quieter day within wraparound childcare in the term time certainly and sometimes in the holidays as well with that sort of remote working and difference in behaviour there I guess. All in all the sector is super resilient. The National Wraparound Fund has seen lots of new spaces grow and create new clubs. I am worried about the sustainability within school age childcare session, there's over 100 schools that will be closing because they're not sustainable and that have previously had funding. So there seems to be, we could have some kind of solution after that in regard to a parent subsidy and so on. Great news around the holiday activity food fund and the continuation then, but I know local authorities can flex that up, but that can create challenges for providers. But All in all, those challenges aside, the sector is still continuing to grow. I do think it's professionalizing more as well and seeing, and I'm going back to that scorecard scenario, that's got lots to do with it. The sector's now aspiring and I think, you know, the first provider that gets that exceptional will be a real coup because I think it's, I actually do think it's quite difficult for out of school because you're only seeing a snapshot of maybe one hour, 3 hours. whereas a nurse where you can see the children in their learning environment as well. But needless to say, I think, and Dan, you might be the first, aren't you? So maybe from an independent school background, you'd want to give an outcome there. No pressure, mate!
Dan:
Yeah, I hope so. No, we should have one, another one due this summer, I think. So, yeah. In terms of the independent school sector, that all of the, our camps are open to children from all backgrounds. With regards to children, everything Craig said, again, we're noticing exactly the same. And then with the recruitment and coaches challenges, again, all the same. I guess the only difference that we're noticing independent school wise is the addition of VAT onto school fees. So there are some independent schools closing. I guess then we are then seen more as a marketing tool for the independent school that we work at, that then we work with the marketing admissions team to help, in local community engagement of that school into the, for the, area coming in to attract children to the school.
Wendy:
Is there anything around registration timelines, Caroline, that you wanted to follow up?
Caroline:
Yeah, I mean, people's registration is, we're doing a lot this summer. We're going to take down all our existing registration guidance and reissue just to make a lot more clarity. I think it still comes back to, it does take a window that it takes because it, and it's an average of 12 weeks because we've got a lot of checks to do on individuals. We're really mindful though that we've got individuals out there who've got buildings and probably staff starting to set up and they want to get parents and it's that sequencing and how you can sequence to make sure that the things align so that your registration is really at the point where you're starting to want to pay for those buildings and pay for those structures and got to make sure it's safe for children and it's right for children. And then we've got to make sure that we're keeping as much communication with you as we can. We've introduced welcome calls into our registration processes to kind of have that chat with people to walk through. And of course, I mean, you guys will probably be looking at more of expansion of existing, so an approval visit when you're wanting to add on a new provision because that's possible. That's a bit quick because we already know you and know a little bit about you. Is there anything sort of you think we could be doing different in the registration space?
Wendy:
Caroline, we're seeing a lot of the sectors sort of consolidate. So some of the smaller providers are starting to work with the larger providers. And I think to Dan's point within the independent school sector, you can feel how that might happen as well to help them one survive, but also continue to grow and give opportunity to more employees and more children. And I think then that can be challenging because there's a point where a provision might be closing and a provider wants to take it on to keep consistency of service. And then that feels like even when the staff are TUPE-ing across and it's the same team members versus the same employer, that feels like maybe, because at the end of the day, we don't want it to impact the families that need that consistent care. So there's, I think there's a piece there that maybe, school-aged child care can help Ofsted in understanding some of the challenges there as well.
Caroline:
That's really interesting. So helpfully, the Secretary of State announced earlier in the year that she is now looking at, and she's commissioned the department to look at multiple provisions. So exactly what you're saying, where you're trying to bring in new provision and you're growing your business, but maybe get it all under one registration and what that looks like. So they're looking at the legislation around that. And I know there'll be after groups like yourselves to come in and talk about that with them and talk about experiences of that. And that work has already started. Can't talk too much more about that at the moment, but just kind of it's there, it's been announced, it's been it's being looked at. So you are being heard in that space.
Craig:
I think that's positive, Dan, from my point of view, certainly for the members in relation to them often having to speak to one person and the restrictions that one person has when that one person might be associated with 50 to 60 settings. It feels quite prohibitive and I know we can have other people attached to them, but that sort of one person scenario. It doesn't feel like the business owner, Dan, I know you're under pressure with that. You know, you would never go on holiday when the provision's on at the moment. Whereas obviously a provider that runs 52 weeks of the year is going to need that time as well. So yeah, it feels like there's something more there as well that could maybe the infrastructure of a medium sized organisation and how many people are known to Ofsted?
Caroline:
Definitely, hearing that kind of one point of contact is tricky when you've got a lot of provision that you are the one point of contact for. So yes, there's definitely something to come back on that on. I was just looking, we talked a bit about inspection and how that's going. And I just wondered, just to ask Wendy a bit more about the toolkit and how providers can use the toolkit, because there's some sort of changes in that within our ways of inspecting that might be interesting to explore.
Wendy:
Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good question and something that we would encourage settings providers to be using the toolkit in between inspection as well, because it's something that we feel can be used as a self-improvement tool. We want to be open and transparent with, what it is that we look at when we're on inspection. There's some really useful evidence gathering prompts in there in terms of what our inspectors will look at, you know, in terms of, as you say, following through one of those areas of inspection focus you talked about earlier, Craig, that kind of thing. And just that kind of reassurance that, you know, we don't want the toolkit to add to settings workload, anything, you know, there shouldn't be anything in the toolkit that a setting's not already expected to do by other, you know, statutory guidance, non-statutory guidance. And very much, using it as a tool in between inspection, as that kind of like self-improvement tool. Our inspectors will work with settings and leaders and go, use it as a way of celebrating what a setting is doing well, validating leaders, what leaders are working on and their priorities. for the future. And also then there's that opportunity to highlight where improvement is still needed. And then there's then, then there's the standards as well in terms of how they're set out. And that's set out of, across that five point grading scale. There's, and we've got needs attention expected, strong standard. They're all on one page and they're on one page for a reason because they're the grades we expect to see most often. And every inspection will start with expected standard because that's what we should expect for all our children.
Dan:
On the planning call, one of the things the inspector was asking us is where we thought that we are on the on in terms of the grading on the toolkit. and first inspection we went modestly with expected and then that was the starting point in the actual inspection. The inspector went through that column and on each of the different areas, all the different points and then we ended up with strong. So she moved us up from where we thought we were. And then the next week for the next one, we kind of knew where we were. So we went with strong and that was the column again that she was then grading us on. And it was, it was, it was, that was a big consistency. There were slight, slight differences as well between the inspections, but that was a, that was a really good thing. Then we, yeah, enjoyed that. I found the framework over the last few years more difficult to read. That toolkit now, I think, is we've all been through it lots recently, and it's a lot easier to read.
Wendy:
That's good to hear. Thanks for sharing that, Dan. And I think as well, the other thing to say with the toolkit, and hopefully that comes through as well, is that there is, it does talk about how the toolkit works for different provider types. So it will say, for out of school providers, curriculum and teaching, for example, that doesn't apply. You use the word consistency there because that's something from our chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver's big listen he did not long after he was first in post. And consistency was something that was coming through. And that is one of the things that we've said we need to make sure that there's a consistent approach to how we use our inspection methodology whilst taking into account the context in which providers are working in because no... It's a bit like we say, no two child minders are the same. So no two inspections are going to be the same. No two types of holiday place scheme are the same. They might be operating under the same kind of like umbrella and policies and procedures, but they're in a different building to the one, you know, it's a different, no 2 inspections are ever going to be the same. But the application of how we apply our inspection approach, there should be consistency there. So that's good to hear. Okay, so just before we finish, I think it's good to finish off where Caroline, you started by giving thanks to the sector for all that they do. They're providing for children before school, after school, during school holidays. We've got a busy summer coming up. So yeah, just to say thank you and you carry on doing what you're doing. And if you are doing inspection, then just remember that, if you're doing what's right for your children, then you're doing what's right for Ofsted.
Cait:
So, thank you so much to Craig, Caroline, Wendy and Dan and join us next time on the Ofsted Talks podcast
We spoke to Dan Tingle from the National Grid about how he found the recent inspection under the renewed framework, Joel Dalhouse the lead inspector, and Denise Olander, Ofsted's Deputy Director of post-16 education, training and skills.
Cait Mellow
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. I'm hosting the podcast this time. My name is Cait Mellow and I'm the Head of Engagement at Ofsted. I'm here today with Denise Olander, who is Ofsted's Deputy Director for FE, Dan Tingle, who's the Head of Development Programmes at the National Grid and Joel Dalhouse, His Majesty's Inspector from the West Midlands FE team. As we've recorded this, we've published reports for about 150 inspections so far under the renewed inspection framework, but let's focus on one in particular. We inspected the National Grid recently. So, Joel, you were the lead inspector. What sort of things did we look at?
Joel Dalhouse
So, we looked at apprenticeships and we were looking at, especially from a distribution point of view. It's something that there isn't much of in the country, electrical distribution, the apprenticeships organisations that offer that. So, we had a look at that.
Cait Mellow
Okay, so what sort of things do you look at when you're looking at an apprenticeship inspection? Do you talk to apprentices?
Joel Dalhouse
Yes, that's quite an important part of our activities, is really trying to understand their experiences. We try to get underneath whether they are developing that knowledge, those skills and those behaviours that would help them to be very successful in the career that they've chosen.
Cait Mellow
Dan, what did you notice? What sort of experience was it?
Dan Tingle
It was interesting really because we were inspected against the old framework for another part of our business in July and then inspected in December on the new toolkit. I think that the new toolkit has similarities to the old framework, but there's a much bigger focus on making sure that we're supporting learners that have barriers to learning.
Cait Mellow
So inclusion is a big part of the new framework. How does that look on inspection?
Dan Tingle
It's a challenge. It's a challenge because it's first to understand what you mean by inclusion, what you mean by barriers to learning. I think the first thing is for organisations and providers to consider that and what comes into the scope of that. One of the things that we found is having really good data to be able to identify those learners. And then you can really dig into what that means and what supports available at each opportunity.
Cait Mellow
Denise, what do you think a look into inclusion on an FE inspection?
Denise Olander
So I think Dan's right, we've always looked at those with SEND and those who have particular barriers to learning. So that was very much a focus under the education inspection framework. But under the renewed framework, we now have inclusion as a whole evaluation area, which we've never had before. So we are, we're grading inclusion as a whole new evaluation area. And within that, it covers a wide range of learners and apprentices. So the toolkit is what we use to identify the criteria and the standards in which we judge the provider against. So we collect evidence against the criteria in the toolkit. And once we've collected that evidence, We then use the picture that we formed through evidence collection against the criteria in our handbook. So we hope that most providers will be at least at the expected standard. It's a really high bar. It's providers doing exactly what we would expect them to do using taxpayers money. and making sure that learners, and in this case apprentices, are receiving high quality education and training. In the inclusion evaluation area, we identify learners with SEND, those who are vulnerable. Quite often that's because of the financial situation that they find themselves in. Maybe they're from low-income families. And then there's a wide range of other factors which could mean that an apprentice or a learner have some barriers to learning, things such as known to social justice, known or previously known to social services, mental health issues.
Cait Mellow
Help me understand this, Dan. So the National Grid are an employer and a provider. How does that work?
Dan Tingle
It’s a challenge. At the National Grid, we offer apprenticeships in a range of areas. It may be some really technical, bespoke niche skills that we have into deliver what we do as an organisation, or it may be some of the more support function type roles that we have in the organisation, maybe like a finance role. We will use training providers where they have the expertise, but in areas where we are the experts, and typically that's in sort of high voltage electricity, then we will be the training provider for those programs. And it's a really good model that we've got in place now. So for our transmission business that we have, when we were inspecting in July, outstanding result that we got in that inspection was 20 years of outstanding.
Cait Mellow
Wow. So do you find that people who you have as apprentices, do they stick around? Is the National Grid one of those places where people just work there forever?
Dan Tingle
Yeah, so I'm in my 27th year. I started as an apprentice at National Grid. And it's always nice that when we introduce ourselves in meetings internally, I'm never the most experienced in the room. And so, yeah, so people do stay here for a long time. It's nice, I've been at National Bridge Training Centre for 20 years now. The people that I've seen in senior roles in the organisation that started as an apprentice as well, it's really positive to see those people.
Cait Mellow
Did you get a chance, Joel, to talk to people like that on an inspection?
Joel Dalhouse
Daniel and myself had a number of conversations about the apprenticeship, how it's been designed, the rationale behind why they offer the apprenticeships they offer, why they feel they're the best place to offer those apprenticeships, what they're hoping that their apprentices get from that. And we also speak to people that the apprentices work with in the work environment just to see and get an understanding of those skills that they're developing and how they really compare to what would be expected and to see if they are really benefiting in that business. So it's really important to speak to people within the organisation just to get that sense of those skills developed.
Cait Mellow
So I'm getting the feeling that it's not just, oh, we'd better have an apprentice just to sort of tick a box. You're genuinely committing to really seeing that these people or, you know, the young people in your schemes are sort of progressing, they know what's happening, they know where they're going, they're aiming for something that's concrete.
Dan Tingle
Apprenticeships are embedded right from our strategic workforce planning processes that we have in place. We know one, 3, 5, 10 years out what sort of workforce numbers that we're going to require as an organisation. And apprentices are at the heart of that to make sure that we've got the right level of individual joining the organisation. And linking back to the previous question about do people stay at National Grid? The answer is yes. And one of the reasons is that people know there are opportunities to develop. that may be in the original field that they were recruited against. So I joined as a transmission substation apprentice. There would have been opportunities to progress in that field of expertise. And I chose to move into a training centre and I've been fortunate to move into the roles I've got. And again, Joel's answer about talking to people that have been apprentices, again, it's really easy for us to be able to put senior leaders in front of an inspector during an inspection. And it's just nice that a lot of them were apprentices and they can talk about their experience and why they're still there. And that in itself showcases that people do develop a national grid.
Cait Mellow
Yeah, I can see how reassuring that would be if you're a young person who's just starting out. Somebody who, you know, was where you are now a long time ago is now got all sorts of opportunities, which is great.
Denise Olander
The difference between the original education inspection framework and the renewed inspection framework. The key difference is the introduction of the inclusion evaluation area. And when we were thinking about the design of the new toolkit and the methodology, the inspection methodology that sits behind that, we had a very clear vision about inclusion. because that inclusion evaluation area helps us to continue to put learners and apprentices first, because that's what we've always tried to do through our inspection work. But it's really shone a light on the work that providers do. And it's helping us to break down even further the barriers that some learners and apprentices experience. And by breaking down those barriers, we are raising the standards. And it's particularly for the disadvantaged and vulnerable because we want to enable them to thrive in their studies. And our focus on those as part of this renewed framework is really, we're already seeing that that's really helping them to do so. we look at how the provider identifies needs, provides timely support and reduces barriers to learning. What we're finding is the nature of inclusion lends itself really well to further education and skills providers because we can already see some of the great, innovative, dynamic work that providers do and have always done on behalf of their apprentices so that they get that access to the education, training and teaching that they need. We're hearing that they're feeling valued and that they belong and that links very nicely to what Dan was saying about people. people staying within the organisation because they do feel valued and they do feel like they belong. And then as a result of that, we're finding that they then thrive in their learning. And really importantly, they achieve the apprenticeship and the qualifications that sit beneath that, at least in line with their peers. So in some of the very best providers, where the support is so effective, they actually achieve at a higher rate, the standard of work is higher, they progress through that apprenticeship at a much faster pace. So it's our opportunity really in furthering education skills to celebrate the great work that we knew all along, didn't we Joel, that our providers were doing on behalf of their learners and apprentices, whether they're 16 to 18 or whether they're studying an apprenticeship as an adult. and we see people studying apprenticeships well into their 30s, 40s, et cetera. So the most important thing for us is that the provider has that opportunity to show us and for us then to celebrate and validate the great work that they're doing. And we, as I mentioned previously, we focused on learners who had SEND or maybe were in receipt of high needs funding. And what we mean by that is that their SEN needs are so significant that they get additional funding to help them to study. And we've always focused on those. But under this framework, we've broadened our focus. So we always say to a provider, you tell us who are your apprentices or learners who are vulnerable or disadvantaged. Who are they for you? Because they will often vary according to the provider. But to try and be helpful in our toolkit, we've listed a range of learners who may find themselves with barriers to learning. So those who are socio-economically disadvantaged, they may have previously been on free school meals in the past six years, or they may be from low-income families. I mentioned those with SEND and those who receive high needs funding, or any other additional support to help them with their learning. They may have an education health and care plan, those who are known or previously known to social care, including those who are under the age of 18 in care and care leavers, those who are known to the youth justice service, and then those who have other barriers to learning and or their wellbeing. So they may have previously been not in education, employment and training, or they could be people who do not currently have a level 2 in English and or mathematics. So that's our starting point. of identification of those learners who may be vulnerable or disadvantaged. But we always say to Dan as the nominee, you tell us who those people are. And then when Dan will tell us who those people are, where they're studying, when they're studying, and then Joel as the lead inspector will use that information to do what we call a case sampling exercise. So we make sure that when we talk to learners, look at learners work, look at apprentices in the workplace. We make sure that the learners that Dan and the apprentices that Dan told us about are within the cohort that we look at so that we can make a comparison between those who the provider or Dan has identified as needing support compared to those who don't. And that's when we can make that comparison about the progress they make in their learning, the knowledge that they gain over time, their skills development, the standard of their work, how they contribute to the workplace. So we're constantly using that information to find out from them and their employer or their manager or workplace coach how well they're progressing against those who are not identified by the provider. And we do that really carefully because some people may find themselves from one of those categories I mentioned, but not need support. So it's really important that we aren't labelling those people. We use the information to begin the conversation with Dan. Dan will then say, these are the people that we're providing additional support to. This is what it looks like. This is how we assess them. This is how we're monitoring how effective that support is. And then we, or Joel, sorry, as the lead inspector, will make sure that we include them in our sample of people that we talk to, because we never get a chance to speak to every apprentice or every learner. So it's very much a sampling people, but using the information that Dan gives us to make sure that those people are within the sample that we choose.
Cait Mellow
So it sounds to me, Joel and Dan, like it's a sort of, it's not being done to you, this inspection, it's being done with you. Would you agree with that?
Joel Dalhouse
Well, I would hope Dan would agree, yeah. Yes, but I would say so. I think it's definitely working together. Right from the planning call, we sit down and we discuss the learners that are identified as those who have barriers to their learning. We then have a look at those within the apprenticeships in this case and then select a few which would give that sample of how that's working within the provider. So I'm not sure how Dan feels about it.
Dan Tingle
Yeah, 100%. From that planning call, the first planning call, the inspection is working together. So myself and Joel worked really closely together. And I spoke to Joel on a number of occasions about us wanting to showcase what we wanted to showcase as a provider. And that relationship is key to be able to do that.
Cait Mellow
Currently, the sort of the economic outlook for young people is tricky. Why do we think that an apprenticeship or training, in-house training with an organisation is a good option?
Denise Olander
When we talk to apprentices, whether it be with the provider that they're studying with or in the workplace, many of them prefer that style of learning. So it's around about 80%, what we call on the job at work, where you're learning at work and you're working and being paid. And then it's around 20% of their time where they come off the job at work and have dedicated study, training, skills development time. And for many, not just young people, but for many apprentices, they really like that approach where they are working, studying, learning in the workplace, receiving really great coaching, and they get the opportunity to achieve a qualification to whatever level they're working at. but they're doing it through the workplace with some studying and training when they're not at work, or maybe they're at work, but they're in a training centre. So it's an increasingly popular way of learning and achieving qualifications. We know it's a key priority for the government, but most importantly, it's a way of learning and working that suits the individual. They like the structure that the workplace gives them. They like the support and the coaching and the development and what is quite often a secure job at the end of it. Now in Dan's case, these people are already employees, Dan, aren't they? But for many of the apprentices that we meet, it may not necessarily be a secure job that they're in at the moment, but they're hoping that it will lead to that or it may lead to a secure job with another employer.
Cait Mellow
And I guess it's also a supportive kind of place to be with lots of other people who are in the same situation as you with a chance to make some friends and support each other.
Dan Tingle
Yeah, definitely. I know when I started my apprenticeship a long time ago, that I still know every individual that was on that programme, still got relationships with some of them that were on that programme. And that's typical for any sort of cohort of apprentice that is probably around in the UK, not just National Grid. But like Denise said, said, the practicalities of doing an apprenticeship, learning on the job is really good. Getting the experience that you need to do that first post role is really good. And getting the benefits of an employee whilst they're on programme. I know from personal experience at National Grid provides so many benefits.
Cait Mellow
I want to have a little plug for if you're a parent or a young person who's looking for an apprenticeship, please do have a look at our reports on the local offers in your area because they're really good, they're not just for the people who are at the college or the setting, they're for parents and young people to have a look at and to make sure that apprenticeship is going to be right for you or your child. There's lots and lots of information in our new style reports and they allow you to focus on something which might be really important to you.
Dan Tingle
Quick sort of appreciation for the work the inspectors are doing at the moment. It feels like the inspectors really do care about your well-being. Not that it feels like, inspectors really do care about the well-being of the staff that have been inspected. The nominee probably in particular, but it was evident that those past two inspections we've had, it really is clear that people do care. If I've just got time for one quick anecdote. For the inspection that we had in July, when I had the planning call, I'll not name the lead inspector, but she asked me if there were any reasons why we couldn't be inspected. And I made a joke and said, does Oasis count? because I'd got a ticket to Oasis that week. And we kind of had a little joke about it. And then when we got into the inspection itself, the senior HMI came along for one day and said, oh, so you're the one that is supposed to be going to Oasis. I said, yeah, I've forgotten about it now. It's gone. I'm quite happy to miss it. And she said, absolutely not. In no circumstances are you missing that. We'll finish everything up early today. We brought forward the final meeting of the day. And that happened because people cared about my wellbeing that it was a big thing for me to miss. So yeah, no, I just wanted to say thank you.
Cait Mellow
All that remains for me to do is say thank you very much to Joel, Denise and Dan. And don't forget to have a look at our reports if you're looking for an apprenticeship. They're really helpful. Join us again soon on Ofsted Talks.
Want to know more about Ofsted's renewed education inspections? In this episode, Lee Owston (National Director, Education), Lee Elliott (Assistant Regional Director, North East, Yorkshire and Humber), Jayne Coward (Deputy Director, Early Years) and Andrea Dill-Russell (Senior HMI, Further Education and Skills) explore the key changes to education inspections and what Ofsted is hearing on the ground from our pilots and inspections now they have started.
Transcript
Jonathan Bennett: Hello and welcome to another episode of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. And today we're going to be talking about our renewed framework for inspection. Inspections started in November, and we're going to explore some of the changes, and also what we're hearing on the ground from our pilot inspections, as well as the actual inspections now that they have started. And who better to talk us through all of this than Lee Owston, Lee Elliott, Andrea Dill-Russell and Jayne Coward. I'll let you all introduce yourselves and your roles, and let's start with you. Lee Owston.
Lee Owston: Hello, great to be here. I'm Lee Owston. I'm one of His Majesty's inspectors, and I'm Ofsted’s National Director of Education.
Lee Elliott: Hi everyone. I'm Lee Elliott. I'm the Assistant Regional Director for Education in the North East, Yorkshire and Humber.
Jayne Coward: Hi everyone. I'm Jayne coward. I am Deputy Director for early years regulatory policy and practice. Nice to be here.
Andrea Dill-Russell: Hello everyone. I'm Andrea Dill-Russell. I'm Senior His Majesty's Inspector in the policy team for further education and skills and teacher development.
Jonathan Bennett: Great. Thank you all. So, as we said, we will talk a bit about what we have seen on the ground as these inspections went through the pilot stages, and now they are live and we're inspecting. But let's just remind ourselves of some of the key changes to this renewed framework with you, Lee.
Lee Owston: Absolutely, and for those of you that have heard me talk before, I normally sum it up by saying the changes are essentially about making inspection look different, but also making it feel different too. So, we reviewed not only what our inspection materials make inspection look at, but also how we go about collecting evidence, because that's the bit that people often remember the most, because that's how we interact with them, that's how we have conversations with them at the point of inspection. And if I was to boil it down to the five key areas, I suppose, we've changed toolkits and the evaluation areas that we look at. We've changed how we report so we've introduced report cards. There's a new five-point grading scale, and of course, we've also more recently published our work around what our monitoring program would look like in schools, further education and skills. So, I just take each of those in turn and give you kind of a snapshot of what those changes mean in practice. And of course, I'm sure all of you will be clicking and downloading and looking at our toolkits, operating guides and inspection information documents to get more detail. But if I start with the toolkits and the evaluation areas, this was a replacement to our kind of framework and our school inspection, further education and skills inspection handbooks, early years inspection handbooks that we had previously. And it all started with the question, you know, what makes great provision? What are the component parts that allow fantastic early years settings, schools in all of their types, or indeed post-16 provision to do the job that they do. And of course, that's where we arrived in terms of the evaluation areas, whether that's around curriculum, teaching and training, whether that's in early years, around welfare and well-being, or indeed in schools, whether that's about attendance and behaviour. So we broke it down into those separate elements, and through our toolkits, exemplified what different grades look like for each of those areas. It therefore is the focal point for inspection. Those inspection toolkits show you what we'll focus on, how we'll evaluate and how we'll grade. And I suppose there's probably not a lot there that surprises people. You know, it is all of the things that you would expect great provision to be doing and to have in place, whether that's around leadership and governance or how well children, learners achieve. But I think the newer element is around inclusion. And of course, if you look at our toolkits, you'll see that there is a new inclusion evaluation area, but also, it's spread right across all of our other evaluation areas. So what does it mean to have an inclusive curriculum or inclusive teaching practices, so on and so forth across all of our remits? And just to give you a snapshot by inclusion, we mean, what is it that leaders are doing to help break down those barriers to learning and well-being, and that might be around children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. It might be those who have special educational needs and or disabilities, or indeed, it might be those known to social care, so something that we've really helped to push to the front. And actually, if you listen to Sir Martyn as our Chief Inspector, you'll hear him talk about inclusion being at the heart of this renewed framework. So that was toolkits and evaluation areas. And as I said, please do download those if you want more detail on our website. Now linked to that is obviously how we report and this is one of the biggest changes, I would say, in probably our 30 plus year history as an organisation, we have fundamentally redesigned how we communicate what we find on inspection to predominantly parents and carers. So, our new report cards combine at a glance grades with the narrative summary of the strengths and the areas for improvement in wherever we've been. And we kind of tested lots of different types with parents and carers. And of course, what we've ended up with is something that allows you as a parent or carer to kind of click on what interests you most, what is of most importance to you in helping you decide where your child goes in terms of their next stage or their next setting. So, when those are published in January - so our first batch will be published in January - I'm sure people will find those far more helpful in terms of providing the detail that they want about their child's education. Now within those report cards, you'll obviously see a very different grading scale. From our testing, our piloting and our early inspections, we know the five-point grading scale and how it differs from what's gone before is something that we really need to help people understand and explain. So, first thing I want to say is the five-point grading scale cannot in any way be compared with the old grades. Can't be compared with the kind of four words that we've known from the past. It's a different approach to inspection. It's a new way of reporting. We wanted to change the culture of inspection, and in doing that, we started by changing the language that we use, and obviously that all came back to the words we used for evaluation and for grading. So, for example, you cannot equate the new exceptional grade with an outstanding grade that perhaps you've received previously, the two are not an automatic crossover. Equally, good in terms of the old system doesn't automatically equate with expected or strong. They are new grades with new standards, and importantly, those standards are aligned to, particularly the expected standard, with everything that providers are expected to do, whether that's written into statute, whether that's professional standards or non-statutory guidance. So everything in the expected standard has been crafted around everything that a provider is expected to do. And it's a high bar, because one of the things we've also introduced is this idea of a secure fit, so you have to, through inspection evidence, gathering, meet every one of the standards before you can be graded as the expected standard. And that's a shift from what we've known before, which was obviously a best fit. And a best fit, it was us learning from the Big Listen around inconsistency, and one of the things we unpicked was that a best fit inevitably allowed some institutions to achieve a grade on having some of the things that we'd written down, but not the others. And equally, the institution down the road could still get the same grade, but have a different mix of criteria, and that led to, you know, inconsistencies we heard through the Big Listen. So we've removed that, and now we've gone with a secure fit, which means you have to have all of the standards before you can be graded that particular standard. And
then the other thing just to touch upon is the needs attention grade. And I want to be really clear with everybody that's listening, that needs attention is simply an indication that there's work to be done to reach the expected standard. It's not a fail, but it does highlight where issues need to be addressed before they become even bigger problems that might need urgent improvement in the future.
And then the last thing on my list of five was around monitoring. And again, if you want to look at some of our guidance around monitoring for schools and further education and skills in particular, then you can download it from our website, but we've redesigned the system for monitoring and those two remits, particularly where there's a need for where we've perhaps graded needs attention or urgent improvement, we'll design a program and go back and offer, obviously, leaders reassurance that they're on the right track and improvement is happening, but also reassure parents and carers that obviously things are getting better. And
where we see those improvements, we'll be able to recognise them more quickly and change a grade on a report card there and then at the point of monitoring without leaders and others having to wait for a full inspection, 2,3,4 years down the line in previous models before their hard work has been recognised. So, plenty more I could say about monitoring, but I'll leave it there for now and just say there's plenty that we've reformed. And of course, in making all of those changes based on the Big Listen. We also want to make sure that the intention we all had in our minds in making improvements, or the reality that we see on the ground through inspection.
Jonathan Bennett: Thanks, Lee. And just to pick up on a few of the things there, because as you and I go out and about and we listen quite a lot, get a lot of questions in. And I think the secure fit and best fit change is one that we get quite a lot of questions around, so it's good to get the clarity on what that actually means. One of the things we've also heard, though, is that with the toolkits, that it's not just a sort of schools toolkit, in an early years toolkit, it actually breaks down into a lot more detail, doesn't it depending on which part of that sector you're working in?
Lee Owston: It does, you're right. So, it's different by design. So not only have we made sure that the early years toolkit speaks to the early years and schools and further education and skills, but even within each remit, we know there's a vast variety of different provision types, and we've made sure that at the start of every evaluation area within each of those remit toolkits, we talk about the differences, for example, between a childminder and registered or group based provision in early years. Or, in schools, we talk about the difference between a primary and secondary at a very kind of high level, or indeed, UTCs or small schools or specialist provision, where there are slight nuances to how we might go about gathering our evidence. And further education and skills, we try and cover the four main provision types, but even within those, there'll be differences, because we've tried really hard to build more of a provider's context into the way in which we go about gathering evidence and, of course, evaluating them and awarding a grade.
Jonathan Bennett: And the other thing that's probably important to remember, we still get quite a lot of questions about it, is that when you talk about the read across and that there isn't one between the set of grades and the previous ones, the main difference, there isn't just one grade now, is it? So it's not, you won't get just exceptional or strong standard. It's dependent on the different evaluation areas.
Lee Owston: It is, and that's something that state-funded schools saw the earliest back in September 2024 - we removed the overall effectiveness grade at the request of the Secretary of State. With the launch of the renewed framework, we've just made sure that every other remit is kind of brought into line. So, we've removed those headline grades, those overall effectiveness grades, that captured an awful lot under one banner and can often hide the separate strengths and the even better ifs or the next steps. And now we've made it far more nuanced, as I said earlier, by enabling parents and carers predominantly to focus on what matters most to them, but even when they've selected that, for example, attendance and behaviour in schools, to then see a narrative description alongside a side a grade.
Jonathan Bennett: And of course, the first lot of report cards are going to be published this month. So, let's go over to you Lee Elliott - I'm sorry to be using surnames but with two Lees I have to. You've been on some of the school's inspections, and what have we sort of heard from the pilots and these early inspections? You know, what is working well, where have we had to make tweaks?
Lee Elliott: Yeah, absolutely. And it's been really interesting for me in my role to be out leading an inspection, and out quality assuring inspections of late and Lee referenced earlier on in the discussion, inspections looking and feeling different. And I can certainly say with confidence for me, from my point of view as a lead inspector, it certainly felt different in a really positive way, and the feedback that I've had from head teachers and other senior leaders when I've quality assured inspections of late, it's been quite similar as well. And I think what struck me the most, I suppose we've always had school leaders at the heart of inspection in terms of that dialog etc, but what struck me the most with the renewed inspections is the amount of high quality ongoing professional dialog between leaders in the inspection team and that sort of greater sense of shared insights. And I suppose what I mean by that are those regular opportunities for leaders to hear from the team about what they're seeing and what the emerging evidence tells us, as well as, of course, opportunities for leaders to show inspectors aspects of the school that work well and aspects that they're particularly proud of, I suppose, as well. And that regular dialog for me as a lead inspector really allowed me to get a detailed understanding of the school and to hear from the head teacher about the impact of their work on pupils learning, and that dialog, it starts right from the off, doesn't it? You know, that notification call, when we make the call to the school, we've made a change, and we're trying to endeavour now to have that notification call via teams or Google meet, you know, a video call, rather than across the telephone, and that helps to build that constructive working relationship, that professional dialog from the off. Being able to see the head teacher and senior leaders on the call was really helpful to me to establish that sort of professional discussion from the off, but also logistically, when it came to things like organising and co-constructing the timetable, we were able to do that together on screen and populate it together, and that really made a difference and helped us, quite literally, hit the ground running as an inspection team and as a school. I'm not sure if that was a similar thing for you, Jayne and Andrea, it certainly looked and felt different to me in that regard.
Jayne Coward: Yeah, I'd say with that, with my early years hat on, absolutely, I think that planning calls been a bit of a revelation, actually, and I agree with lots of what you've said, it's just a really good opportunity to establish that positive professional working relationship ahead of the inspector relying on site and providers have told us that they've really welcomed that opportunity to talk about the context of their setting, to set out what their strengths are as well as what they're working on. I think they've had real confidence to be to have those open and transparent conversations right from the start. And feedback that we've had is that they feel inspections are done with them rather than to them. So, Lee talked about inspections that look and feel different, and that's really hard to demonstrate until you're actually out there doing the pilots and doing the live inspection. So, I think by the time the inspector walks through the door on the first day of the inspection, it can get off to really great start, because this is those really positive relationships, and providers have told us that they felt listened to, which I think is really important. Have you had similar Andrea?
Andrea Dill-Russell: Yeah. I mean, in particular, in further education and skills, Lee's already outlined the sort of the variety and range of the providers that we inspect, but I think in particular the fact that from the time that we sort of make that notification call, you know, on teams, you can sort of meet with people in a much more collaborative process. Part Two of the planning call, in particular, where you just giving the senior leaders and the nominee the time to talk about their different types of provision, the different types of curriculum and the learners and apprentices that they're working with has been really important, and the fact that lead inspectors have taken the time to listen and understand the context and then worked collaboratively to then sort of agree the inspection focused areas, part of the sort of the final, final part of the call, rather than what's tended to happen previously, when you'd go in with a preconceived idea about what you were going to look at, and obviously that's a significant change, and very much from what you said, Jayne, that sort of repeatedly as I've led inspections team inspections and been out and QA them that that providers are, I would say, overall, saying that they feel like they're being listened to. And then when we do the orientation meeting on the first day of inspection, where the lead inspector is then reflecting back what they've said to the rest of the team, they're finding that really quite powerful, because it does demonstrate that the lead inspectors have understood and then have used that to really inform the inspection team about what the inspection methodology, the activities are going to look like, but it's all been set around their context and what they've and what they've told us about, which has been, as I say, I just think really, really powerful. I think the interesting thing from FES, and it would be interesting interesting to see what Lee's view is, sorry, Lee Elliot, not Lee Owston – or Lee Owston might have a view - is that we've always had nominees in FES, and so it was like, well, actually, this might not be that much of a difference for us, but I think what we've definitely seen, it strengthened the role of the nominee, because they feel even more so they're part of the team. They've got that sort of collaborative work. And therefore, throughout the inspection, as the inspection is evolving, it's definitely an evolving piece now, rather than you know that that piece is finished, and then we'll move on to the next piece. But they're part of those ongoing conversations, through reflection as to so we know where do we need to move the inspection team now, now obviously we sort of seen that we've celebrated or validated, or know where things might look sort of like slightly differently or better, and that's helped us sort of move, I think, through inspections, so that there is that ongoing collaborative work that doesn't just take place at planning. So, I don't know how others are found through the introduction of the nominee, I'd be interested to know really.
Lee Elliott: Yeah, it's a really interesting point, isn't it, Andrea, and I've seen it working really well on FES inspections as well, and was interested to see how it transfers to school inspections. The inspection that I led, you know, we make it really clear to school leaders that the nominee is there to support them, but they absolutely won't be disadvantaged if they don't choose to have a nominee. And on my pilot inspection, the school didn't want to have a nominee, because they said that the person they would have nominated to carry out that role would have been the deputy head, and the deputy head was going to be in on the meetings. And it worked really well for that school during that inspection. But equally, I've seen inspections where the nominee has made a real impact, because we know schools are busy places, and in many schools, especially some of the primary schools that have been in on inspection, you know, quite often they might get a parent wants to speak the head teacher unannounced, and schools have got to operate as normal, even when inspectors are there, and that nominee role just helps ease the sort of load on senior leaders. The head teacher helps the inspection team work closely with a really knowledgeable nominee who knows the school inside out, and they can help provide additional evidence, or they can speak to staff if there's an amendment to the timetable. So, I've seen it work in both ways, without a nominee really well, but with a nominee really well. And I think it just gives schools that additional sort of flexibility to be able to work well with inspection teams.
Andrea Dill-Russell: It does show that, doesn’t it, we always said that we would tailor inspections under renewed framework, and actually we are definitely doing that and fully in line with the operating guide, which is really important.
Jonathan Bennett: I was going to say coming to you, Jayne, how is that translating in early years, which, again, is very, very different.
Jayne Coward: So, so again, similar to what Lee said, I mean, we set out with an expectation that for the childminders, or very small provision, we likely wouldn't have a nominee, particularly for a childminder where they're often operating on their own and they are the person that knows the children best. But like Lee and Andrea have said, when you're inspecting a larger, more complex nursery based provision, then absolutely we've seen through the pilots and the live inspections where that nominee role has worked well to have that kind of coordination and be that link with the inspection team. So to have the flexibility to use it where it's appropriate to use it has been really important. But I think one of the key changes we found in early years is it's the manager having or the deputy, whoever the person is, that's going to come around with you, them being there and seeing at the same time as the lead inspector, what's happening within a provision has been like gold dust, because you can have the opportunity in the moment to say, you know, is this typical of practice that we've seen in this room, and I think that's been really important in terms of having that shared experience and then being able to move on and have those collaborative conversations about what you've seen together, rather than kind of coming back and saying, Oh, well, I saw this. It's much more helpful when you when you see things together, and you can have those in the moment discussions.
Jonathan Bennett: And all this talk of nominees is a good opportunity to plug our nominee training videos, which are on our Ofsted YouTube channel. So, if once you have thought of or decided who your nominee should be, then that training is available. Just search for Ofsted on YouTube and you'll see the training and it's, it's per remit as well. The things that you mentioned, and what I was going to ask you, because we get a lot of questions about, is the planning call. It's obviously, it's the sort of the starting point of the relationship that you talk about, and this more collaborative approach. From having been on planning calls now, what would you say to leaders, or how would you make sure giving them advice now on this, on this podcast, that they make the most of the planning, what can they be doing? Because we are getting a lot of questions from leaders that say, you know, what do I need to prepare, what do I need to bring? So, in your view, when planning calls have gone well, what have leaders done?
Lee Elliott: Really interesting question, and something that I was going to touch on in terms of inspections feeling different and looking different, because in the past, you know, an inspector would have done their prep. They would have had a look at curriculum plans, from websites and so on, and you would have had a sense of what the day one timetable was going to look like. And you might have pre-populated a timetable, 90% of the timetable before making that call. On my pilot inspection, I could safely say maybe 80% of the timetable was blank, because what I wanted to do with the head teacher in that notification call was listen to the head teacher talk to me about the context of their school, talk to me about the work that they've done since the last inspection, and talk to me also about aspects of the school that they felt inspectors could see and might be able to celebrate. And so together, we really co-constructed that timetable and populated the timetable with learning walks to see aspects of provision that the school were proud of, to see aspects of provision where they started working of late and were seeing early impact. And that was really that that sort of collaborative approach. And it was interesting to hear Andrea say inspectors were hearing from providers, say that inspections were being done with and not to, and that they were feeling listened to. And I think that notification call was really key to be able to have that equal partnership to construct the timetable, to get a sense of that context and the uniqueness of the school for me.
Jonathan Bennett: So leaders should come prepared, sort of to think about and talk about how they want to, to explore their setting review on the day.
Lee Elliott: Yeah, I don't think it's a sense of coming prepared, because leaders know their school inside out anyway. It's just making sure that they're able to articulate to us in that time available what it is that works well, you know, what they're proud of and what they want us to see as inspectors, so that we, by the end of the two day process, we get to see that inside out.
Lee Owston: Can I just jump in because that's just made me reflect on one of those other questions I often get asked, which is around self-evaluation. And it links to what Lee was just saying there, because people automatically assume that by self-evaluation we mean extensive document and for the record, that is not what inspectors expect to see. We're not returning to the days of, you know, lengthy SEFs, particularly in the schools and schools space. For me, self-evaluation is a verb. It's a process. It's a process of knowing about your provider, your institution. As Lee’s just said, everything that you do really well, all of the things that are on your desk as a leader, because you're dealing with them now, because you know a school or a setting, or a provider as a living, breathing entity, isn't it all. It's always evolving and moving forward. And of course, inspection therefore, is about starting with a conversation. It's not starting by a sharing of documents that we then go away and separately unpick. So, my one bit of advice to people would be, don't see self-evaluation as an onerous task of constantly filling in a document and updating it, because that's not what we want to see. We just want a conversation from the very first point of inspection all the way throughout the two, three, however many days we might be on site, because essentially, we want to help you celebrate, validate, and with fresh eyes, highlight the things that you might not have on your radar yet, but would really support you in that continuous improvement process.
Andrea Dill-Russell: Yeah, and I can I just sort of add there that, I think what sort of sort of part of that reflection, for me, was the fact that we sort of no longer do deep dives, which really did sort of shoehorn you into looking at a subject in particular – well, in FES anyway – because you're listening to what leaders are saying from a self-assessment point of view, basically what they know about, what's going well, what they're working on etc, means that you can really open out the inspection focused areas to be about themes, to be about groups, and not just about subjects, which means actually, they're more valuable for providers, because they're getting more sort of helpful feedback around what is working well. So, you're doing the validation, but then you can highlight sort of potentially areas that they might want to sort of continue to work on or improve, particularly where, if you're looking at certain groups of learners that are on a construction course, may well be doing really well, but if a similar group of learners are on hospitality through that sort of curriculum is not working quite so well that inspectors now through those sort of professional conversations can talk about why that may or may not be sort of happening. So it's actually more valuable for the provider because they're getting more helpful feedback through those conversations and really sort of like, sort of understanding, you know, what is working well and what's working less well means that the inspection focus areas are just more helpful fo sort of the improvement, for providers, sort of more overall.
Jayne Coward: I was just going to build on that, Andrea, I agree. And you know, we've been out and about doing lots of webinars and presentations, obviously to make sure everybody feels comfortable with the with the new inspection toolkits. And that's the question we probably get asked most often is, what can we do so that we're in the best place we can be when you come and it absolutely is giving them the confidence that they know their children the best. You said that about school leave, if I go into a nurse nursery or a child minder setting, they are the people that know their children best. And if they're doing what's right for their children within that setting, particularly the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, then they'll be doing what's right for Ofsted. And I think that planning call is a really good conversation starter. It's around half an hour. Don't want providers to think that they have to cram everything that they know about their setting into that 30 minutes. It's absolutely to get those key highlights around the context, what the setting feel they are doing well, what areas they're working on. So absolutely, we can co-construct those areas of inspection focus, but then we've got the time on inspection to really get underneath, to have those professional conversations, to observe the practice and the interactions, to talk to staff, to do all of those lovely activities, which, you know, if you've read the operating guide, you'll get more detail around. It's a scene setter, but really important for me, it's around establishing that really good professional working relationship from the outset. So have confidence in yourselves and what you know about your setting, because that will put you in a really good place for the inspection.
Jonathan Bennett: I like what you said there about the sort of the co-constructing, because it is a conversation, isn't it? It's not you as the inspector saying what you want to look at or just leaving it entirely, it's working out the best way to inspect that particular setting between the setting leader and the inspector.
Jayne Coward: Absolutely.
Jonathan Bennett: So I could talk about this for ages, but we are mindful of making sure that we don't stretch into sort of a three hour marathon podcast. But I think we will probably come back to this topic as inspections continue and we continue to learn. On that basis, Lee Owston, I just want to sort of finish with you. How is the process of inspection going to continue into January and beyond, because it is new for us as Ofsted right now, but it's going to be new for schools and for early years settings and for colleges and everyone else in further education for quite a while to come.
Lee Owston: It is, and we're very conscious of that. Depending on when your inspection is due, you might be coming to this in one year, two year, three years or more down the down the line. So, we have a series of materials. And if you go to our YouTube channel, there's a series of videos there, you can see lots of our webinar material that we delivered in September and October time to help people understand what inspection meant specifically for them, and we have webinars for broad range of kind of provision types. And of course, as we learn more about inspections, we'll continue to put other materials out there that we know will be supportive. For example, we've got a recent video, haven't we, about explaining the difference between the old grading system and the five-point grading scale. Some material around that number one question I get asked, ‘when will I be inspected’? And of course, across the spring and summer, we'll continue to build the number of inspections that we deliver so that we get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. However, particularly from myself, coming from a policy perspective, we're always keen to listen and learn and adapt, whether that's tweaking our materials, providing further comms or clarity to the sector, or indeed, further bits of training for our inspectors and all of that, or most of that you will be able to find with full transparency on the usual channels when you wish to see it. And ultimately, we've also commissioned an independent review, and that independent review will continue over the next couple of years to report back to us on what we're finding. So again, we can learn and we can adapt and celebrate what you've heard today in terms of where the policy intention is having its intended effect and making inspection feel and look much better than it has before.
Jonathan Bennett: Great. Thank you. So, I want to thank you all for your time. I hope those of you who have been listening and found that useful. As Lee mentioned, you can either go on to the Ofsted gov.uk page where we have a whole host of blogs and more coming and information around inspection, or the Ofsted YouTube channel where we also have all of those webinars and various different bits of video explainers, talking through the different aspects of inspection, depending on what kind of setting you're in. We're usually at a lot of events as well. So, if you know that Ofsted are there, come and speak to us on the stand. We always have experts there, and you can ask us questions. We're always happy to help. And obviously we're all on all of our social channels as well. So we're on X, on LinkedIn and on Facebook, so look us up, there's more information constantly on those channels as well. So Lee Owston, Lee Elliott, Andrea Dill-Russell and Jayne Coward, thank you very much for your time, and until the next Ofsted talks, I'll bid you farewell.
Thinking about becoming an apprentice? Is someone you know looking to their future? In this episode we look at apprenticeships, focusing on the North West of England and speak to an apprentice at the University Hospitals of Liverpool group.
Hi everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom and this time we're exploring all things apprenticeships. I'm joined here today by Lynn Masterson, who's Vice Principal of commercial and growth at Hugh Baird College in Liverpool, Lisa Daniels, who's currently an apprentice on foundation degree through Hugh Baird but based at University Hospitals of Liverpool group, Fiona O'Shea, also at Hugh Baird, and by Ruth Stammers, one of our senior His Majesty's Inspectors of Further Education and Skills here at Ofsted. Just to set us off, Ruth, we probably think we know, but do we? What is an apprenticeship?
Ruth: Okay, so for those who might not know what an apprenticeship is, essentially it's a job where you learn alongside your job. So, they're open to anybody from the age of sixteen onwards. So we see apprentices, obviously quite young ones coming out of school, and we see apprentices retraining into different careers, well into their sixties, sometimes even their seventies, believe it or not. A kind of standard apprenticeship is usually either one day a week in college and four days a week in work, or with a with a training provider for one day. Or sometimes they're on a block release program, so they might be in work for a number of weeks and then go on a block of training for, say, a week or two at a college or training provider. Apprentices get paid a normal wage, so there is a basic apprenticeship wage, which is quite low, let's be honest. A lot of employers do pay their apprentices more than the standard apprenticeship wage, which is really important. And then there's other apprenticeships that actually are quite highly paid. So we've got apprentices from level two, which can be a lot of the kind of construction trades, automotive, healthcare, early years, those kind of entry level jobs right up to apprenticeships at level seven, which are senior leaders. And solicitors - really high level apprenticeships. There has been a little bit of change to funding recently, so some of those level seven apprenticeships are no longer going to be funded by the government but lots of the lower level ones are. And the reason for that really is, is to try and attract people into some of those entry level jobs, the level two and three apprenticeships, so that those who are out of the job market currently or furthest from the job market through unemployment, have got a route into employment with training as well, and and hopefully a long standing career alongside that.
Briony: I mean, Ruth has described an enormous breadth in apprenticeships. So presumably there is no such thing as a typical apprentice.
Lynn: No there isn't. Apprentices can come from many different backgrounds, very different circumstances. So, you know, we can sort of have an apprentice who will come from school, who's maybe made the decision that they don't want to pursue an A-level, uh, or they just want to end their time at school, and they're looking to find themselves at a career for life. There'll be opportunities where people will maybe be thinking further forward than just how they can earn money now. So there will also be people who maybe want to retrain, who've been in a job that they feel they'd like to gain a skill in something else so they can be different ages. You can as as Ruth has just said, you can have apprentices that will start at sixteen, and you can have apprentices that will also go up to, um, in the sixties or 70s. So there's no such thing. It's a common misconception that apprentices are young people leaving school. That is not the case. And a lot of people we find now are opting for apprenticeships just so that they don't have a level of debt as they're making their studies, because there's such a variety of apprenticeships now. You've got a big choice.
Briony: So you've mentioned misconceptions there. And I think, you know, do you find that there are some common misconceptions and misunderstandings about what an apprenticeship and therefore what an apprentice is?
Lynn: A lot of people have a misconception that when you're an apprentice, you're basically doing jobs like making the tea on a site. That is absolutely not the case because apprenticeships have changed significantly. What most apprenticeships you will find will have they'll be released for usually a day to attend college or a training provider. You can deliver actually in the workplace to an apprentice. You don't have to come in to training. There is a set programme of training and everybody is usually allocated a mentor so that as you're learning, you've got somebody alongside you who can give you that guidance as well as the work. So employers play a large part within apprenticeships just to make sure that that the people who are apprentices are gaining those skills and they're getting the experience they need to enable them to do that job at the end of their apprenticeship and probably an increase in their pay as their skills have increased.
Briony: Yeah, so I'm already fishing out from both what you and Ruth have said some enormous benefits of, um, both being an apprentice and taking on apprentices. What would you say are the key sort of bonuses for an individual to be in, to be an apprentice and take on an apprenticeship?
Lynn: The benefits for being an apprentice would be to earn as you learn, so you immediately start to earn money. You're actually not just learning or gaining skills. When you go into college or your training provider, you are actually gaining those skills every day. And that's set you head and shoulders above anybody who is just coming and doing that and going and going into a training environment. You can demonstrate those skills by the end of your apprenticeship training. And I just think it's, it's an all round better way to gain experience and to be able to actually prove that you can do that, be assured that you can do the job at the end of it.
Briony: Yeah. Proven was what sprang to mind. You're proven in the workplace – Ruth?
Ruth: Yeah. So I was just going to add, I think Lynn might have said earlier, but this one's massive, really is. Um, if you are an apprentice doing a degree apprenticeship as well, you have no student debt at all. So, you know, people coming out of A-levels or BTECs going to university, um, are paying their fees, which I think are nine and a half thousand a year now, aren't they? They've just gone up again. Um, and with an apprenticeship it's entirely free to the individual. So it's completely funded by, by the government and/or the employer. Um, so that that's a massive bonus to anybody rather than someone who's going to a full time university program. And as well as that, they're getting the hands on experience. While any apprentice really, um, at any level, is getting hands on experience and developing, you know, life skills, time management, decision making, increasing confidence, you know, working with others, learning to work in a team, All things that you can put on on your CV that are really valuable moving through your career, which is just huge for young people really, or anybody going into the workplace.
Briony: Huge number. And I'm looking at it from the other side. Um, now. So what would you say, uh, coming to you first Lynn because you must have conversations with employers about this all the time. What are the main what do you picture as the main benefits of taking on an apprentice?
Lynn: You are helping a young person to gain the skills that they need to forge a career for life. You are giving people a chance and opportunity. Some hope that they are going to be able to have a - you're helping them with their lifestyle in the future, and you are supporting them to to gain the skills that they need to to obviously go into employment. What we find with a lot of employers is that a young person will come and they'll be doing their training, and when they come back from training, they they will say, oh, we don't do it like that in college. We do this. Or have you thought about using something digitally? And we find that employers often get some benefit from apprentices. Apprentices making suggestions of things that they've seen whilst they were doing the training that can be used in the workplace. The significant majority of apprentices that we have, ninety eight percent, go on to employment either with the same employer or with another employer. As long as that apprentice has had quality training experience, they have gained the skills. They're head and shoulders above somebody who comes in with with a qualification. And that's not to downplay qualifications because of course they are important. But if you have that qualification alongside the skills, then you you are a real of real benefit to an employer.
Briony: Yeah. So I mean, for balance, we should also look at the challenges as well, presumably taking on both an apprenticeship as an individual and an apprentice. Um, both entail a huge amount of work and will come with come with a number of, if not challenges. A number of burdens on the individual or the employer. Um, how to um, I think we'll talk to Lisa in in a little while and find out about any elements of taking on an apprenticeship that you found particularly tough, but from a from a business side, what people find most challenging when taking on an apprentice.
Lynn: It's organising the workload sometimes, is difficult. So for example, if you have got a carpentry and joinery apprentice and you mainly fit doors and skirting boards, when you take an apprentice on before they'll be signed up, you have to know that you're going to cover the breadth of skills that need to be covered in the apprenticeship to make that young person or, uh, whoever you take on, ready to undertake that role. Sometimes things are as simple as coming along and saying, I've decided to have an apprenticeship apprentice and you need to set pay as you earn up. Think about setting that up because your apprentice, if you're if you're a small business and you don't have a payroll, you do need to have a payroll in place to set the apprentice up. Thinking about who's going to mentor that apprentice because they're a day, a college, let's say, and they're eighty percent in the workplace. You can't leave the apprentice, you know, to just get on. You you have to mentor that apprentice. And whilst that's very easy to if you have a workforce and if you're working alongside the apprentice, it's easy to accommodate. It does need to take some, it does need to have some thought behind it, so that you can be sure that that apprentice has the support that that he or she needs to to get there to complete the apprenticeship.
Briony: Yeah, I'm sure. And is that something that you, as a college offer support to employers on?
Lynn: Yes, we have a business development team who will go out and support employers with all of that, with how much, um, wages have to be paid. Signing up of contracts and things. And they'll also advise employers because the other benefit that there is is there are other grants available. If you take a sixteen to eighteen year old on, you get one thousand pounds from the government. Um, but also there are other organisations that give grants and particular local authorities that will give grants to support employers taking on apprenticeships. There's also a benefit really, as well, a lot of procurement that is in place now in the North West is on the condition of employers taking an apprentice on. So, you know, we go and offer help with that.
Briony: And just to localize this a bit, and bring this to the North West where you're located.
Lynn: So we have, um, a significant number of healthcare apprentices because that that is a it's a huge area nationally. So we we have a lot we we saw our healthcare apprentices when I joined here nine years ago go from six apprentices. And we've trained in excess of four hundred and thirty apprentices with five different trusts. And that continues to to grow and healthcare apprentices, people will think of traditional, but not only of the traditional nursing type routes. There are also administration. There's also HR, those sorts of apprenticeships. And we've just introduced one in one of the trusts, which is um, for cleaning apprenticeships, which obviously infection prevention and control and sustainable methods of cleaning are high priorities here. So that's something we've seen grow as well as some teaching apprenticeships for people who are ward managers or doctors who are having to mentor people with it that they're in charge of. So we've seen that grow. Our one we’re pioneering at the minute is a highway maintenance apprenticeship, because there's huge growth in construction within the North West area. So our growth we see a lot in here. So what we're looking at the moment is highway maintenance groundworks. We're looking at all of those. We do have a lot of traditional apprenticeships like carpentry and joinery, electrical. So there's there's a lot. But again all linked to construction trades.
Briony: Yeah I mean it sounds Ruth it sounds like Lynn seeing a huge increase in numbers taking up apprenticeships and in different areas of apprenticeships are thriving. Is that something that we're seeing nationally that numbers are rising both in terms of apprentices and apprenticeship areas on offer?
Ruth: I think it's, um, It's hit and miss really. So I think we've gone through phases of apprenticeships being really - so post Covid apprenticeship numbers went up quite a bit and then have dropped off and started to plateau a little bit. I think it depends on the area of the country you're in. So where, um, where Hugh Baird is in, in Bootle, in Liverpool. There is quite a lot of, um, construction and manufacturing going on around there. And there's a lot of work going on around, around the dock that I think is going to create more apprenticeships in the future. Um, and we've seen in the North West definitely a big upsurge in, in all courses, not just apprenticeships but certainly in construction is huge, um, engineering and manufacturing. There's a lot of that around the North West. You know, we've got a large aerospace, um, industry around here, lots of logistics, transport, manufacturing in the North West. And then we're seeing quite a lot more digital as well, which I think kind of a lot of them are done online. So doesn't really matter where the training provider or the college is because a lot of the learning is is done solely online. So apprentices can be anywhere in the country, don't really need to come to the college or the provider. And as Lynn was saying before, health and social care as well is growing, um, a lot. And I think that's mainly because a lot of the, the NHS trusts and also other healthcare providers are moving more into apprenticeships as a recruitment model as opposed to other other routes in through other methods of recruiting staff. Um, so that one's definitely growing as well.
Briony: What do we know about apprentices next steps? Because presumably there's an option to do a higher level apprenticeship sometimes, or to um, or to just go into employment and move away from apprenticeships for a while.
Ruth: We see quite a lot of apprentices, especially in health, that are moving through the levels, um, early years as well. Some that start at level two go on to level three and onto onto level four, some into teaching. Health definitely a ladder up from level two to three and four and onwards. We're seeing construction, not so much, I'm going to say usually if people do a level two or level three in, in a trade, you know, plumbing, carpentry and joinery, bricklaying, plastering, those kind of things, they tend to do their apprenticeship and then go into employment, not necessarily move onwards. Some might do go into, you know, site supervision, but most will do their apprenticeship and then work in their trade. So I think it depends on the sector really. Um, and if you'd agree with that, Lynn, from what you see nodding away, does that sound familiar?
Lynn: Does sound absolutely familiar. We have a lot of people in level two construction, but very few go on to level three because that's supervision. But in healthcare it healthcare is is so good, and also childcare as well. To be fair at seeing those seeing people progress through those levels, as Lisa is a testimony to.
Briony: Just before, I'm going to bring in Lisa in a second. Go on. I really want to hear from someone who's actually on the coalface taking one of these apprenticeships. Um, but just before we do, I'd really love to touch on learners with special educational needs and disabilities. Um, and a different group of of learners from more disadvantaged backgrounds. And, um, hear from you, Lynn. I suppose in terms of what, um, what opportunities, um, are, are accessible to them and how apprenticeships might, might be a good step for people joining from those, um, those groups.
Lynn: Yeah. I think apprenticeships are a really good step for people from those groups. So when you start an apprenticeship, you somebody will sit down with you and have a look at what skills you've got already, and they'll try and look at where you are. And that's a that's an interview that happens one to one. And then you get an opportunity then to talk about any additional support needs that you may have, whatever they are. And from whatever background you come from and what what we would do then is we can put support into place. We have a dedicated student support team and we can make those concessions. We have funding that supports people who may need a little bit of help to get there. If it's a trade, tools and materials, we have people that you can come and talk to if you feel things are getting overwhelming. So you've literally got your employer and you've also got your college or training provider that you can go to for that additional support. We have learning support teams here that will know about people's additional support needs, and we can put things in place to make sure that those needs are met, both in the classroom and in the workplace. We work hand in hand with employer. So it's it's quite a good opportunity for you to be able to talk to somebody one to one and say, look, I need this or I'm struggling and I need this sort of support. I think people we find here, they they perform extremely well compared to those who who don't have any additional support needs, because you've got that one to one assistance, there's always somebody you can go to that will help you through.
Briony: Yeah, that's wonderful to hear. It sounds like a fabulous option. Um, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, I mean, I'm going to jump straight in, and I'd love to hear just why you chose, um, the apprenticeship that you did and why you chose an apprenticeship at all.
Lisa: I suppose, um, I chose an apprenticeship when I first started with the NHS trust. I've always been a carer, even in the community. It was something that I've always wanted to be. I've always wanted to be a nurse. So I took the apprenticeship from level two to level five. It's given me confidence, something I thought I'd never be able to do in my life. I left school when I was fourteen. It's been amazing to me all the way through if I've ever needed anything supported me.
Briony: I mean, we spoke earlier about, um, apprentices then being in the workforce with proven skills. And you spoke about confidence, and those two seem to go hand in hand. I mean, you're you're doing what you're learning in the workplace every single day. And that just must be an enormous confidence boost that you just, you know, that you're you know, that you can do the job because you've proven to yourself that you can. How are you finding it? I mean, working and studying side by side must bring some challenges.
Lisa: A couple of months ago, I was off with health problems. I had a bit of a cancer scare. So we had to have operation. I could say some of the pressures in work when you can't get off to come to college. But when you get it structured down, you’re fine.
Briony: Yeah. I mean, the balance, um, that Lynn and Ruth have spoken about of the the four days working and one day studying model is that is does that ring true for you? Is that how your week is balanced? Do you find that, um, you can entirely wrap up your study in one day. Or do you find that the study’s on your mind while you're at work and it's difficult to?
Lisa: Yeah, the study is worrying about it's always there. And like you say, your weekends that you've got free, you do study, but at the end of it it is worth it. I do applied biological science, health and social care lifespan through my job because I'm a assistant practitioner with the alcohol team at Aintree, and it goes great into all the fundamental nursing practices that we do.
Briony: And is it continuous assessment along the way or do you have an assessment at the end?
Lisa: I have an assessment at the end, which is face to face observations.
Briony: And what's next for you when you breeze through that? What's next for you?
Lisa: I want to be a nurse. I want to continue and be a nurse and give back to what the hospital gives to me when I was younger.
Briony: And the connections that you've made during your apprenticeship are those do you feel that those have placed you well for looking for that, that permanent employment post apprenticeship?
Lisa: Uh, yes. You do. Um, they do. It's a I think it's a year like a top up, which you get more into giving out medication and stuff. And that's the only part I need to become a nurse.
Fiona: Can I just interject? I'm Lisa's tutor. Lisa and I have worked together, um, for the last six years. Um, Lisa first joined me on her level three apprenticeship. And you were working, um, within the clinical team as a HCA. Um, uh, within the hospital. Um, and from there and over, over her journey, Lisa has progressed to, I think you've got a distinction for your endpoint assessment on your level three. Um, she came back to me again to do her foundation degree assistant practitioner, having moved into the alcohol team and taking on additional responsibilities. And, you know, the difference in Lisa's confidence from when I very first met her and not particularly i her skills as a healthcare practitioner were always excellent and were always very, very evident. But what she's gaining across doing the foundation degree element is more enhanced knowledge within her scope of practice. Um, because the course very much focuses on where the individual is working within a team. And that seems to be something like within the NHS, looking at the NHS ten year plan and you know how they want to retain their experienced staff, but support them to upskill and to take on more responsible roles. Which she now works in independently across the hospital. She's, um, you know, managing her own caseload and supporting patients through their journey. Alcohol recovery, but also through the sort of the physical elements that, um, alcohol can, can cause for individuals. The idea being that that the, the teams will then get and, you know, a skilled practitioner within their area. So, so that, uh, you know what the, the, um, NHS teams appear to want to do is, is to have people at that band four level to be able to support the rest of the healthcare support team and bridge that gap between the practitioner and the healthcare team to to support, you know, really effective outcomes for the patients.
Briony: Yeah. And I think skilled practitioner just underpins everything that we've spoken about today, isn't it? Where you're, um, as an employer, you're not taking a risk because you've already got someone who's proven in that space. Yeah. I mean, Lisa, what a glowing testimonial. And what a great good news story, um, for both employers and apprentices alike. I can't think of a better way to leave our chat today. I want to thank everyone who's joined us. It's been incredibly enlightening for me, knowing very little about apprenticeships beforehand and that portal into the world of apprenticeships. And I'm sure it's been the same for all of the listeners. And to everyone listening, thank you as ever for joining us, and we'll see you at the next Ofsted talks.
In this episode, colleagues from the National Day Nurseries Association join Ofsted to discuss the report into the importance of the first two years of a child's life: Getting it right from the start: how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers - GOV.UK
Briony Balsom
Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Bryony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on early years, on 'Getting it right from the start, how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers.' And indeed, that is the title of our recently released report. So the research explores how early years practitioners understand the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and apply it to the education and care of babies and toddlers. So we're talking up to two years. It draws largely on a series of visits to early years settings, a survey and some inspector focus groups. So joining us today, we have Fiona Bland, who is from the National Day Nurseries Association, Kiran Singh, who's one of Ofsted's Research and Evaluation leads and was involved in writing and producing the report. And we have Wendy Ratcliff, who is Ofsted's lead for early education. Hello, everybody. So Wendy, just to kick us off then, why did we produce the report?
Wendy Ratcliff
Really good question, and there's a bit of history there. So when we were doing our 'Best start in life research review 'series, one of the things that came out from that was that, we're aware that there's very little research out there around babies, around our youngest children. And I think that's you know, that that's really important for us at a time when the government are looking are increasing funding, there'll be more babies in settings from September in in terms of the childcare reforms. The other thing we know that those first two years lay those important foundations for all future learning, and that babies' development just needs to be encouraged, supported, and, you know, monitored by adults. It's so vitally important to get those first two years right.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, so I think the report starts out by saying what we know instinctively to be the case, that those first two years are really crucial to a child's development.
Briony Balsom
Why is it that they're so important? Could you tell us a little bit about what forms in that child in their first two years?
Wendy Ratcliff
Yeah, absolutely. So. If we think about we think, well, we think about the EYFS, for example, and we think about those educational programs and the primaries of learning. There's so much that needs to happen. What does happen in those first two years and the importance around you know, personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication and language, we think of those important interactions, and I think one of the key things for us is making sure we get that balance right between care and education, because whatever we do through those interactions, those routines with the youngest children, children are learning something, and that's really important.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's because we know it's so important that some of the examples in the report are really so wonderful. So there's a really evocative one of the the practitioner talking about sand in a really glorious way. And you can just feel the engagement with the child. Kiran, I'm going to come to you. Can you tell us a little bit about the methodology and what, what you looked at, who you spoke with to formulate the report?
Kiran Singh
Yeah, yeah, of course. It was really important for us, right from the outset of this project to capture as many voices as we could and really try to be as accessible as we could for the early years sector. And we know that not every nursery could take part. We know that not every practitioner could tell us something. So we tried to, we did a lot of different methods. We first of all, we looked at existing studies and literature on the topic, and we found that there wasn't really as much as there, you know, that there should be on babies that is specific to England. We also issued a national survey to all local authorities in England, and they then sent on the survey to all their registered providers. So in effect, we were giving every single practitioner in England a chance to respond to the survey. We didn't get every single practitioner respond, but we did get a large number of responses that we could actually use, so that that was really good. We visited nurseries, not ones that were attached to schools, and we also visited child minders, and we interviewed leaders and practitioners, and we held discussions with our own inspectors about the practice that they saw in the baby rooms. So we had a we had a big data set for this, and all of our findings we triangulated across the board.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, I mean, it's really expansive in the breadth of who you spoke to. So what about findings? What were the key findings? If you could draw those out for us.
Kiran Singh
We had a range of findings from this research, but they were all really underpinned by the notion that qualifications and experience both matter when it comes to high quality practice and the importance of high quality and relevant CPD for babies. So we saw lots of good examples that demonstrated like, really good understanding of the key person role in the baby room. And it was really endearing and encouraging to see that in the baby room, the baby room practitioners really understood how important this was for the babies. It was really important for them to get to know the baby and to get to know the families. And they understood that they were that link that would make that experience really, you know, really meaningful and good for babies. Our findings also supported that that high that the frequency and the quality of interaction between adults and children are are really critical from that for that quality provision from birth. And whilst I did tell you that our survey was national, it wasn't completely representative of the early years workforce or the wider population of England, and that's an important caveat. But alongside our visits data, it did show us both, both the visits data and their survey data did show us that more needs to be done to help practitioners actually understand their role in babies and toddlers physical development. Exactly what can practitioners do that helps to support them in that physical development. And then our survey also helped us to conclude that practitioners holding qualifications at or above level four, they were more likely to demonstrate a higher level of knowledge and understanding about high quality education and care from from birth than those who held a lower qualification. And we know that might be like a really obvious thing, but it's really important for us to actually see the data that shows us that. And you know, we can talk about that confidently. We also found that when we was talking to practitioners, there were some barriers that prevented, or like delayed, practitioners from actually delivering all those high quality interactions and the high quality education and care that we've talked about a lot in the report for babies. And the main barriers were around, like, misconceptions about educating and caring for babies. And those, those misconceptions were held by practitioners, and we and we know that also that there were some challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled and experienced practitioners that that really did affect, like the quality of baby room practice and leaders talked a lot about that a lot to us.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, yeah. And I really want to come back and explore some some of the detail in those key findings in a minute, and we can bring those, bring those to life, a little. But to come to you, Fiona, before we go into them in in great detail, so broadly did the report ring true for you in terms of what you know about the sector and practitioners?
Fiona Bland
It definitely reflects the things that we talk about and hear about through our members. We know that there are fantastic practitioners out there doing wonderful jobs, and it was great to read those lovely examples in the report. And we also hear about the challenges that they're having in terms of recruitment, and, you know, being able to get those high quality staff into the setting. So, yeah.
Briony Balsom
I mean, I suppose one of the questions that that came to me was looking at the report was about, how do we learn from this? How do we then cascade that into training so that we're improving practice? I mean, continuous development is presumably a particular area of challenge. How can we learn from this and build this into CPD and initial training?
Fiona Bland
There are lots of challenges, and CPD doesn't always mean formal training. It can take place in many ways, so providers have to be really creative in how they're doing that. If they're looking at a training course, it's thinking about, what are those skills that they want their staff to achieve, what they're looking for them to get, and then making sure that they do some research, looking at the training and the training company making sure that the course that they're looking for has that theory that underpins that practice, and then it gives them that practical application, so that when they go back to their setting, they're able to put that into their practice and see where, where that fits. If it isn't formal training, then you know, CPD can be done through a professional discussion. It can be done through peer observation, and so leaders need to be thinking about finding that person that can actually lead, that who's got the skills and the knowledge to support that practitioner to develop the skills that they've identified that they need.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, thanks. And presumably, there's something about building it into accepted practice in a setting's baby room as well. How? I don't know how frequently practice in a baby room is reviewed. Is this something that's done on a rolling basis? Fiona, or how does that? How does that work?
Fiona Bland
Reflective practice should be part of practitioners everyday experience. It's an ongoing process. Quality is a journey, not a destination, and practitioners will be evaluating even without realizing they're doing it when they're thinking about really informal everyday activities and routines and discussions they're having. So what went well in this activity? What might we want to change for next time? When they're adapting plans because babies interested have led into a different direction? So we know that babies and families are unique, so the approach has got to be unique as well, and that comes from looking at your practice, observing it, evaluating it, and thinking about the individual needs of the babies and families that are currently in their care.
Briony Balsom
So going back to these findings, there's some really interesting findings that you mentioned Kiran about physical development. What is it that leaders in the sector can do better to sort of understand their impact on child's physical development. I think it was indeed a third of the survey respondents believe that physical development in babies happens without that adult intervention. Wendy to come to you first, and I'm sure the others will have views as well. What's the issue here? What could be done better and what? What did we learn?
Wendy Ratcliff
Yeah, it's a really interesting one, isn't it? I think there is some ,you know, we know that that good physical development supports children in their playing, in gaining independence, having positive attitudes towards exercise and forming healthy habits and physical health later on in life. But we did observe some disconnect between some practitioners belief and their practice regarding physical development. So for example, some said that they encouraged physical activity, but also that they did not believe they could play a role in supporting physical development. So actually, there's, there's a need there for leaders and the sector as a whole to help practitioners understand that importance in their role in supporting physical development for babies and and for toddlers as well, and actually helping them through that that process.
Kiran Singh
I will just caveat again that our survey wasn't representative of the EY workforce or the England population at large. However, when we did triangulate that data with our visits, it did corroborate there were, there was, you know, there was enough evidence there to tell us that this is, this is the gist. This is a trend. This is something that is going on in the sector. I think the biggest thing that managers and leaders can do when we did see this is where, where there was that misconception, where there wasn't that, where there was that kind of mismatch between belief and practice. The managers and leaders were actually supporting practitioners to identify that, and they were reviewing that, and they were making them see that, and then they were providing that time and space and supervision for practitioners to actually meet those professional standards. I really liked when Fiona said that it was about them thinking creatively, because actually that when we saw really good practice, that's exactly what we were seeing. They were seeing that it wasn't necessarily that they would be able to buy a course, buy into a course, or do something online. It might be from learning somebody actually who's really, that's their forte, they're really good at that. And pairing them up with them, and having that regular discussion with them might actually just help them to see that we can actually align this, this belief in this practice. So I think that's probably the one of the biggest things that we that we saw, that we that could help to improve that.
Wendy Ratcliff
That modeling and that coaching is, is, is really important, isn't it? And, and there were some, yeah, we did see some examples of, you know, practitioners, modeling and narration. And there were some good examples coming through as well.
Fiona Bland
I think a really comprehensive induction is really key. You get those new staff into your setting and really being able to talk to them about what your baby room vision and ethos is all about, making sure they understand what an incredible privilege it is to be working and helping develop and shape babies brains. And then that should be followed up with regular support from the baby room leader the rest of the staff in the room should be really good role models, so that you're giving that new practitioner really strong foundation in understanding about the importance of that role and the joy that can be brought from that role too. Any misconceptions need to be addressed straight away, and really helping this member of staff understand why they're not correct, and giving them ways that they can improve their practice through that new understanding.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, thanks, Fiona. It's some really practical sort of steps in there.
Kiran Singh
What Fiona has just said really resonates with our early years workforce blog, because one of the things that we found in that was that it was really important to get that induction right, and the providers that were getting that induction right, were finding that there was less problems as they went on, because it really set that foundation, and like Fiona said, set that belief and set that motivation right from the start. And when you had that really strong induction, you were more likely to get a practitioner that was, you know, more well invested in that.
Briony Balsom
Just to go back to the key findings, Kiran, you also mentioned that we found that sometimes misconceptions about educating, educating and caring for babies and toddlers could be those barriers to delivering really high quality practice. Can you expand on that a little, and then maybe Fiona and Wendy could come in on how, how leaders can address those barriers?
Kiran Singh
We found sometimes that it's really important for practitioners to actually reflect on how they actually perceive themselves professionally, where we were finding that practitioners only saw themselves as carers, and that there was a range of misconceptions around that, or a range of beliefs around that. So it might be, for example, there was one belief where they felt that parents actually only wanted a caring environment. They wanted, like from a home to a home, or where we found that practitioners only saw themselves as an educator, especially, say, for example, where they were a child minder and they were really, they were really wanted to make sure that the perception wasn't simply that they were child minding in a home. And, you know, they didn't have the same professional standards as a nursery, for example, and they really wanted to make sure that educational perspective was there. We found that that was where there was a bit of lack. It was only when education and care was kind of combined. And actually you have to do both. You need to, you need to be an educated carer or a caring educator, to actually give a baby kind of the absolute you know, getting it right from the start is giving them the best start, is where both things are absolutely held in that perfect balance.
Briony Balsom
The tightrope between carer and educator and enveloping the two is just incredibly challenging, but that's what you need to deliver results, isn't it? Wendy Fiona, how can this be encouraged by leaders?
Wendy Ratcliff
I think one of those things there is, is that being able to think about those different those teaching opportunities, and if we think of routine times, for example, a routine time, you know, nappy changing time for a baby, I mean, that's part of their care. But absolutely, isn't that an amazing opportunity to teach those important interactions, that communication and language, singing, rhymes, there's, there's so much that can happen during that routine time that is a educating at the same time, and I think we saw some good examples of that as part of the visits that the inspectors went on. So there was an example where, in one setting, they were talking about carefully sequencing the order in which they do things for babies and toddlers, and how they build on what babies and toddlers already could do. You know that example of helping and showing, teaching babies and toddlers how to hold their spoon at meal times and moving that forward and so thinking about those, that journey that children need to go on and sequencing the curriculum, if you like.
Briony Balsom
Yes, and one of my other favorite examples was around the nappy changing and using vocabulary and talking through what they were doing. Fiona, over to you?
Fiona Bland
Yeah, I think it's really important that leaders are talking to staff about their responsibilities and their roles, so they're really clear about that they can use supervisions to make that link, as Wendy just talked about, between the care and the learning and and how that's that impacts on on children, and really having those discussions as a staff team, using a staff meeting to talk about that, so that there are no misconceptions. Everybody's understanding is consistent across the setting about the importance of both care and education.
Kiran Singh
I was just going to say that I actually went on the visit. I assisted on the visit with the with the nappy changing, example. And it was honestly a light bulb moment. And we could, when we talk to the practitioner after, we could really see that she'd got it. And as Fiona was saying, they'd had those open discussions there. There was that consistency. There was that knowing exactly what my role is, that responsibility was really, really clear.
Briony Balsom
One of the, one of the challenges that we pick out in the report is around recruiting and retaining staff and experienced practitioners, and how that directly impacts the quality of education and care for babies and toddlers. I'm going to open this up to everybody, because I'm sure everyone will have a view what, what are the challenges here and what can be done. I mean, we're we're expecting numbers to increase significantly, and so it's something we're going we're going to have to really face head on.
Wendy Ratcliff
We know that through some of the workforce blog that Kiran referred to this report also draws out that point about recruitment and retention and some of those struggles that settings are facing at the moment. And, you know, there that that kind of pull there as well, that, you know, increasing our youngest children being able to access settings from September and their funded places. So there's lots of pulls out there aren't there in terms of, you know, we need to make sure that, yeah, we're thinking about the practice in the in the baby room, so that we get it right. One of the things that managers, you know, they did tell us that there were high staff turnover, that difficulty in hiring qualified and experienced practitioners playing to the point that Kieran was talking about earlier in the key finding that you know, underpinning all of this report and the research is that it's the experience plus the knowledge and the qualification, where we get practice that is most effective.
Briony Balsom
Fiona, I'm going to come across to you.
Fiona Bland
Yeah, we hear from our members about the struggles that they have in terms of recruitment and particularly finding, you know, full and relevant level three qualified staff. We talk to them about being creative in terms of thinking about recruitment and where they're recruiting so that they are are widening their opportunity to find these people. We suggest that they link up with a local college and get in there to talk to people who are just about qualified, talk about the role, talk about the opportunities. So really thinking creatively about how they can do that, and if it, if it's not, then we talk to them about developing their own CPD programs that offer some flexible options so that there's any gaps in staff that they're recruiting they can, you know, support them to develop the skills that they need, and that might be through, you know, reading journals, writing a journal about what's working well and what those challenges might be. It can be things like listening to podcasts and professionals, or it might be a podcast a member of your team. You know, if you haven't got time for those one to one peer observations, getting podcasts recorded that talk about some of those key practice things. Peer observations, in house training, talking through staff meetings or nominating a buddy or a mentor that can really help support the skills that they need.
Briony Balsom
Or by working their way down the list of things you've suggested, because that's a really comprehensive, thorough, yeah, list of really creative, local solutions that people can be taking. Kiran?
Kiran Singh
I think, as a researcher, what was good for us to see is we had, well, we had a spectrum, and then, you know, there was extremes, and there was providers. Leaders were saying, we have this massive problem. We're finding it difficult to recruit staff. We're recruiting staff that we might not have done five years ago, that we know don't have the experience and qualifications, and then also with retention. You know, we have really good staff, and they've got all of this expertise, but, you know, they're only staying with us for a year and a half or two years and moving on. So for us it was, it was where leaders were saying, we have this major problem, but then on the other hand, and just kind of accepting that there was a problem, but then on the other hand, we were having leaders as as Fiona was saying, they were really kind of thinking quite creatively, and saying, We have a problem, but what exactly can we do about it to ensure that actually, this doesn't impact our babies as much as we can, as much as as possible? What can we do about it to make sure that it doesn't actually impact the the service and the delivery and the the high quality interactions that babies are getting? Leaders were kind of thinking about it in creative ways, and thinking about what they could actually do to kind of minimize as much detriment as much harm as possible.
Briony Balsom
Yeah. I mean, I'd really like to pick up on that. So from what Fiona said, there's lots of creative solutions to this that do require a lot of thought. There's a real acceptance and recognition of what's coming. But, I mean, how prepared do we feel that providers are for the childcare reforms that are coming?
Fiona Bland
Yeah, I think lots of providers will already be in the planning stage for increasing the number of babies that they take, and they'll be doing their capacity planning now to look at, you know, budgets, space requirements, qualifications, recruitment, any additional resources and that they might need, and staff training costs for if they need to fill gaps in in staff training. So I think a lot of providers will already be thinking about what we need to do, and they'll be in that capacity planning stage at the moment.
Wendy Ratcliff
So I think some of that we won't know until we start seeing that through our inspection, our inspection insights will help tell whether or not there's a successful roll out of increased places for children. And importantly, our inspectors will continue to be out there looking at, you know, what's it like to be a child typically in this setting. And hopefully, yes, settings are are getting ready for the change.
Briony Balsom
Yeah. I mean, it definitely sounds as though these changes are going to require some really thoughtful and responsive practice and leadership. I mean, our report shows that people are well equipped for this.
Wendy Ratcliff
I think that's really important to say. And actually one of the reasons for producing this report is to think about some of those, knowing those changes are coming, and hoping that this report is accessible for our early years sector, and hopefully they can take some comfort from it and also take some learning from it as well.
Briony Balsom
Absolutely, well, I can't think of a better place to leave it. Thank you, Kiran, Wendy and Fiona for joining today, and thanks to everyone for listening.
Would you like to learn more about our proposed new report cards, or how we’ll inspect inclusion?
Ofsted is consulting on changes to our education inspections. Host Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks to Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston (National Director, Education) and Claire Stewart (Deputy Director, Inclusive Education) about our consultation proposals, including our new report cards, inclusion grade and education inspection toolkits.
Take part in our consultation here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education.
Transcript
Mark Leech: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today we're going to be talking about the consultation that we're currently running looking at improvements to the way we inspect education. So that's education right from early years right through schools and into further education and skills. And I'm joined by Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Lee Owston, the National Director for Education, and Claire Stewart, who is Deputy Director for Inclusive Education. Our consultation began in February, and it runs until the 28th of April. We're recording this in March so we can reflect a little bit on what we're starting to hear back from the consultation. We've been out meeting lots of people from the sectors that we inspect and regulate, and also meeting with parents groups and others, so we can talk a little bit about feedback and what we're hearing and hopefully answer some of the things that maybe people would like to hear us talk about. So, if I could turn to you Martyn first, just around a bit of the background to what we're trying to achieve here. We obviously had a huge consultation exercise last year, the Big Listen, which has shaped a lot of these proposals. What in a nutshell, are we trying to achieve with the changes we're making to education inspection?
Martyn Oliver: Yeah, thanks, Mark, and it's really good to be joined by Lee, and I'm really particularly delighted that we are joined by Claire, because isn't it great that we've now got a Deputy Director who's in charge of just inclusivity, because inclusion is a massive part of our work. And so if I go back to what happened just after I started, I was really clear that I wanted to listen to the system we launched, I think it was last March, the Big Listen, the largest consultation, the largest piece of listening work at Ofsted has ever done. Over 20,000 or so took part in our survey then we had independent surveys looking at parents, what do they think, what providers think, and indeed, children. And in the end, it's about 30,000 people. And they came back with some really strong messages. Some of them are hard for us to hear about a gap in trust. And then some of the messages were really positive about the things that we should do going forward. And some of them were things like, our framework is focusing on the right things currently, with a focus on the curriculum, and that's really important. But our framework is a generic framework across early years, primary, secondary, further education, initial teacher training education, independent schools and people didn't recognise their uniqueness, and so Lee and I were really keen to develop a framework going forward which looked at that uniqueness. We also wanted to pay attention to the context. We heard we weren't spending enough time looking at the context of inspections. The stress and pressure of inspection was a huge part of what we heard. And so, this framework that we're consulting on now isn't just about the actual design of what we will inspect. I think probably even more important than that, to be honest, is how we go about inspecting it. And we've really thought long and hard about that.
Mark Leech: Thank you. So, one of the challenges that we have at Ofsted is how we balance the needs of parents with the people that we inspect. So, we hear different things. And you've spoken about the Big Listen, and we heard different things from parents than we heard perhaps, from leaders in schools or in nurseries. And I suppose the area where this really comes together in the proposals that we've put out for consultation is in the way that we report, which is a really big change, isn't it?
Martyn Oliver: Oh yeah, the way that we're proposing to report now in 2025 going forwards, will be, I think, probably the biggest change since we were developed back in 1992 because predominantly, we've always relied upon a single word to describe the overall effectiveness of a nursery or a childminder or a school or a college. And we heard this in the Big Listen, but we also heard it from the government when they were elected, was that the single word judgment lacked nuance and complexity of the providers, and it was low information and high stakes and high accountability. We did independent research that I mentioned a few moments ago, and the independent research for providers was very clear: Remove the single word judgment, the overall effectiveness grade, and they talked about replacing it with a narrative describing the strengths of schools or bullet points. And I think it was their third option was to say or show some grades for the sub judgments of areas, but not the overall area. That same research independently carried out on parents said, we want clarity of the grades, but we don't want the single word judgment. And so designing this idea of a report card, dropping that single word grade was to try and lean into the nuance, lean into the complexity, provide written forms of strengths and areas for development that the system’s really clearly asked for, but also provide the clarity on sub judgment and grade that parents asked for, and that's where the idea behind the report card came into. And I get that because it's different, it's going to feel like a big challenge and a big change. I mean, one of the things that I think from my early conversations with people is they're struggling to understand that a provider could be both needing to pay attention to something and be strong at something else. You could be both things across that one institution in different areas. And I think that's right, because if I go back to being a head teacher, and I had quite a few outstanding schools. And even in my outstanding schools, I used to think to myself, yeah, but I know it isn't all outstanding. There are some aspects of it that I'm working on, and the idea of the report card is to try to get underneath that and be of more use.
Mark Leech: So I mean, from a parent's point of view as well, I suppose that, you know, they're going to be used to seeing this with their own children, you know, their own children will have things they're really excelling at in other areas where perhaps they're they need a bit more help. So, it's that sort of approach to a school to a nursery to a further education college.
Martyn Oliver: Exactly. It's leaning into that complexity and trying our best to help that provider recognise their strengths, recognise what they're working on, or perhaps sometimes point out to them things that they didn't perhaps know about themselves and be of use on that journey. And it's also, I think, really important alongside our consultation, which you can find on our website, gov.uk, the Department of Education is also running a separate consultation, completely independent of ours about how they might use our information to look at accountability on the system. So, there are two types of consultation out there, and I'd encourage people to go and find them both.
Mark Leech: Yeah, I think that's really important, isn't it? Because I think people do misunderstand that relationship, even people who work in education, the fact that we are the inspectorate. We go out, we inspect a school, we give a series of grades related to what to what we see. We're not responsible for the next step. So, the next step, be it some sort of support for that school, be it some sort of intervention that sits with government, as you say, there's a separate consultation on that. So, on the new report card, we're going to be using a new grading scale, so it's got five points to it, and it runs from causing concern at the lowest end, attention needed, secure, strong and exemplary. So, people have been talking a lot about these, these five grades. Martyn, perhaps if you and Lee could talk us through what those grades mean and how they'd be applied?
Martyn Oliver: Yeah, absolutely. So, the idea is behind the report card, as I said, was to provide more nuanced, more complex information about the wide range of things that providers do, whether you're in a childminder or a nursery or a school or a college. In law, we have to tell the Department for Education if there's an unacceptable standard of education taking place, and so we call that the lowest grade here ‘causing concern’. And if a school or a child model a college falls into that category, that's when we would bring the Department for Education in. And that's why it's important that people look at our consultation, and they also look at the Department for Education's consultation on how they might use our information. So that's the lowest grade causing concern. I'm just going to jump quickly then to ‘secure’. Secure is where we would start all of our inspections at. We would expect everyone to hit the secure standard. It should give parents a great deal of confidence when they see that people are meeting that secure standard. Now, once you've got that secure standard, and you've got that unacceptable standard causing concern, I think it's really important that you've got something in the middle, because if you don't, it's a cliff edge, you're either secure or you fall off and you're unacceptable. And that would be too much pressure on the system. So, I think you need something as a halfway house. It's not an unacceptable standard. It is acceptable. But if you don't pay attention to it, it could be a problem. Now, Lee's got quite a nice way of describing this. Lee, you told me it's a bit like, like an MOT.
Lee Owston: Absolutely so in my mind, attention needed, it’s a bit like when you take your car in for an MOT and they'll say, well, Lee, you can certainly drive your car home today, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. You can still use it, but actually, unless you kind of take a look at your back left tire and you kind of keep an eye on the wear and tear, the next time you come in for your mot, it's probably going to be unacceptable in terms of the standard that we've set, and that's what we wanted to introduce in terms of between secure and causing concern. Catching settings before they fall, giving them the opportunity to address something before it becomes a major issue, and that's why we came up with attention needed. It's for the attention of leaders within that particular establishment, and of course, it's then up to them to seek the support if they need it, to put whatever aspect of practice that might be.
Martyn Oliver: Yeah, and I also think it might be useful for parents, because they might choose to use that information when they go in and talk to their child's school, for example, and say ‘what are you doing about this in your setting?’ and allow the school to explain the actions that they're taking. It should be, I think, helpful for both sides, because I think it's really important that schools work closely with parents, and actually that's one of the things that's in our toolkit that we look at that. So, that gets us then to secure needs attention or attention needed and causing concern. But I don't think that's enough. There's some fantastic performance out there, and if we don't recognise those who are going beyond the secure standard, then that would be a huge, wide range of providers, from those who just made it through to those who are doing something so good that it really is standing out, and that's why we've developed strong or strong practice.
Lee Owston: Yeah, and we recognise in lots of the feedback we're already receiving, whether that's through the consultation questionnaire or that's when we're talking directly to leaders, that there's more work for us to do there, certainly to really clarify what is the difference between being secure, doing everything that you need to, in terms of the statutory outcomes and expectations and frameworks, and then strong in terms of going beyond that. And we know there are schools out there that rightly go above and beyond what the kind of expectation or the core standard might be that's been set, and of course, we're working through so what are those features of strong practice that we want to put into our toolkit and very clearly state in our toolkit so people can see the difference between being secure, being strong, what that means and in terms of potential features that may be may be exemplary.
Martyn Oliver: Yeah. Now the bit that I found was really exciting about this is Ofsted’s unique role. It should be beholden upon Ofsted to see where we see someone is so strong that something they're doing maybe world class. I mean, I was in a school in the Northwest where I was watching how the school had paid attention to the needs of children with additional needs, whether a special educational needs or they had a vulnerability because they were perhaps a looked after child. Every single teacher had a clear idea of every child and their vulnerability and their disadvantage background in their class. Every single additional adult, a teaching assistant, had that same information. All the leaders had the same information. And the way that those three groups worked together to wrap around these children was absolutely incredible. Some of the best I've seen in 28 years of walking into schools. That would be an example where I would say, that's exemplary, that is incredible. And I think that other schools could learn from that, if that school was willing to share it. And that's where Ofsted, unique role wants to come in in sharing that exemplary practice.
Lee Owston: And I would add to that to say, that it's highly unlikely that leaders, settings will be exemplary across the board. And we want to make a very clear distinction, don't we, between how Ofsted and inspection has operated in the past and how we are proposing to operate in the future. So, for example, we don't want people to equate what we do now i.e. outstanding with exemplary. You can't make that kind of leap, or that jump between one system and another, and that's why it's important that we do explain exemplary, because it's about the feature of practice that's exemplary, rather than saying it's an entire aspect or evaluation area within our toolkit.
Martyn Oliver: That's also what we heard in the Big Listen. There was a lack of trust that people had in the grades we've given, and so that's why I think this is a really important moment for Ofsted to reset and to rebuild trust, reset its relationship with those that we inspect and develop a new way of reporting, both to parents and to the providers that leans into that nuance, leans into that complexity, which is why we have those areas and why we have those grades. But it's really important that what we're actually asking is nothing new.
Mark Leech: So, before we get on to how we inspect and I want to come back to a word that you've dropped in there a couple of times, which is toolkit. So, we'll come back to that, but just to pick up on the report cards, then people will see more grades, so five grades, and they'll certainly see a lot more areas that those grades are applied to. So Lee, do you want to just run through? And I know it's different if you're if you're a nursery to a school to a college to a apprenticeship provider, but what sort of things are we looking at?
Lee Owston: So you'll of course see lots of things that you're very familiar with. In fact, there shouldn't be anything in our toolkit that you think, oh, that's brand new. I've never heard of that before, with the exception of inclusion, and I think Claire will come in later and talk about inclusion. But for example, you will see leadership and governance, that leaders and governors are responsible for taking forward the high-quality education and care for the children and the learners in their particular community. You'll see in there, curriculum, what is it that we want children and learners to be working through in terms of their program of study. Teaching is in there. We've importantly called it developing teaching, because it's about how leaders are offering support and development to their staff, so they can be the absolute best in terms of what they deliver for children and young people. You'll see in their behaviour, attendance, personal development, so lots of things that we already know and are familiar with. However, the important difference is that we've separated them out so that no longer aggregated into one overarching judgment, but actually we've disaggregated them. We've separated them out into their constituent parts, because it's important that we're able to evaluate and grade all of the great things that leaders are doing. And let's celebrate that success where it exists, and an awful lot of it exists. But also, let's use the opportunity of inspection to reassure leaders that whatever they've got on their desk today, whatever priorities they're working through, that actually they're the right ones. They've got the right actions in place, and even if they're not seeing the finished article yet, that we can say, but you're going in the right direction, and there are some green shoots. And then the other function of inspection, linked to what we were describing earlier, around attention needed, is that with fresh eyes, as an independent person visiting a college or a school or a nursery, I can say, and look, you might just want to turn your attention to these things next. They're not on your radar today, but I think they should be in the future, because if you don't, they're probably going to be a concern when we come back in 4,5,6 years time, depending on the remit. So, in terms of how we work through inspection, it's important to see all of the proposals as one big package, because ultimately, it's about how it all fits together, not only what we look at, but as I'm really passionate about how inspection feels. When I or my inspectors come out and visit leaders in their settings, what does it feel like and that interaction, that conversation, and that dialog, and we've got a range of measures in our proposals that I encourage everybody to look at, because it is about seeing all of it together so that we can change the culture and make inspection the best it possibly can be.
Mark Leech: I want to bring Claire in because we heard a bit there about inclusion. It is a new thing that we're focusing on through the inspection. It will get a standalone grade of its own. It's been something that people have been talking about in the education sector and discussing how this is going to work. So, Claire, what light can you shed on first of all, what we mean by inclusion, and I know there's been some work done talking to various people in the sector who are experts in this field, to help define what we should be looking at. And then how we inspect it and how we apply that.
Claire Stewart: It's a really tricky question, isn't it, what do we mean by inclusion? And you'll see in our consultation that we've got a working definition, and we've used that to help us inform our work through the toolkits on inclusion and that grade. And we're really keen to hear people's views on that working definition. What we're really looking for, though, is that providers and settings know their students, they know their pupils, they understand what barriers they might be facing to education. Disadvantage and vulnerability isn't a fixed state, is it? You know, pupils can move in and out of being vulnerable, and it's about how leaders can show us that they understand their pupils and that they're able to try and meet their needs and remove some of those barriers, and, of course, how they support those students with SEND (special educational needs and/or disabilities) as well. So, I think that's really, really important. I'm really excited that we've got this standalone grade on inclusion. I think that really shows just how important it is for everyone at Ofsted and for the wider education sector. It's really really important. I'm also really excited that if you look at the toolkits, it's actually throughout a lot of those other grades as well. So we're thinking about how inclusive is the curriculum, how inclusive is the teaching, what are the behaviour policies like, and how do we meet the needs of some of those really vulnerable, disadvantaged children, those students that might have SEND and also thinking about how providers also think about those really highly able pupils as well, and how they meet their needs.
Mark Leech: It is quite broad in that sense, isn't it? It is really looking at pupils from different sorts of backgrounds, pupils with different levels of ability and how they are included.
Martyn Oliver: So I was really keen to see inclusion be at the heart of it. And look, it's early days, but I was talking to a very senior person representing the work of local authorities, and they were saying that, since we've started talking about inclusion the last 13-14 months, if you get it right for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, you get it right for everyone. This very senior person said, since you've been talking about inclusion, we're noticing the system suddenly opening more resource bases. We're noticing changes in admissions. Makes you realise how important it is that we get this right, because the intended consequence of what Ofsted does is so impactful, just as the unintended consequences. And that's why we're doing a consultation because we don't want to have an unintended consequences. And we definitely do want to have those intended consequences that will raise standards and improve the lives, especially of the most vulnerable.
Mark Leech: No, definitely. And talking about what we're seeing a bit of in the consultation, and I'll bring Claire back in, perhaps, on this is a bit of concern around around the inclusion grade that to take schools as the sort of example here that schools might be sort of penalised for failures in the wider SEND system. So, for a long time, people have spoken about the SEND system being under enormous strain. It's often described as a broken system. I think it's really important talking about those unintended consequences that we don't end up with schools sort of carrying the can for wider problems in the in the system. So, Claire, can you talk a little bit about that and perhaps reassure some of the listeners about how we'll go about looking at SEND within that area of inclusion?
Claire Stewart: Absolutely, there's a lot of positivity in what we're seeing initially in the consultation responses around that focus on inclusion, it is so important, and it's something that parents are really keen on, but absolutely recognise the kind of concerns that schools will have. What we are really looking for is that schools know and understand the needs of their pupils and how they try to lower those barriers to learning for those pupils, whatever they might be. We understand the context of those schools that they're sitting in, we do hear about the wider SEND system, and we understand the challenges there. So, we're not expecting schools to kind of do things that are totally outside of their control. What we are wanting to see is that teachers and leaders understand their pupils and that they are trying to mitigate those barriers as much as they can with the resources that they've got.
Mark Leech: I think that's really helpful to hear. So we've talked a lot about the different grades and the different areas that we're going to be looking at and, once or twice we've mentioned toolkits, so we should really get on to some of some of that area now, which is more about how we are proposing to inspect from November this year, so that's when we're looking to bring these changes in. Lee, do you want to talk a little bit about what these toolkits are, and a bit more as you alluded to earlier, around the feel of inspection, and what we're trying to do there. It's one of the areas that has come up a lot in the kind of debate that's been going on about Ofsted, about how head teachers and leaders in nurseries and further education colleges, how they feel when they're being inspected.
Lee Owston: Yeah, that that term toolkit, we've chosen that term. Look, we might not stick with it depends what people tell us as part of the part of the consultation, but it is a word we're using to describe a set of materials that are as helpful and supportive as possible in terms of continuous improvement. And yes, we'll be using them at the point of inspection to support an evaluation and a grade, but we would hope that leaders, wherever they are in the education system, would be able to use those same materials to support whatever it is that they have to do next in their day-to-day work. And in doing that, we've been very conscious to craft each toolkit, and there's one for each remit that we inspect and or regulate – so, registered early years, state funded schools, non-association, independent schools, further education and skills and initial teacher education – so, we've tried to make sure that we speak directly to those different remits. We've crafted them all around the statutory. guidance and the professional frameworks that exist within each of those remits. So, to give you an example, our registered early years toolkit is crafted around the EYFS, the Early Years Foundation Stage, the statutory document the government have set as the expectation in terms of what all registered early years settings should be doing. So, this is not about Ofsted telling people what they should do. I want to be able to come in as an inspector and evaluate how well you are following through on all of the things that you're expected to do that has been set by government. And in schools, we have things like ‘Keeping children safe in education’, we have teacher standards, we have the special educational needs code of practice. And of course, in colleges, we have the 16 to 19 study programme guidance, we have apprenticeship standards. So, every remit to varying degrees has a core set of materials set by government that lay out the expectations of how they're supposed to work. Inspection will just key into those and, as we described earlier, the secure column, that middle column in the toolkit, is really carefully crafted against those statutory expectations and professional frameworks. It's deliberately more detailed in that middle column, because we've tried to capture all of the guidance that exists. So, we hope that when people look at the toolkit, they will recognize that it isn't anything other than what they would usually be expected to work within. The other challenge was to make them as crystal clear and as accessible as possible. I recognise that sometimes we can all look, as it currently exists, one bullet point, let's just say, under ‘good’ currently, and because they're written in such high level language, and there's such a summary of lots of things that we can all come to understand and interpret them in different ways, and that's where we can get lots of criticism about inconsistency because are we all looking at the same thing and understanding it in the same way? So, I want to reassure people that, yes, the toolkits do look like there is more. But what I really tried to do is take out of my mind, as the principal inspector for the organisation, the thought processes that I go through, and try to put them in everyday language onto the page so that nothing is hidden, nothing is secret, everybody is well aware of the steps that we go through and the expectations that we have linked to, as I said, that statutory guidance and those professional frameworks. Now there's more work for us to do, because I'm pretty sure there'll be bits of it, bits of the toolkits, standards that we could be even sharper at describing. But I think the message about not being additional or other and making it as accessible as possible is certainly the right direction that we should be going in.
Martyn Oliver: We launched a consultation, we said openly that we know that strong needs to be better defined. And we could have run all sorts of test visits out in the sector for months and then launched the consultation, but I was determined, and again, it's a part of the Big Listen to be open and transparent, and that's why we didn't do that. We made sure that the system knows that there won't be any clandestine testing taking place. We'll be out there openly and transparently saying we're now out in schools or out in early years, out in colleges, testing. And that's why we expect to see that bit get better. And so, in the consultation responses, I'd really love it if people came back with supported definitions to how to strengthen, strong. I think that'd be great. And the other part of behind the toolkit now, we do not want people to go writing self-evaluation form. We don't want that. If there's nine areas we're looking at, we don't want head teachers to produce nine ring box files of evidence, but we do know that the best leaders will evaluate, self-evaluate where they stand. And because the toolkits are written against those professional standards, and if anyone hasn't done this, if people are listening to this and they're a teacher or a parent of a child in a school, just pop onto the internet and have a look at professional standards to be a teacher. The day that you qualified from initial teacher education to become a qualified teacher. It's got two parts, part A and part B. Look at part A in particular. There's an awful lot in there about delivering high quality curriculum, high quality assessment, supporting children to achieve well. Once you read that language, then look at our toolkit. You'll see where it's coming from. And I've had messages already from an executive head, who runs a large group of schools in the north of England, not my old one that I used to run, I quickly hasten to add, and they said that they're finding the toolkit so helpful because they're evaluating their school and they're now leaning into what we've already put in our draft to help them be as sharp as they can, about the great elements that make up great provision, and that's where the tool comes in.
Mark Leech: We’ve heard an awful lot. We've talked about grades, we've talked about the evaluation areas, we've talked about the toolkits and how the inspections will work. Talked about inclusion, which has been really helpful. I think we could probably talk for a lot longer. I think I'm going to suggest to people listening that they go to our website, gov.uk/Ofsted, where you can read all of the proposals and take part in the consultation. We genuinely want to hear back from people out there, from parents in particular. We want to hear back from people who are working in the sector. We want to hear back about the sort of big picture, but also some of the details. Are we getting the wording right in the toolkit, are we explaining ourselves clearly enough in the report card, so lots and lots of areas for people to feedback on. You have until the 28th of April. So, it just leaves me to thank Sir Martyn, Lee and Claire for joining me today, and thank you all for listening.
What's the picture of local areas and how well they are working to prepare children and young people with special educational needs for adulthood? What support are they offering to allow young people to reach their full potential? Preparation for adulthood arrangements in local areas: a thematic review - GOV.UK
Briony Balsom 0:07
Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time we're focusing on preparing for adulthood. In December 24 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly published a report considering how well children with special needs and or disabilities or send are being supported in their preparation for adulthood. We considered survey responses from more than 2000 children, young people, parents and practitioners, and visited six local area partnerships to explore how children and young people with SEND are being prepared for adulthood. Later, I'm going to be chatting to Jess Taylor Byrne from the CQC, who jointly produced the report with us. But today, firstly, I'm delighted to be joined by guests from Newcastle College. We spoke to practitioners and leaders at Newcastle as part of our visit, and we found some really positive practice in this area. So joining us, we have Rachel Gibson, who's the Assistant Director at Newcastle College. We have Maxine Johnson, who is the SEND manager, Sabarina Logan, who's currently studying for a level three National Diploma in Business at Newcastle college. And also we have Adams Sproston, who is Ofsted senior HMI for SEND. Hello everybody! To kick us off, I'd really love to hear from you, Adam, about what innovative ideas we came across that are really working at this really key juncture of a young person's life?
Adam Sproston 1:29
Thanks, Briony. We found lots of positives across the six areas that we visited, typically, professionals in education, health and social care, working in very challenging contexts to meet the needs of children and young people, and they shared with us challenges in the economy, but also after COVID 19 and the impact that that's having on some young people. In particular, we found that providers that give high quality careers, information, education, advice and guidance are able to prepare young people better for adult life. May that be courses that they move to, careers that they want to be interested and and thrive in, or in other aspects. So for some young people with SEND that might be improving their independence or supported living as they become an adult. So that was really important to see where professionals know children and young people really well. They can be best placed to meet their needs and tailor their approaches to work for the child's aspirations.
Briony Balsom 2:36
Wonderful. So let's come across to Newcastle and hear a little more about exactly what it is that you're you're doing so well.
Maxine Johnson 2:42
So within our support offer within Newcastle college for our learners with with high needs, so we have a dedicated team of SEND advisors who support our learners with HCPs, transition into college and transitioning with the school, the provider that they're currently with, liaison with any external providers to ensure that we can obviously meet their learners needs and support that kind of smooth transition in a college before they've even started, whether that's coming in on transition visits and doing tastes within the curriculum, or seeing the learners and doing observations in the classroom to see how their learning works and how this how they supported to again, make that transition as smooth as possible. We also do as part of our transition, we have a summer school within our life skills hub, which again, just cements and kind of builds those foundations for our students to be able to know the campus, become familiar with certain spaces that they may access when they're here, which again supports that transition into into college. So we have a dedicated team that specifically work with our learners. With HCPs, in terms of the wider offer. We do have an access hub as well, so that is again, supporting our more complex learners. For us, it's about making our curriculum as inclusive as possible. We have an incredible Assistive Technology Team, and I hope you kind of get from the way that we talk about this, the offer. It's about promoting independence, giving students the tools, strategies to be able to take that to the next level, whether that's the next program of study for us as well, we're lucky. We have a higher education provision here, which a lot of our students aspire to progress on to. We've got, obviously, apprenticeships, supported internships or employment. So it's about how we support the students to be able towards that independence. It's about those independent skills being able to be once you've let College, be able to access and be a well rounded citizen.
So much to unpack all day, which is fabulous, and you're clearly so passionate about it. Listen, I'm itching to come to Sabarina and talk, because this is potentially a really exciting time, a time of big decisions as you work out next steps, whether you want to work go into further study. How does that feel?
Sabarina Logan 4:55
Feels amazing, but also like quite nerve wracking. And obviously, I'm in my final year of college, and this September, I'm going to be coming back to the uni here, just because I'm so familiar with the support that I get, and I just feel quite comfortable. So I know what's where I can get help, and I know my way around. So yeah, it's, it's going to be a big step. I'm going to do business and a degree, which will be three years. So I'm looking forward to it.
Rachel Gibson 5:29
You know, we don't just focus on the qualification and the life skills club in particular, do a lot of work around independent living skills on a on a social level, as well as a sort of teacher, student or staff student level as well. And all of those sorts of opportunities are really important. And they might seem like really small things to other people, but actually at an individual level, all of those small things, a small thing to me, might be a huge thing for another, for a student, and from having two or three conversations with Sabarina about a couple of other things and more about Sabarina just from having that conversation with us. So what we'll get, what the students get from each other as well, through the through the sort of dedicated hub approach that we have.
Briony Balsom 6:11
Adam, can I come across to you and just see whether that is the kind of thing that we've seen replicated in other places, or is that something that Newcastle college have that's fairly unique?
Adam Sproston 6:20
We did. We did see that approach in in many settings that we visited the differences about knowing the children, seems obvious saying it doesn't it, but when you know your children well, you're more able to flex resources and also to meet their needs in a more bespoke way. Something else that we found commonly was, of course, when those relationships are built, it also supports a sense of belonging, and actually that students may stay longer and sustain educational outcomes, or those life skills outcomes that you discuss there, I wanted to pick up also something that we did find at Newcastle, the links to families as well as to the students.
Maxine Johnson 7:02
We are trying to incorporate even things like independent travel training with that as well, which I know for a local authorities, is a huge kind of thing with with send transport. So we're using those individual life goals and life skills. Is of being able to access public transport is absolutely huge. So even in incorporating things like that into the work that we're doing with our special school is so important. Already, the students came in last week for the very first time, and it was an absolute pleasure to have them on site, and a lot of them did incredibly well. And we were all asking how it went, and a lot of them were saying, can't wait to go home and tell parents. And for us, that's the main thing that they're going home and telling their families they feel safe. And they really enjoyed the experience, so that they will continue to kind of come in again, become familiar with the setting, become familiar with how we are as a as a college to again, support the students, if, hopefully one day, if we can meet the needs that they they may end up coming and studying here, which is, which would be an absolute pleasure.
Rachel Gibson 7:57
I think, as well at a wider level. So we also have a lot of young people with with additional needs who don't have an HCP. So our teams are present at every open event. We're present throughout the whole of enrollment. We have a dedicated support hub in our main library, so it's very accessible, and we know a lot of parents will come along with their students at the on the enrollment and open events and where we will talk to parents at those events and talking about the support we can offer if a student wants to come and meet us, but wants the parent there, or the parent feels they need to be there to ensure that we get all of the information, then we're quite happy to do all of that. Those relationships with parents are absolutely key in terms of ensuring a really strong and positive experience for our students.
Briony Balsom 8:38
That's wonderful to hear. I mean, I was going to ask about potential barriers, or perceived barriers. Adam, is there anything you'd want to add to that, in terms of barriers that we've seen, we saw elsewhere in the in the work?
Adam Sproston 8:50
you've explained it so clearly, Newcastle, there's a open, open events, where you can show off what you what you offer, and we found those in some other areas. But actually, sometimes parents don't know what's around the corner. You use the word college straight away, they're thinking several buildings, 1000s of students and and how will, how will their child fit into that setting? So we did find stronger impact in areas that do bring all providers together so that it's in an open way, shown to parents and carers what is on offer you touch there on transport as well, and in some areas that we visited, that is a significant challenge, be it the distance some young people are expected to travel, or that the travel may not be suitable, Or again, that parents feel it could be unsafe, for example. So great to see all of that work that's going on to take parents on the journey with you as well.
Briony Balsom 9:49
So obviously, we've heard about like a veritable buffet of support that's on offer at Newcastle College. For you personally, what's been the most helpful and useful support? That you've received in sort of working out what what you're doing next. Just
Sabarina Logan 10:04
Basically would, I would have like reviews with my SEND advisor, and we'll just have a little catch up with how lessons have been going. What are my future plans? And also, I would have a one to one session with my main business tutor, so they'll have it all up to date on their system, which we call E tracker, where they have what my goals are, what I've achieved, what I personally think I've achieved, or what I want to improve next. We have in business, I must say we do write a lot in lessons today, around three to four pages, and I can't lie, my hands do ache when we have to write loads of notes because there's a lot of content to absorb and take notes down. Sometimes I can't keep up, so I'll have my one to one with me, and what she will do is they will write the missing notes and basically like a revision tool for me to use if have any upcoming exams. Now, I did have an exam last Friday, which was Principles of Management. It was three and three and a half hour exam, I must say, was very stressful, so I just gave my best shot, because that's all you can do. Absolutely.
Rachel, it must be really satisfying as leader to see that direct line of sight between your aspirations?
Rachel Gibson 11:26
We're part of a college group, so it's, you know, we've been graded as good again. I think what Maxine and I share as sort of central support managers is that we're always looking for ways to improve, but I think it at a senior level. I think it's really important that there is a senior level buy in. And we're really lucky here that we've got our previous principal and our current principal are really absolutely 100% behind what we do, and have a very, very focused on young people. So I've been part of our center executive group with the Newcastle City Council for a number of years now, and represent the post 16 voice, which is often missing, I think it at that level. And and the local authority have really embraced that and involved us. So we, you know, we sit on various partnerships, you know, our assistant principals on the children and families board. We, you know, we're part of getting, getting it right together, work stream and the PREPARING FOR ADULTHOOD work streams. But I think internally as well, around three years ago, I became part of the senior leadership team at the college, which I think has made a massive improvement in terms of the visibility of some of the issues that you know, and in our report on on our work weekly now to all of the senior leadership team, so there's real transparency. And when, when Sabarina talks about support, I think it's for me, it's not just about it. I mean, the support practitioners learn, support practitioners who support Sabrina are incredibly important as but it's also about what the teachers do and and the work experience coaches, and it's about how I'm the life skills hub, and it's about how all of those people work together. And I think you need to have the buy in at the top level to get things moving. And we're always looking for improvement. And on a slightly different note, but one of my team is is a governor on the board of the virtual school at Newcastle, and as a result of that, and and the really, really sort of focused work we've done over the last five or six years around care experienced students has led to it them investing in a two year post with us, and specifically around transition of looked after children, you know, so for us to see, say, the confidence that The local authority have in us as an institution, and the reputation that we have, and the fact that our numbers are increasing, our high needs numbers have increased another 2020, this year. You know, we're sort of going up and up and up, I think, demonstrates the reputation that the college has now and the confidence that the local authority and have have us have in us as a post 16 provider.
Adam Sproston 14:02
And I would agree with your point where what we heard in the other areas that we visited is actually post 16 for quite a while has come a bit later down the line, and it's now that areas are thinking, we really need sufficient numbers of high quality placements. And in some areas there's, there's a dearth of those. There's not, not enough places to go around. So brilliant to hear about that growth there. I chipped in actually at the point where you mentioned children and young people with SEND who were in care or a care experienced. And that was a real positive across the areas that those children, they have additional oversight, and that, typically there are, there are deals done to ensure that those children get high quality support from education placements. But it's brilliant to hear about that buy in, and that isn't the case everywhere, and I think that places are having to think increasingly outside the box in terms of what they're going to be able to put in place for growing numbers of children and young people that may need very, very different support packages or might just need a little bit of extra help to access a mainstream college curriculum.
Briony Balsom 15:19
We set out in the report that strategic leadership and that link to local authorities is really important to avoid a sort of cliff edge at 18. Can you just say a little about why, why we said that, and why we think that?
Adam Sproston 15:32
It's really important that local area partners, when we talk about partners, we're talking about education, health and social care. Colleagues are well sighted on the children that they are responsible for, and we can see today here that we have excellent careers guidance. Children can have their eyes on the prize as to what they want to work towards. But too often, we did find that the discussions for moving towards further education. There's not really a set date when that happens. Colleagues are nodding today here, some schools will start things at different dates. In some of the stronger areas that we visited, there was a buy in in that partnership, so all of the schools would start it on a certain date. Now we wouldn't have a preferred date because, of course, some children, you may need to think about their needs earlier than others, but we we did find that it was a bit hit and miss as to whether or not children would receive a robust package of support that planned out next steps, where that worked better. There was a strategy that children, focusing on those with education, health care plans, and those who were in care or a care experienced, that there would be their plans of action would be put into place earlier than than others, and that they would work towards identifying where might be suitable placements and engaging with those further education providers to see if everybody agreed that the package of support that goes in to supporting that young person would likely benefit them or not. We did find actually that in more rural areas that there isn't that connectivity around services because of the distance between possibly providers of further education or specialist support, those areas did tend to have more challenges, or reported more challenges to us, and that links to a point that colleagues raised earlier transport. Children might have been educated at their local secondary school, and they may want a specific course now, it might not be on offer at the local college, and so they need to go a little bit further away to meet their aspirations some areas that we visited, for example, cities. So we're talking to Newcastle that actually there was almost a perception that those areas it was much easier to meet children's needs as they move towards adulthood. Now actually, that's a bit of a double sided problem that we have, and that's because while there might be more things available. We did hear from college leaders and professionals at the partnership that the turnover of staff and actually recruiting the right staff can be more of a difficulty because you're in that city, locality, there's more opportunities for people to further their career.
We started running some open events for prospective staff to who wanted to work in support. So not just SEND support, but who might want be interested in library jobs, admin jobs. And as a result, we recruited about seven or eight staff from that, didn't we? So we ran it again and again. Got so every time we run it, we get it. So our our vacancy numbers are smaller now than there have been. And the other thing we've we've done, which, we're really proud of, is we sort of partnered with with another local authority and their apprenticeship provision to recruit teaching assistant level three teaching assistant apprenticeships. So we've currently got four who are about three or about two to do their end point assessment, who hopefully will all then go into permanent pools. For those, that's what we would hope. And we're going through another recruitment phase, because it's for us to be able to get level three apprenticeships in and almost sort of grow your own approach, really. But we also think we can we always look for progression. You know, for you know, we are talent managing our our new staff, from almost on the minute the walk in a lot of our wider leadership team and within central support services started off as support staff, so they've got a real understanding. And as a result of that, we, we as a service, have got really positive scores from our. Up around and well being work life balance, and also how supportive line managers are, which is a massive part of of retaining good staff.
Briony Balsom 20:09
Thanks, Rachel. It's really interesting to hear how something that Adam spotted at a national level is sort of is manifesting in your in your in your particular college. Um, Adam, I know you want to leap back to health. Let's loop back to health. I think
Adam Sproston 20:20
It's, I think one of the main challenges is that there are different times that the rules say different things should happen at and so if you're a young person who has health input, we did find that certain things stop when you become an adult, because you're 18, even though you're being supported by the college, and actually, parents don't understand this, not hasn't been explained to them because they've fought and won an EHC plan, which on the front of many of them say things like this, will carry on until you're 25 so, so that's a bit of a missed messaging that we did find in many areas, some areas, they just don't have a like for like adult service. So you may need some sort of speech and language advice as a young person, you might be working on social communication skills, but then that service ends when you turn 18, and there isn't a like for like adult service and other services as well. So that was a difficulty that we identified. And the same applies for young people who might need support from cams to support their mental health and emotional well being that they may be on waiting lists for a very long time, and while they're on that waiting list because they turn 17, 1819, wherever the cutoff is for that area that they then may need to rejoin another waiting list as as they become an adult. So that's something that we found that was a common difficulty. The report makes recommendations to the sector, Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, for example, one of them is around supported internships. The difficulty with them is, and this, again, is, is the rules that apply. You need to have an education, health care plan to start on a supported internship. But actually, your plan will likely come to an end if you're successful on that so again, chiming with colleagues at Newcastle college, it's parents that often need to have that explained to them that the output might be a job for that young person. Other ones are around making sure that there's consistency to preparation for adulthood in children's education, health and care plans. At the moment, each local authority is responsible for their education health care plan template, and that can look very differently. And you know, young people like Sabarina, what? What do you want? Is that in the plan? Is it clear? And does everybody know about it? And I actually know that colleagues in the room know you really well. So in quite a lot of the time, we found that staff that support children, one to one are actually working against paperwork that's sometimes outdated or doesn't match what they know children and young people want. And also, another one of the recommendations was was around increasing the amount of high quality and specialist residential and supported living accommodation for those young people who who need that. .
Briony Balsom 23:33
It's been really fascinating to have a chat with you all today. Really heartening to hear about some wonderful practice. And I think all that remains is for me to say a massive thank you to Rachel, Maxine, Sabarina and Adam for joining us today.
I'm now joined by Jess Taylor-Beirne, who is Children's Services operations manager at the Care Quality Commission, or the CQC, with whom Ofsted worked jointly on the reports just to set the scene. Jess, why was it that we worked together on this report?
Jess Taylor-Beirne 24:07
Area SEND inspections are done jointly with CQC and Ofsted. So CQC look at the health side of things, and Ofsted looking at education and care as well. We're really fortunate that CQC and Ofsted have worked on many inspection programs together, and so we have those established links. The area SEND programs, joint targeted area inspections, and these thematic SENDs as well. So we know how important it is to approach these with a variety of lenses and see the child's experience from many angles. So CQC, we look at the health side of things, but with an awareness of how that impacts on education and care. And Ofsted do the same from from their side. And we're fortunate all of our inspectors get to bring their own expertise different frames of reference to create that shared understanding. And so we then therefore have the shared aims for children and young people alongside our Ofsted colleagues, and we know that the outcomes for children and people with SEND are far better when health services, education and care are all linked up and contributing. So it's really important for us as different inspectorates to reflect that as well and create that joined up working, which I think we do well.
Briony Balsom 25:10
Specifically when it comes to health services, what is the role of those services when it comes to this period of transition into adulthood?
Jess Taylor-Beirne 28:19
Sometimes it's easier to think of what it shouldn't be. But I think what we've seen from these inspections is that regardless of need, it needs to be individualized for that child or young person, and their health outcomes need to be considered alongside educational goals and their care or support needs. These conversations around that young person's ambition, their family's ambitions for them and their plans, it needs to happen earlier. Families need to know what to expect, and children, young people, need to be able to express their views on it as well. Enabling independence from a young age is so important, it starts with those life skills to whatever level depending on that child's need. But that ambition and planning needs to be there from really from really young, what does the future look like for this child, and how are we supporting that and and that's where universal services such as health visiting, school nurses can be so important at that early stage, even if adulthood feels a long way off. I also think it's important to note that certain diagnoses for children as they transition is really important. We know that there are long waits, especially at that transition point, because often you go into adult services and then have to go to the bottom of the waiting list, as much as we have a more of a needs led approach within children's services that they can access everything they need to, in adults, often things do still rely on a diagnosis, for example, a diagnosis of learning disability or autism. So ensuring that those diagnoses are there as that young person transitions is really key, and was one of our recommendations. The other thing I'd just like to add is about equity across services. We can't have services dropping off at 16 with no adult equivalent, but sometimes until the age of 18. So there's often a couple of years which which parents describe as a cliff edge of not having that that care their child needs. So improving this and ensuring that health services are linked, are really key at that transition, and when that happens, results in far better health provision for those children and young people.
Briony Balsom 30:49
Listen it's been really heartening to listen to you all today and to hear about some wonderful practise. All that remains is for me to say a massive thankyou.
Ofsted's report into multi-agency responses to serious youth violence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multi-agency-responses-to-serious-youth-violence-working-together-to-support-and-protect-children
Safer London's report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-and-families-experiences-of-multi-agency-support-when-impacted-by-serious-youth-violence
https://saferlondon.org.uk/
Briony Balsom
Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on serious youth violence and our recently released joint report. We released a joint targeted area inspection report, which we call a JTAI, on serious youth violence on the 20th of November, that report had a lengthy title for a weighty subject. It was called 'Multi agency responses to serious youth violence, working together to support and protect children'. Later in the podcast we'll be joined by Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's director of practice, to talk about their work around serious youth violence, but first to explore with reports and findings, we're joined by some of those who contributed to it. We have Helen Davis, who's head of thematic and joint inspection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. Ade Solarin, the inspection lead for child protection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue services. Hello everyone. Jess Taylor Byrne, who is the Children's Services operations manager at the Care Quality Commission. Hi there. Hi everyone. And Wendy Ghaffar, who is Ofsted specialist advisor on cross remit safeguarding. Wendy, if I could come to you first so we can say a little bit about the scale of the problem. Many might assume it's a city issue, but is that really the case?
Wendy Ghaffar
No, it's definitely not the case. It's not just a city problem. I think we were shocked as a group of inspectorates to find that in all of the areas we visited, there were many children, including children as young as 11, carrying knives for their own protection. And in some of the areas, and for some children, it was absolutely the norm to carry a knife, often, not always, but often that was what children saw as a way of protecting themselves. And if you look at our report, at the beginning of that report, we talk about a very young teenage boy who was chased by a group of older teenagers in his local area, and he knew that those teenagers were carrying knives, and so he started carrying a knife because he saw that as the only way to protect himself. And we heard about children who were too frightened to leave their own homes, children not attending school because they were so fearful. And this is happening in small towns, out in the countryside, and we think that social media plays a role as well. If we look at the work of the youth endowment fund, they surveyed 7500 children last year, and one in four of those children had either been a victim of violence or perpetrated violence, and children also spoke about seeing real life episodes of violence on social media so they might see something that's happened in their locality on social media, and that's feeding into this sense of fear. And we don't think that adults are really sufficiently aware of this problem. And the other thing that came through is the impact that this has not just on children who are directly involved, but on their brothers and sisters, on their friends, on communities, on schools. So there's a kind of ripple effect when there's an incident and it's impacting on children's general well being, their sense of safety. I think we also need to think about the links there are with county lines and criminal exploitation. So some of this, not all of it, is happening in that context of county lines, which, as I'm sure people are aware, often organized crime gangs are forcing children to carry drugs out into the countryside, into smaller towns, and very often forcing children to carry knives. There's some groups of children who are particularly badly effective or more vulnerable, and that includes children with special educational needs and some children from some particular ethnic groups, and particularly with children who've got special educational needs. We know that nationally, there are delays in those children getting assessments, and delays in them getting the support they need, and we think this is actually putting them at increased risk of serious youth violence.
Briony Balsom
Thanks, Wendy and you mentioned the wider community impacts as well. I wonder whether anyone would like to come in and talk talk to that a little?
Wendy Ghaffar
We saw some very strong examples of where voluntary organizations were kind of harnessing, if you like, capacity within local communities to protect children, to offer other opportunities for children, to provide a venue for children and families, to provide different opportunities for children and families. But we also heard when we went out into those communities, the impact. That serious youth violence had on local communities, particularly on parents, how worried they were about their children, that it was affecting all sort of age ranges within the community, not just children. So it has a sort of really widespread impact. We also heard from schools as well, because we went out to schools, we talk to education leaders about the impact, and this is clearly an issue that they're having to address as well.
Briony Balsom
Jess, did the inspection look at everyone's input and the difference that they especially can make?
Jess Taylor-Beirne
The government has set out the serious violence duty, so which means local area partners all need to work together in these joint targeted area inspections, we really look at how all of those agencies work together. So what's it like to be a child in that area and have all of those different professionals working with you? So we saw children's social care, police, various education settings, Youth Justice Services with probation. We saw lots of different services, including the ambulance emergency department, some universal health services, sexual health services, and of course, like Wendy said, we saw the volunteering community sector as well. And whilst we found some really good work happening in some areas, it wasn't happening everywhere. As an example, one area didn't have a focus at all on serious youth violence as a major concern, and so many of the frontline staff across all of those agencies, hadn't had as much training or support to be able to identify those children at risk of harm. They just didn't know what to look out for and weren't able to recognize the signs that someone might be exploited or impacted by serious youth violence. The strongest work was when senior leaders at the top of organizations, they all understood that serious youth violence had to be a priority in that area. And it wasn't just one person's responsibility or one agency. It was collectively a priority for them all. And in those areas, they were gathering lots of data and information about what was occurring in their local area, and that's what filtered down to the practitioners, and that's when we saw that really good and innovative practice at times, multi agency training, information sharing, professional curiosity and really thorough assessments of children impacted by serious youth violence by all practitioners, there was a much better shared understanding of the experiences of those children, and within those areas, they were actively consulting with children and Families and the wider communities to find out about experiences, what support did they need, what did they want? So they very much understood the local issues. They were really creative with their roles, for example, embedding Speech and Language Therapists. And within Youth Justice Services, there was some really tenacious individual work with children, such as in social care. But like Wendy said, as well, with the community resources, that was where we saw some really interesting work and really impressive work. An example is, I think a couple of areas had their community services linking with the ambulance, and so they were promoting and training on the use of bleed kits, basic first aid, so if, if a young person or anyone was seriously harmed as a result of serious youth violence, the immediate medical attention would lead to much better outcomes for those children and others. Were giving children opportunities to help them develop skills to divert them away from those exploiting them. But I think most importantly, with those projects you know, so many of these children had really complex life experiences. Lots were outside of mainstream school. Lots had scnd, and where those professionals all worked together, they were very much understanding the impact of trauma on a child's experience. They were understanding the impact of abuse as well. And we'd see practitioners all working together on the ground as well. So for example, utilizing psychologists in the youth justice services to really create a good case formulation for that young person. So there was really creative use of practitioners already there, and that communication between them all just just led to much better outcomes. Where that happened
Briony Balsom
Ade, did you want to come in on that?
Ade Solarin
What we didn't always see was evaluation of some of those approaches to just get a sense from from the area of the local partnerships just how well they understood what was working well and what evaluation that they had considered. So it's really, it's really, really important that local partnerships do do more evaluate approaches to addressing serious youth violence and and use some of the available research that's out there, some of the learning that's out there, and also learn from each other as well as local partners. We did see a level of some inconsistencies in terms of approaches, but we also understand that some areas have some more committed funding. Some areas have have more resources. So so yeah, so we were sometimes seeing in some parts of the country was established what's called balance reduction units, and the utilization of those units and some of the funding that comes with that. Some of the other areas that didn't have the VRUs, as they're called, just meant that they had less resources. And also some that we did, one in particular that had, that did have a VRU just wasn't using it well, so there were some inconsistent approaches and practices across the country.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, thank you. Helen?
Helen Davies
Yes, just to say that the value of multi agency work was really underlined by what we saw in youth justice services in a number of areas. So Youth Justice teams are multi agency teams in themselves. So they already have a police officer, they already have social workers in the team, they have a probation officer, they have health workers. And to be able to respond swiftly, because you've got the right people in the team that made all the difference. I think the other important thing in terms of response was was that youth justice team has both the justice response and, importantly, the safeguarding response. So yes, once allocated somebody in the youth justice team, they were able to lead in, in many cases, a multi agency meeting and to get all the relevant agencies together, and what's called a formulation meeting, which is picked up earlier, but seem to be quite effective. And there are some good examples in the report.
Briony Balsom
Yeah. So the theme seems to be this kind of multi agency approach, being able to bring a holistic view, a more holistic view, to the subject. Wendy.
Wendy Ghaffar
So the multi agency approach isn't just about addressing knife crime, although that's a very important element of it. It's about meeting all of the range of needs of that child and often of their family as well, if the family is in need of support. And what our report is highlighting is that you have to address all of those needs. You can't look at this in a siloed way, and the importance of recognizing the safeguarding needs of these children is essential. And another important element, and another important sort of partner, if you like, is education. So we saw some really good work with partners working together to support children back into mainstream education, but that has to be done in a very kind of skilled way, and all of the partners working together, and it's only through that multi agency approach that you can address all of those needs and hopefully prevent any further harm to any other children.
Briony Balsom
Ade, I'm going to come to you now, just to kick us off on what happens when agencies don't work so well together, and what impact that can have.
Ade Solarin
What we often saw was just a failure by partner agencies to consistently identify serious youth violence as and see it as a safeguarding issue. And I think where partners are looking at trying to respond to the, say, violence, elements of serious youth violence, and taking, perhaps a siloedapproach and trying to tackle the issue because of the headline of serious youth violence, you're not addressing, or at least trying to address or understand some of the other underlying factors for for some of those children, many of those children often have special education needs and disabilities, often termed SEND, and other risk factors as well. So I think what we saw, especially from the police, for example, was just inconsistent approach in terms of recognizing some of the risk factors, recognizing some of the risk posed to children, and once, when you don't recognize that risk initially, it means that there's limited understanding and limited capturing of that information, and then that means what you're then sharing with your partners. And what we saw in the inspection is what was then shared with partners was also limited.
Jess Taylor-Beirne
There were some areas where they were very much focused on children being in crisis, rather than trying to preempt it as well. And we saw some really good practice when children were in crisis, like Helen has said, once they're in youth justice, they could access a huge range of resources. But that earlier approach to identifying need more of a public health approach wasn't consistent everywhere, and again, where it was, there were much, much more positive outcomes.
Helen Davies
If it's not recognized as a safeguarding issue, and we found this in particular for some black children, and a process of adultification where their needs as children weren't prioritized. So some some comments, more generally as well, that we heard were about children placing themselves at risk, as opposed to children being exploited. And some children are more vulnerable to that than others, children with special education needs, for example, so when you don't recognize that, that there's a risk, that some of the language around it starts to locate the problem with the child placing themselves at risk, as opposed of they are being exploited.
Wendy Ghaffar
Yeah, there were a couple of couple of examples that really stood out. For me, one was ambulance staff, and I think to some extent, in one of the emergency departments in the hospitals where professionals weren't asking children about what had happened to them, they weren't showing curiosity, they weren't showing that care that those children really needed, which meant those children weren't accessing the support that they needed. And I don't know Ade, do you want to mention about custody suites? Because I think we saw really different kind of responses from the police in custody suites, depending on where children were.
Ade Solarin
Yes, thank you. Wendy, yeah, we did. We did see some different responses, especially when you look at custody. Custody is a place where a child who's been arrested for some form of exploitation, for example. And custody isn't always a pleasant place for the child, but we have seen that some areas who have invested in training, trauma informed training, really, we did see some benefits for children where the officers demonstrated that understanding and recognized some of the risks that some of the children would have been exposed to, and in one particular area, because of the level of training that those officers had received, we saw some really good responses to that child, and also it just really highlights the importance of joint working, because obviously they meant that the police forces and their they were thinking about some of the actions that they needed to take whilst the child is in their care and custody, liaising with partners in the youth justice service, liaison with partners in children's social care so that there is a holistic package of care for the child when the child is eventually released from custody.
Jess Taylor-Beirne
That language that you would see in in reports, and then you'd be having discussions with practitioners, and it would come out that they didn't realize that that child did have additional needs and needed to respond in a different way. And so that was very, very telling throughout the inspection, that we were the ones to to be picking up on those things and bring practitioners through that and in the areas where it didn't work well, it was very, very sad hearing about a lot of those experiences, of those children that hadn't had the support they needed, and very vulnerable children in custody suites without the support that they needed, or accessing health services without being seen as as a child as they were.
Wendy Ghaffar
So I think, as we've described, once children got into the system, particularly if they if they got service from the Youth Justice team that enabled them to have access to the kinds of assessment they needed, and also often the kinds of supports they needed? If their speech and language needs were identified at a much, much earlier age, you know, very early on in primary school, for example, then it's going to be much easier for those children to engage in education. And potentially, their kind of outcomes in life might be might be different. It might not be as simple as simple as that, but that's just one example, I guess, where if children were receiving the assessments early enough and their support early enough, then at least there may be a way of preventing some of these problems arising so they're not getting to 13, 14, 15 before their special educational needs, and particular things like their speech and language needs are being addressed. Because in some ways, that's too late for these children.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, and what's coming across really clearly, and you've all spoken very clearly about the multitude of ways in which the system could, just could do things better. It's not all going wrong all the time, but there are lots of different things, the lack of curiosity about local context, lack of curiosity about child situation, the failure to recognize vulnerability as a result of that, the inconsistency and often siloed approach. Helen, can I come to you, if these things are going wrong, what is the report calling for?
Helen Davies
So we're calling for serious youth violence to be prioritized in all local areas and to recognize that this is happening across England. We looked at England, no doubt happening across Wales as well, and that need to work together to support those that are affected, but also to prevent further serious youth violence and to support communities as well and to protect communities. So it's really important. Guidance from government would help, just to steer partners, I think, now, on how to work together to help children they're experiencing harm from outside the home. So partners are more used to focusing on protecting children within the home. On this topic important to look beyond, to look at how children are experiencing harm outside of the home.
Briony Balsom
So before we say goodbye to you all, I would love to come back to Wendy to reflect on some of the really excellent practice that you did see. On the day type?
Wendy Ghaffar
Yeah, I think, I think the message we'd like to leave with everybody is that multi agency working can work in terms of addressing and preventing serious youth violence. It can make a real positive and significant difference for children and communities. We saw some fantastic examples, both in terms of individual work with children and families, but also in terms of some of the projects that are out there in communities and really opening up opportunities for children, we saw some really effective work, as we've mentioned, between the police and local communities and between children social care and local communities. So we feel very positive that if partnerships prioritize this, if they really understand the issue of serious youth violence and the impact it's having on children, then further good work can be done. But at the moment, we know this isn't happening for all children across all of England, and that's where we need to drive improvement
Briony Balsom
Wendy, you're going to stay with us. And joining us is Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's the director of practice. Safer London works with and advocates on behalf of children and families who've been impacted by violence and exploitation. We've been really delighted to work with Safer London, who've entirely independently from the inspectorates, brought together their report called Who Cares, which explores the direct experiences of children and families on our behalf and to inform our work like the joint report who cares came out in mid November, and it takes a really detailed and compelling look at children's experiences of serious youth violence and what help and support is available to them. The children who took part in the consultation were different from the children and families involved in the JTAI inspections, and the majority lived in different areas to those we inspected. The inspections and the consultation work are quite separate, but do focus on the same issues of multi agency work to address serious youth violence. Carly, is the issue of serious youth violence getting worse?
Carly Adams Elias
The UK has seen increasing evidence of the scale and impact of serious youth violence over the past decade. The report highlights that numbers of children who've lost their lives to violence is higher than it was 10 years ago. For context, London recorded its worst ever annual death toll of teenage murders, with 30 young people killed in 2021 and that's similar for the number of young people admitted to hospital for knife assaults, which has increased by 47% in the last 10 years. We also know that issues such as poverty, mental ill health, childhood experiences of abuse and harm and other forms of trauma increase the risk to serious youth violence. And what I would say is that the landscape around these issues is changing, and we're seeing the impact of things like budget cuts and austerity that have an impact on the way that services that are available to support children and young people function. Thresholds are quite high, and opportunities to engage with children and young people often come after harm has happened, rather than earlier opportunities. We're also kind of in a position where we're only really, I would say, starting to see serious youth violence as a safeguarding issue across the sector, and so I think that will obviously have an impact on the data and the numbers of people that are coming into contact with services. And so I think whilst there are improvements, there's still a long way to go in terms of really understanding the scale of the issue.
Briony Balsom
Yeah, and what's our understanding of what the drivers are for this violence in the first place? I mean, it's a it's an easy sounding question with I'm I'm imagining an incredibly complex response!
Carly Adams Elias
Things such as kind of racism, poverty, ableism, that are all kind of woven into our our systems and kind of exacerbate the experiences of children and young people and families who may become vulnerable to violence as a result of some of these issues, some of the social conditions, in the context where children and young people and families are living their lives, whether that's kind of local communities, in schools or online spaces.
Briony Balsom
Thanks. I mean, there's a massive breadth there of intervention and change. What particularly are Safer London doing in response?
Speaker 8
we mainly work individually with children and families. We provide one to one support to children and young people that have been impacted by exploitation and violence. And our approach is to really make sure that we're taking kind of a Relational Approach, which really centers trust and building trust with children and young people and their families, and that we really understand the individual complex experiences of trauma, whether that's their physical safety or their emotional safety, but also their relational safety and kind of the safety that they might experience in different relationships and different contexts of their lives. You know, we really try and position our work from a place of being person centered, non judgmental, making sure that we're working at the pace that works for that particular child or young person. Is there any capacity for us to support change within the context where that young person might be being harmed? For us, it's really important to try and work with a whole family, because we're aware that issues like violence and exploitation don't just impact the young person when they experience harm, but it impacts the whole family and wider communities such as their peer groups and other social networks are the ones that are going to have much longer term sustainable relationships with them. So we think it's really important that we try and invest in those and try and help create safety in those so that the young person has a longer term level of support. And what we often see is that young people's presentation of trauma responses are often seen as behavioral issues in the way that they engage with others, how they're able to kind of function and participate in their education, how they're able to hold and maintain relationships, their ability to kind of seek help, kind of help that they've received when they're first experiencing issues. So whether they've shared something with someone and not believe that's then going to have an impact on how they're able to trust if they're, you know, coming into contact with a police officer that maybe they're feeling unsafe with in that interaction, then they're going to be less likely to be able to maybe share their experiences. But that will then also have an impact on how they're able to recover from those harmful and traumatic experiences.
Briony Balsom
That feeling that children were sometimes being blamed for the harm they experience.
Carly Adams Elias
And sadly, that isn't then just limited to the way that the young person is talked about. That's going to have an individual impact for that young person who might feel quite labeled by the adults or professionals that are kind of talking in that manner, but it also has a significant impact in terms of how decisions are made for that young person, what kind of support that young person gets. It might impact on that young person being further marginalized, excluded from school. It might mean that they're more likely to become engaged with the criminal justice system, rather than agencies that are in place to kind of prioritize and take forward, kind of safeguarding measures.
Wendy Ghaffar
It makes me think about some of the responses children got from the ambulance service, and particularly in emergency departments in hospitals. So for some children, where the staff have been trained, they've got the support. They understand the issues. They're asking, the right questions. They have a sort of caring, appropriate response to children, and like Carly said, that can open the door then to support for them in the longer term, for support for their family, and importantly, support for their siblings. And I think also the responses children get in school is really important. And again, we went to one area where education were very much seen as part of the partnership in responding to children and in preventing serious youth violence. Staff were trained. They knew what signs to look for. They knew how to talk to children about these issues.
Briony Balsom
Importantly, you worked with a group of children and young people and parents to co create the report. So they were at the very heart of it.
Carly Adams Elias
I just want to take a moment to thank the children and the families that participated, because I was actually quite overwhelmed by how much they did share. And you you'll see in the report that they're, you know, we we've included as much as we can in terms of direct quotes. What they were really asking for is improved communication and clearer communication. And they were really clear that they wanted to be able to be involved in that decision making. They were really clear that they wanted communication to be empathetic and compassionate. They wanted a safeguarding response, which was something that they didn't always feel. That they had some children and families that spoke to us, they said, you know, that that looked like real, tangible, practical, helpful intervention. So that might be things like, the whole family is experiencing threats of violence, that then has often quite significant impacts on their ability to feel safe in their own home. And a lot of the children and families that we were talking to had real difficulties in securing safe housing. But actually, you know, when they had multi agency professionals that were working together to achieve real, tangible changes, like achieving safety in their home environment, that that felt like it was a helpful level of intervention. It was often also in relation to kind of their individual needs, such as kind of having their neuro diversity properly assessed and understood and responded to. You know, we spoke. To some young people that felt like their neuro diversity was seen as a problem and it wasn't something that was supported or honored, particularly in education, and that might then mean that they were moved from one education provision to another, and then that created more kind of uncertainty and change for them at a period when actually what they really needed was those sort of consistent relationships and having their basic needs met in a place where they felt safe and familiar.
Briony Balsom
And presumably promisingly, there is a significant crossover between what they're asking for and what we're hearing from them and what we know works?
Carly Adams Elias
There are definitely lots of examples of good practice going on. And what we were hearing from children and young people was that when organizations were engaging with them in a way where their needs were centered, where their voice was centered and heard, where they had opportunities to kind of build relationship and connection, and that support was offered in a way that was compassionate and empathetic, that that means that you've you've kind of providing a bit of a solid basis there for kind of further interactions. And if you can build on those kind of foundations, you really kind of have centered that Relational Approach. And we do know that through speaking to children and young people that they did receive that in some context with some organizations, we heard from young people that really spoke highly of support that they received through youth service and voluntary sector services. So yeah, it is available, and it does exist, perhaps not yet on the scale that we would like it for the children and young people.
Briony Balsom
Carly, a massive thanks for joining us and thanks to everyone who's listening. You'll find the Safer London report alongside our own report on the gov.uk website. We'll put the links into the transcript for the podcast so that you can check it out. Thanks to everyone who joined us today, and thank you for listening.
Here's the report discussed in this episode of the podcast: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thematic-review-of-the-quality-of-education-in-young-offender-institutions-yois
Mark Leech 0:03
Hello. Welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today I'm hosting a conversation about young offender institutions, or YOIs for short. I'm very pleased to be joined by not one, but two of His Majesty's chief inspectors. We have Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector here at Ofsted, and we have Charlie Taylor, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. Now both are here because the inspection of young offender institutions involves both His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, HMIP and Ofsted. Also with us from Ofsted is Maria Navarro, one of Ofsted specialists in this area, and heavily involved in the report we're going to be talking about today. Welcome everyone.
We'll get on to the report I mentioned in a moment. But first, let's talk a bit about young offender institutions and how they work. Charlie, before you joined HMIP, you were Chair of the Youth Justice Board, so this is an area you know really well. Could you give us a bit of a background, please, about YOIs and the children who they cater for?
Charlie Taylor 1:05
Yes, certainly there are four YOIs in the country. One is private sector, the other three are public sector. They house about around 400 children at the moment, which is a dramatic reduction from when I did my review in 2016 when there are about 1500 and an even more dramatic reduction from the the early 2000s when there are about three and a half thousand children locked up in England and Wales. The age of kids who end up in a YOI is 15 to 18, but the vast majority of them are about 16 and 17, with most being 17 at the moment, because of the prison population crisis, they're also housing more 18 year olds than they would have done in the past. So in the past, unless you had a very short time to serve, you would move on into an adult prison. But they're now hanging on to 18 year olds for longer as well, which represents a challenge.
Mark Leech 1:57
And YOIs do they cater for boys as well as girls? Or is it all boys?
Charlie Taylor 2:02
Well, there are a few girls in YOIs due to some anomalies, because of the closure of parts of the youth custody sector, particularly secure training centers. And what that meant is that provision had to be made for a small amount of very vulnerable girls who who were unable to be placed either in secure children's homes or or into secure training centers. So Weatherby YOI, up in Yorkshire, has a handful of girls there, and certainly that's an issue we've raised many concerns about during our inspection reports over the last couple of years, and in terms of the sort of the way YOIS operate.
Mark Leech 2:43
Obviously, you've mentioned secure training centers, then and secure children's homes. What's different about the YOIs, would it be more recognizable as a sort of prison environment, or is it more of a children's home environment?
Charlie Taylor 2:54
No, certainly it's much more of a prison environment. So the populations are higher, around 150 or so in somewhere like Weatherby, around 120 in someone like Wellington and in Feltham in West London, again, around 120 something like that. So they have a much more prisony feel, unfortunately, than than secure children's homes, the secure school, or even, indeed, secure, secure training centers. And I think that's been one of the criticisms for many years, is actually that they often appear to do a better job of preparing kids for a life in prison, rather than a life on the outside going on and being successful when they leave.
Mark Leech 3:36
That's probably a good point to bring in Martyn from Ofsted. Our involvement might come as a bit of a surprise to many people. Obviously, we do have that role in in adult prisons as well. Could you tell us a bit more about why and how Ofsted are involved in YOI inspections?
Sir Martyn Oliver 3:49
Well, Ofsted works with a number of providers across the 92,000 people that we inspect and regulate and in YOIs, and indeed in prisons. We're really grateful to work with Charlie and his team at HMIP and we look very specifically at the education that children receive in these settings. So for example, in YOIs, we've just done a thematic joint review with Charlie's team, and we've looked very specifically at leadership and the quality of education, and it's actually quite a damning report, where between the two of us, we find that there's been a decade long decline in the quality of education for our most vulnerable children, and when you think about the very need for rehabilitation, clearly education has a massively important role. And the fact that we find that there are systemic failings, it's a really concerning moment that I think Charlie and I now say, this needs to say, enough is enough. This now must improve.
Mark Leech 4:52
So you've mentioned our report there, which is published this month. It's called, as you say, 'A decade of declining quality of education in Young Offender Institutions.' So it is quite a quite a bleak picture. Maria, could you just pull out some of the headlines from that report for us please?
Maria Navarro 5:09
Yes. Certainly. There are two bubbles that we have looked at together with our colleagues in HMIP. The one is the leadership of the YOIs and and the other one, which is of particular interest to all of us here today, and certainly Ofsted, the bubble of the quality of education that the children receive. So if I start with with the leadership band, there are a number of recommendations that we have picked up in in this thematic review for the leaders at each local YOI and also centrally at the Youth Custody Service. The absence of continuous and prolonged leadership in these YOIs, we will have identified that the governance of these YOIs get moved rapidly and very quickly, often before they have an opportunity to create improvement and bring about better quality of provision for the children. There appears to be in the work we have done, in analyzing 10 years worth of inspection, evidence that there has been a breakdown in the staff and child relationships in the YOIs, again, which hasn't been led and managed well internally. As a consequence, both staff officers and managers are displaying an inability to manage behavior and challenging behavior of the children. From our colleagues in HMIP, we also learned throughout the review that this has led to increased segregation of these children, and as a consequence, has reduced their time out of cell and they remain locked up for far too long. There has been a vacuum of investment in infrastructure and learning resources. For example, the YOIs are very poorly suited and equipped to deliver ICT and technology and digital skills to the children. There has been a lack of expert teaching staff, staff who are really good at a particular academic or vocational subject, both the children accessing the YOI in terms of education and vocational training is nowadays incredibly narrow and not good enough for meeting their needs.
Mark Leech 7:27
Thanks, Maria. So, Martin just picking up on the education part there that Maria ended on, what in an ideal world would we be looking for in terms of the education provision in a YOI?
Sir Martyn Oliver 7:40
Well, certainly we need just children to have good access to education, starting format formally, with reading. It's hugely important that the literacy levels then numeracy levels of children. And let's remember we're not talking about prisoners here. We're talking about children who are in custody. So let's just use the term children, that children have access to a good, broad and balanced education, starting with reading, then the basic skills of numeracy and mathematics, and then, of course, access to regular teaching and learning. So that's not being locked in the cell, as we find in this report, for some children up to 23 hours in a day, but actually accessing full time education like their like their counterparts are in the school setting. And of course, we're not naive. Some of the behaviors are challenging. And we talk in the report about on on wing support. That's where education can be delivered to support the children in their in their cell on the wing for that period. But we want to see children in good, regular, broad, balanced curriculum with expert staff who can assess the needs, the differential needs, of children, where the starting points that they've got, and then work towards giving them a really good education, and also work experience. Because we want the prison experience, the custody to result in rehabilitation, and without a good education, then I think we're really going to struggle to ever achieve that aim.
Mark Leech 9:09
Thank you and Charlie, we we've talked a bit about behavior. The report picks up on the part about needing to separate groups of children, and that making it difficult, just in practical sense, to get children to a place where they can, you know, engage in education and learn, learn stuff really. What if you could expand a bit on some of the challenges that are facing these institutions?
Charlie Taylor 9:35
I think it's worth just saying to begin with that from a HMIP point of view, we really value the relationship that we have with Ofsted, and I think what is particularly strong is the fact that Ofsted maintain incredibly high standards. Their expectations are as high for children in custody as for children out of custody. And I think that is incredibly important in terms of behavior. This is often something that gets in the way of learning, and it also affects the education as well. So, so what we find is that because of what are called keep-apart lists, so because various children have been in conflict with each other, and sometimes this is to do with conflict that's happened on the outside, and sometimes it's to do with conflict that's developed very often within the context of of the YOI. What we found is certain children are unable to mix. And rather than doing the sort of conflict resolution that you would expect to do in in in the sort of school that I used to run, a special school for children with behavioral difficulties, what happens is, is that children are simply kept apart. And of course, what that ultimately means is, rather than going to lessons with people with whom you have the same aspirations and interests and also abilities. Very often, children are just being allocated to classes because these are rooms in which they can be safe without having a fight. Well, that's just a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs. And of course, consequently, what it means is that children are bored. Often they don't feel extended in the way that they should be, that sometimes they're on a course that they don't have an interest in, or they're being asked to do work that is simply too easy for them, so inevitably, that is a cause of frustration. The other thing that we see is levels of attendance, which go very closely with behavior, getting to education is not prioritized at the level that we would want to see. Teachers don't always know who's going to turn up, and that makes their job very difficult. And consequently and unsurprisingly, often there have been issues with education providers in YOIs being able to recruit enough really high quality teachers, because at times, the job can seem very frustrating, we know, and the report talks about the complexity of these children. Many of them have special educational needs and disabilities. Many others have had at best a pretty fractured relationship with education through through their childhood.
Mark Leech 9:49
Are we seeing that, you know, as a major stumbling block to maintaining their education?
Charlie Taylor 12:01
Once they're in the YOIs, they've often had a very checkered educational past. Many of them have been in out of the care system, and are often been to lots of different schools on their journey, which ends up in custody. So it isn't surprising that many of them have got special educational needs or other sorts of difficulties, and it's incumbent on the prison and or the YOI and also the education provider, to really get under the skin of that. The way I see it is these children are almost like jigsaw puzzles with some pieces missing, and those pieces might be, for example, the fact that their reading is very poor, the fact that they've got very poor mathematic skills, that some of their practical skills are poor, or that they find it difficult to form relationships, and therefore need to be helped to work in a class. But the objective of the YOI is to find those missing pieces of that jigsaw for each individual child and to fit them into place so that when they leave custody, they're able to go on and to flourish, to get work, to go to college, to get into employment and to go on to lead successful lives that don't involve them in a revolving door in and out of custody, which, depressingly with adult prisoners we see far too often.
Sir Martyn Oliver 13:09
Yeah, we're dealing with staff shortages, often in that we find in education within the YOIs, and then because of those staff shortages, we're finding that the training that some of the staff have had is not suiting their need to be expert deliverers of some of the most vulnerable children in society. And then on top of that, those who've got additional needs, and their ability to identify those and actually develop a really unique pathway and a curriculum for those children, that's where we're seeing significantly the biggest issues. And one of the things that we also note in the report is that the support for children with special education needs has declined really very markedly and significantly since the covid pandemic. I mean, it's really interesting. I mean, the time of this podcast going out, I've been the chief inspector for nine months, and it's really a fascinating and unbelievably upsetting area of Ofsted's work, which I did not have enough of a knowledge of before, when I was a head teacher of lots of schools, until I came into this role. And I really urge people to just not only read the report, but to even go and look at the technical annex at the back, where we talk about the quality of the judgment Ofsted have given and HMIP have given in each of the four settings over the last 10 years, the decade of decline. And if you look at it, you'll see a really marked picture for about 2016 17, there's a marked decline, and it's just simply, it will be shocking to see just how many of them have been rated inadequate or requires improvement and just not been good for an awful long period. And you know, since coming into Ofsted, one of the things I've talked about, not just in YOIs, but across the whole of Ofsted, is getting it right for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. And as a society, that we should pride ourselves on that and if we get It right for them, then we'll get it right for everyone. Well, these are then, these are those children. These are literally the most vulnerable children in this country, and we're not getting it right, right now.
Mark Leech 15:12
So that decade of decline then is, is that? Does that have a single cause? Is it because of a lack of funding? Is it more complicated than that? Is it because the staff simply aren't available? And we know there's, there's recruitment issues right across education, let alone in some of this more specialist provision? What would what would you say are the root causes of 10 years of decline?
Sir Martyn Oliver 15:39
Yeah, we can clearly see the challenges in the economy and how that spills into public services. Like many public services, whether it's schools or a nursery or a further education social workers, the ability to recruit and retain staff is difficult. We know that anxiety and mental health support across the entire system has become really difficult. We know that the SEND system is often described by commentators as broken in this country. Well, now you take all of that, the mental health and the anxiety, the special educational needs, the finances, the resources, the staffing, the training, and you place that then in this unique environment of one of these four YOIs? Well, it becomes a microcosm of what is not working very well in the public services. And it's clearly a real challenge for the for the leaders in these settings, and they have, to some extent, my sympathy, but we do need to find a way through this now. And they are the experts and they are the leaders, and I'm really hoping that the work that they do with us, and particularly with Charlie and his team, can now start to reverse this. This next decade wants to be a decade of improvement that we talk about. It really cannot, not only can it carry on like this, this is a crisis. It has to turn around, and it has to turn around now.
Charlie Taylor 17:01
I think what's really required is a fundamental orientation of YOIs towards education. And I think in the past, and what I've seen in lots of the visits I've made, education is seen as a nice to have. This isn't a nice to have for any children. This is an essential component of what a YOI should be doing. And as Martyn said, these are some of the most vulnerable children in the country, and they have as much right to getting a decent education as anybody else. And if we want them to come out and we want them to lead good lives, to avoid bringing crime, to avoid creating more victims, then we need to begin to think about how we fill in those gaps. And it's worth saying also that, unusually in the case of the public sector, and I'm not talking specifically about the education contracts here, but in the context of the public sector, YOIs are not badly funded. So with the reduction of children in the population, the amount of funding per child per place is actually much higher than it was four or five years ago. So there are great opportunities to use resources in a way that is really supporting transformational change within our YOIs. Because, as Martyn says, what we need in the future is a decade of success that comes off the back of this depressingly ongoing decade of failure.
Mark Leech 18:14
Do we see this done well elsewhere? I mean, clearly there's a there's a pattern in this country of pretty poor provision that we see it in other countries in a much better light.
Charlie Taylor 18:28
Just head over the border and head over the Severn Bridge into Wales. And I know this isn't part of Ofsted's jurisdiction, the colleagues in Estyn are responsible for the inspection, but HMP Park, where the YOI component is is an important part of that jail, the progress is far better. Children are unlocked from their cells. Many who've come from Feltham and Cookham Wood, children spend far longer out of their cells, 10 hours, 9,10, hours a day. We see that and at the weekends as well, which often we don't see at all in YOIs. And actually the standards of education and the opportunities for education are much better there. It's a more peaceful place. The behavior is far better than we see. The attendance there is far better than we see in the English YOIs. So there is a model that can be used. They're doing some really good things over there with some equally challenging children. So it is disappointing to see that the youth custody service hasn't been able to learn from provision which is on its doorstep.
Maria Navarro 19:26
Without going very far, we've got a secure training center and a number of secure children's homes who provide education in a really fulfilling way, and are undoubtedly doing much better than any of the Y Oris, and those are within close proximity To these establishments, and there are a lot of rich pickings and low hanging fruit, as we would say, quick wins that could be implemented. For example, the fact that in some of these places, children are not wearing a prison uniform that could have a huge impact culturally in the way that children perceive themselves inside the establishment, the fact that in some of these settings, is the same staff and the same officers looking after the children day in day out. When you go to the YOIs, any officer is patrolling those areas of education, the children don't have the time to build relationships and trust, trusted relationships with them and with the teachers, and yet in some of these other places that can be achieved. I also, lastly, would like to note that in some of the most successful secure children's homes on the secure Training Center, everyone from the leaders to the Support Assistance in classes passing through officers is very proud to call the children by exactly that name, children. They are full of respect and feel very proud that they have been given the opportunity to help these children turn their lives around. And when we go to the YOIs, this is not often the cultural setting that we see from leaders and staff towards the children. And that has to change, and it has to change dramatically in order to bring about any improvement.
Mark Leech 19:27
So Martyn, what's your hope for the future?
Sir Martyn Oliver 19:29
Well, I was really inspired. I met Charlie, in the first couple of months of being in office, and Charlie was telling me about a project that I didn't know a huge amount, where I used to run a large multi Academy trust in England, and one of my fellow large trusts has really lent into developing a secure school, which has been in the process of registration through Ofsted. And so we're now looking and hoping that this might be a model for the future. Clearly, it's got to receive children. It's got to be inspected, and we'll carry out without fear or favor our own independent inspection. But I was really, really struck by Charlie's vision for this, and I know you've worked really closely with them over this, Charlie, so I'm really hoping that this could be a model for the future, that everyone can learn from.
Charlie Taylor 20:18
Yes, absolutely, and I had very much, and I wish them all the best. It obviously this will be an Ofsted inspection, because, I mean, I felt, when I did my 2016 review, that very, very important, that actually this was going to be a school, and therefore, in effect, with the children's home, and therefore it wasn't for the Inspectorate of prisons to be looking at it. It was for Ofsted to do that. And we're very grateful for Ofsted taking that on. Look, I think it's a great opportunity to show that actually we can do things differently with these kids. It will be difficult. Inevitably, starting any new institution is always going to be difficult, but I think there is a level of enthusiasm and interest out there that I hope very much that this can begin to change the model that we've seen of YOIs, for many years,
Sir Martyn Oliver 21:04
I think it will be helpful, for example, that this is an organization which is used to teaching mainstream education, all of the mainstream professional development and the recruitment of teachers, and the fact that they'll be able to pull upon that, that that strong network and lean it towards these children. I think that's clearly got to give us a great sense of optimism for the future. And you know, I look forward to noting what you said, Charlie, about how difficult it is to start any venture but any new venture. But I really do hope that that will be hugely, hugely impactful.
Host Mark Leech listens in to Lisa Pascoe, deputy director (regulation and social care policy), Helen Humphries (specialist adviser for residential care) and Jenny Bird (research lead) as they discuss the findings from our recent research report ‘Good decisions: children with complex needs in children’s homes’.
Read the report 'Good decisions: children with complex needs in children's homes'
Read the blogs:
Providing good experiences for children with complex needs
Children with complex needs in children's homes
Transcript
Mark: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and in this episode, we're going to be hearing about children with complex needs and what that means to local authorities, children's services and those working with children who live in children's homes. Earlier this year, we published a research report called good decisions children with complex needs in children's homes, and I listened in to colleagues from our social care policy and research teams as they discussed the findings.
Lisa: I'm Lisa Pascoe. I'm the Deputy Director here at Ofsted with responsibility for regulation and social care policy and I'm joined today by Helen, our specialist advisor for residential care, and Jenny, our research lead. Jenny, let's start with you. It would be really helpful to set out for people why we did this research.
Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So, it follows on really from a piece we'd done previously, which was looking at local authorities plans for sufficiency. And from that piece of work, we could see that local authorities were really struggling to find supportive homes for children who have complex needs. So we wanted to look at that even more. We knew as well that stakeholders were concerned about children's homes not accepting referrals for children with complex needs. We'd heard some things about them holding out for children who present fewer risks and, sort of preferring to take referrals for those children. And we heard as well about some concerns around the potential impact it could have on Ofsted inspections. So we really wanted this research to look into that further and to highlight good practice that was already out there, as well as the challenges that still exist, and what action could potentially be taken, either across the sector or by ourselves.
Lisa: So how did we make it work? Jenny, what did we actually do?
Jenny: So we used a two-phase design in this research. We started off at the start of 2023 with a survey that went out to all local authority Children's Services and all registered children's homes, and we asked them things like what they think complex needs means, what happens when they try to find places or are approached with a referral, and what the facilitators and the barriers are to finding good homes for children.
Lisa: If I remember rightly, Jenny, didn't we publish something after phase one?
Jenny: We did, yeah. We published a blog in around May time to highlight the findings of that survey in more detail.
Lisa: And then we moved into phase two.
Jenny: We did, yeah. So that built on phase one, and it was made up of two parts. The main bulk of the work was case studies. We'd completed 10 case studies, which we identified through working with three different local authorities across two regions. And in those we spoke to people who were involved in making decisions about children's care or in providing the care itself, as well as children. To supplement those, we also ran some focus groups with other groups of professionals who are involved in the care of children with complex needs. So that was people from the Association for Virtual School Heads, as well as staff who work in local authority commissioning. And we also held a focus group with some of our own Ofsted inspectors as well to talk about how they experience inspections when they're going to homes where children with complex needs are living.
Lisa: I think one of the things, Helen, was about this use of the phrase complex needs, wasn't it? I mean, it camouflages what's actually happening for children.
Helen: Yes, it's a global term that I think is on unhelpful and categorizes children into this uncertainty which is complex needs, instead of actually saying this child's particular need is related to their mental health, or, because of that this is what happens and this is how their behaviour is demonstrated. It just draws children into a classification that actually isn't helpful and we'd really prefer not to have that phrase bandied about and used so much.
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, I think there was some common themes. Weren't there. There were certainly children who needed help from a variety of professionals. They needed specialist help from, you know, from health services. They needed specialist input and there was certainly some common kind of characteristics of the children Jenny, as well wasn't there in terms of children, particularly children with serious mental health needs, but also children who had needs that led to behaviours that were placing either themselves or others at risk? There was certainly some commonality there, but I think as an umbrella, it certainly masked what was actually happening for children, rather than thinking about them as individuals.
Helen: Yes, I think it stops professionals looking any further. And I would imagine that if a children's home received a referral that just described the child as having complex needs, that might be straight away, this isn't a child we can help, rather than actually looking underneath that and saying, well, actually, what are these children's needs? Is there something here that we can provide some help and support to?
Lisa: one of the things we weren't surprised at, sadly, was that there was 91% I think it was Jenny of local authorities that had difficulty finding the right homes for children.
Helen: Because of that, some children are waiting months, or in one of the examples given, they were waiting years to find that placement that could actually meet their needs, which meant that they were then moved through a variety of placements, and to a large extent, that could have made the situation and the challenges even worse.
Lisa: absolutely, and we certainly found that these were the children who were most likely to be placed out of area weren't they? As you say, Helen, experienced those unplanned moves. You're absolutely right. When children's homes were looking at those referrals, the fact they'd had those unplanned moves sort of became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and how difficult it then became to find the right place for them.
Helen: yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't imagine what it must be like for a child living in a children's home knowing that any day, any moment, they could receive the information that they are then moving again and how that, you know, how that must make them feel.
Lisa : And, we certainly heard quite a lot from commissioners, didn't we, about how challenging it was for them to negotiate what they needed. We heard examples of bidding wars with other local authorities, about having to purchase beds in advance, sometimes buying more beds than they needed to try and secure a placement. There was a whole range of experiences from commissioners about the difficulties that they felt. But I think we must sort of counteract that with the other side as well, in terms of what the managers were telling us about the quality of the information that they got.
Helen: That's right. And when we started to look at the things and some of the factors that means that placements work? Well, it was definitely around honest communication between the local authority and the home, and with providers saying that if it was an honest referral, that actually was far better. And, that children's homes and commissioners who had built up honest, trusting relationships so that a manager of a children's home could read a referral and be confident that this was all the information that they needed, and that none of it had been exaggerated or none of it had been redacted, meant they had confidence in accepting that referral. But, also the commissioner had confidence in making that referral, that there was a likelihood that the children's home would be able to say yes, and would be honestly, be able to say yes we think we can possibly care for this child. So there was definitely, definitely something about building up honest and trusting relationships
Lisa: And as well as the referrals, it was really clear how the statement of purpose was quite important to commissioners as well, wasn't it?
Helen: Absolutely and the statement of purpose needs to clearly set out what a home can do so that the commissioners can place confidently and that placements are less likely to break down. And the and the other thing that became clear was that building on the notion of the positive and trusting relationship is that children's homes felt more confident in taking children who had a range of difficulties that they then weren't going to be sort of left with the child. That the local authority would continue to be involved in the child's life, that they would support partnership working, that they would they would support the placement, perhaps by adding in things and putting them in touch with other professionals who could support the placement. So that it really was a true partnership, and not a feeling that, well, you've got the child now, you just need to get on with it, and so that it was far more positive, far more positive outcomes.
Lisa: And that right educational placement was something else that supported stability, wasn't it?
Helen: Absolutely so that children feel more settled because they're going to school, but also that the school feels that they're working again, in partnership with the children's home and with the local authority as well. And there was also something about how the children's home had accepted the referral. They'd gone more than just reading the referral, they talked to people who knew the child well, and very often, that's when the child comes to life. Really, it's not in a written referral, it's about talking to the adults and professionals who've been involved in those children's lives can actually then bring that child to life and helps the children's home in making those decisions.
Lisa: I mean, it was great to see so much that was working well and some of those things felt relatively simple to put in place, didn't they that quality relationships with staff? I mean, that's a consistent theme for us in inspection, isn't it that we know that that's what makes the difference for children. But there are some things that worried us Helen weren't there?
Helen: Certainly, yes, absolutely. And I mean, this isn't new. This isn't a new story. We've talked about this before. We do remain concerned about the increasing number of children on orders that deprive them of their liberty. The numbers are just increasing at an alarming rate, and this really does worry us. We want to try and get underneath some of this and really understand why there's been this rapid increase of the number of children on orders. We worry again about the use of unregistered provision, particularly for children who are on those on those orders, and because actually, who's got eyes on those, on those children?
We also worry that, and we're not clear that high staff ratios always helps children in a positive way. It must feel very unnatural for a child living on their own in a small children's home then to be surrounded by four, five, we've even heard of eight members of staff, and how actually does that support children to develop their skills and their strategies in order to go forward in their adult lives. And then, just some very practical situations, where, how can a child go to the supermarket and buy food when they're surrounded by eight adults. Or how can they go out and access activities if they've if it's been determined that they need five members of staff with them at any one time, how can you go out to the to the cinema or go and do bowling, if it means that not everybody can go, because actually you can't get six members of staff in and a child in a car. So, there's some worries, there's some practical challenges, and we also worry about children in solo homes. There may be appropriate times that where a child needs to live on their own because they actually can't interact and manage to live with other children. But should that be their long term solution? Does that prepare them, then for when they move into supported accommodation, when they become when they become older? So yeah, that we retain these worries, which I know not only we have, but other organizations as well.
Lisa: Yeah, and in that unregistered children's home space, I mean, obviously, you know, we're very close to that, but commissioners are telling us that they're being forced to use those placements that they don't want to use because they can't find the right place so they can't find registered provision can they that want to offer services to these to some of these children.
Helen: That’s right and then we worry, why would the unregistered placement take the child if a registered children's home won't take the child?
Lisa: Yeah, and we also, I mean, we know, across the sector, don't we, that there's challenges in recruiting and retaining staff, and we've been talking about this for some time now, haven't we?
Yeah, the turnover, the vacancy rate for children's home managers, you know, it's really high. It's about 12% isn't it, of children's homes that don't have a manager in place that's registered, and that has got to leave a gap for children, hasn't it?
Helen: Absolutely, and the churn of staff in children's homes as well. We always know, and it's always been a challenging role, a challenging job to work in children's homes, but the churn of staff turnover is much higher than it's ever been. And providers do talk to us and do comment how difficult it is to recruit staff who want to do this work and are willing to stay and maintain those because we also know that one of the most important factors of making placements work is the relationship between staff and children, and if there's a permanent churn within the staff team, then that is extremely difficult to manage.
Lisa: Yeah, it's almost like these worries and concerns are sort of the flip side of the things that can go well, aren't they, because, you know, the same point about finding the right educational placement for children. You know, we've said, haven't we, that that's one of the things that creates stability. But we know that for some of these children, finding and maintaining a school placement is really difficult. We know that some academies are reluctant to offer places to some of these children, and all of these things make it much more difficult. I think one of the virtual school head teachers described it as being like waiting for the stars to align, to get the education and the home together.
Helen: Yeah, absolutely, it must be incredibly challenging.
Helen: but we remain anxious about comments that continually appear that homes are reluctant to take children with a range of needs because it will affect their inspection judgments. And this is something that has worried us for a number of years now and we still try to understand what we can do in respect of that, to try and get underneath that statement.
Lisa: yeah, and it feels very real to the sector. And so, you know, we can't ignore that, can we, you know. So it's really important that if people think our approach is unfair or, overly risk averse, and that's certainly something, again, that I've heard from people, then then tell us. You know, talk to your inspector, people you know. If that doesn't feel comfortable, then Helen, I really hope people do come and talk to, you know, inspection managers. You know, there is a process there that people can use to speak to us if they think we're not landing our inspection in the right place.
I know that when we've looked at the grade profiles, it's really hard to get underneath this, isn't it, because there's nothing we can see in the grade profile that supports it. But I go back to if this is how people experience it, we just can't ignore it. Can we?
Helen: We can't ignore it. There has to be something there that we're not quite getting, although our evidence is that we can't find examples of where if a home has taken a child with a range of needs that has affected their grade profile. The worry is, I think, that people think it might so therefore don't take the chance on taking the child. So, we really, really do need to any information that will help us to understand that better than we want to listen.
Lisa: And it is, we know, that there's no such thing as a perfect placement. We also know that children who have experienced trauma and abuse and neglect, you know, their progress isn't going to be linear. It isn't going to be straightforward. They live in sort of a risk environment all the time, and children's homes are constantly, aren't they, managing and reassessing that risk? And that's why, you know for us, inspection has got to focus on yes, are these children making progress, but it's also about what's the quality of their day to day experience. Is this a staff team that are sticking with this child despite everything that that's difficult and challenging, staying with them, doing all the right things, trying to improve their lives, trying to help them, you know, feel secure and have that sense of belonging so that they can start to make progress. I mean, that feels really important to me. You know that they're the messages that our inspectors have, and that's our expectation of what inspections should look like.
Helen: Yes, because we know that if children are receiving positive experiences from staff who are interested in them and they've got good relationships with them, then progress follows on from that. But, for children with a whole range of needs, that progress will move about and how they interact with staff will change and be difficult. And it's those placements that stick with children, against all those adverse actions, that then often comes through at the end and children start then to make progress.
Lisa: Yeah, in summary, really, I think we think complex isn't that helpful of a term. It camouflages a lot of what's going on. We should really focus on children's strengths and be honest about their needs, that people can do the right thing.
I genuinely think it's really important that we see residential care as a positive option for some children, because it can be, and it is, and it does make a difference, and it's really right. You know, when we see local authorities wrapping services around residential care, it can make a real difference. That multidisciplinary approach from health services, education services and care services, when everybody's doing all the best possible jobs they can for children with these multiple needs, it really can and does make such a difference.
I really want to be really clear that we want to address homes concerns and reassure them, that we really do want to focus on the progress and experiences that children make, and we do understand that people are working with risk on a daily basis.
In terms of what we've done, we have got a priority application process for homes caring for children on deprivation of liberty orders. We did publish some guidance, probably about October, November last year, making our position around the legalities around registration and deprivation of liberty really clear. And our social care common inspection framework, we continue to make adaptations to that, and we made some last year, just to keep you know making this point as clear as we can, that we really want homes to work with children with multiple needs. We really want you to stick with children, and that's what we really want to see through those progress and experiences.
Mark: Thank you, Jenny, Lisa and Helen. That was very interesting. And if you enjoyed this episode and you don't want to miss the next one, please don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Jenny : If you are interested in reading the full research report called good decisions children with complex needs in children's homes, you can find it on the Ofsted website. On the website, you can also find other publications about this research, which is the blog outlining the findings from the survey, and a new blog post highlighting the areas of good practice we saw in the case studies.
In this episode, Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks with Wendy Ratcliff (HMI, Early Education), Dan Lambert (SHMI, Schools) and His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, about Ofsted's Big Listen.
Ofsted's Big Listen closes on 31st May and we want to hear from everyone we work with and work for. Take part here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ofsted-big-listen.
Transcript:
Mark: Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. Actually, this episode, could be renamed Ofsted listens because we're going to be talking about our Big Listen, the huge consultation that we kicked off at the beginning of March. We're now recording this in early May. So there's still a few weeks left for people to give us their views. We want to hear from parents, we want to hear from all of the providers across the different sectors that we work with. So if you haven't given your views yet, please go to gov.uk/ofstedbiglisten. So today we're going to talk to a couple of colleagues who have been part of the Big Listen - they've been out and about meeting with the public, meeting with people in the sectors that we work with and hearing what people are saying. So we're joined by Wendy Ratcliff, who is one of our HMI. Wendy works in early education. And we're joined as well by Dan Lambert, who is a senior HMI for the East of England region at Ofsted so welcome Wendy and Dan. Wendy, I’ll start with you, what's been your take as you've been going out and about? Where have you been and what have you been hearing?
Wendy: So we've been out and about in early education, as we usually do. And we've been out on some of our curriculum roadshows at the moment, which are focusing in on the key messages from our best start in life research review. And so we've been speaking with early years practitioners, we've been speaking with managers, we've been speaking with those who provide early years in schools and childminders as well. So we've been hearing things around that fear factor of Ofsted. And we've also been hearing things around notice periods, childminders, for example, one of the things that makes them more anxious is the fact we phone them five days before their inspection and then they're not certain which day we're going to go. So actually, that makes that anxiety worse. And the other thing I guess, is nursery managers, we make that call around midday the day before the inspection. And again, thinking about is that the right time, our inspectors are really good at saying is this a good time to have that conversation, but actually calling a day nursery at lunchtime, the day before the inspection is due, is that the best time for us to be making that notification call? So there's some of the things that people are telling us that they'd like to put forward in the Big Listen.
Mark: That's really interesting, because we're getting straight into the really meaty issues, aren't we and we’re trying to capture as much from people through the consultation online. But I think it is important that people understand that as well as that we are out listening to people on the ground and we've also commissioned some external organisations, some independent organisations to do some further work with the sectors that we work with. And to do some further surveys and some focus groups to hear from different groups of people that perhaps it's a bit harder to reach. So it's really interesting the notice period thing, because there's a lot of talk about that in schools and people talk about whether we're giving enough notice to teachers and to school leaders that we're going to be in. We normally give them a call the day before. As you say it’s slightly different with childminders, it’s different, again with further education providers. Dan, are you hearing much about notice periods? What else are you picking up more in the school sector?
Dan: Yeah, I've had some really great meetings with big and small groups of head teachers, senior leaders, governors and staff in schools as well. And notice periods, it's something that I think lots of us struggle to put our finger on. I was a head teacher a while back, and I certainly had the phone call the day before. And I couldn't quite say whether a little bit more notice, or a little bit less notice would be right for me if I put my hand on my heart and think about that. The message from leaders is they really want to be in their schools when Ofsted inspect, they feel that that allows them to put their best foot forward. But they also don't want that extended period, where they think actually, this will only raise my anxiety if I have more time to think about that. Incidentally, a lot of my work is in the independent sector, where much of our work is carried out with no notice. And I think you'd be amazed just at how calm that is. And it's been fascinating discussing that with head teachers and school leaders who've acknowledged actually that may be a nicer way of doing things. But as I say, always with that, that opportunity to make sure that they're on site during the day.
Mark: I think you've both been talking, they're really about the sort of anxieties that build up around Ofsted. And obviously, a big part of the Big Listen is us sort of reflecting on what we can do to reduce that because, you know, we want to be going into schools, nurseries, colleges, we don't want to be winding those institutions up. We want to see them as they are and be able to judge them fairly. There's been a lot of talk about whether people can comment about our judgments, our gradings. There is a section of the Big Listen about reporting. People I think understand that the grading system is not something that we can wave a wand and change it's a part of a bigger government machinery. But are we hearing a lot around the way we report back to parents but also to the to the schools themselves, the institutions themselves?
Dan: Yeah, I've certainly found that governors that I've spoken to have said they really valued that external validation of the work that's happening in the school. They're committed to helping to improve their schools and governors up and down the land, trustees up and down the land are hugely selfless and giving with their time, but they also want the very best for children in their schools. The feedback that Ofsted give them is invaluable to what they do. And I've heard that, but they also worry about their head teachers, and they worry about the impact that inspection may have on the leadership team and the staff in the school. Lots of head teachers and school leaders have talked to us about the one-word judgments. And there were some really strong feelings on this particular subject. Lots and lots of colleagues in schools have told us this through the Big Listen. And as some have commented, there isn't a direct question about that, but you can tell us about that in the free text box in the survey, and there are several of them, but particularly the one at the end asking, is there anything else you'd like us to know. However, there needs to be a balance here, because there are some people that have said it helps them to understand how a school is performing without having to read an in depth report. So we need to consider all of that, of course, before we come to a conclusion.
Wendy: And of course, in early years, some of our providers have told us that actually, that one word judgement links to the funding that's available to them. So again, there's lots of views out there, and it'd be good to capture all of them. We've been doing a lot in early education to try and put straight some of the inspection misconceptions that are out there. Because ultimately, we're charged with finding out what it's like to be a child in this place, and actually then report that back to parents. So that parents have got that understanding of what it's like for their child when they're in their preschool with their childminder, or in their out of school provider. And, with some of those changes we have already made, we are hearing, for those who have had a recent inspection, they're saying that they are finding that our inspectors very much are taking those messages on board and taking account of wellbeing and treating people with courtesy respect and empathy.
Mark: That is really, really good to hear because that has been a big focus of work over the last few months. I think like everything, it takes an awfully long time sometimes to get these messages across and, and perhaps around the fear factor we've been talking about, it is about people seeing that, people seeing a change on the ground, perhaps but also getting to know over time about the changes that we've made, the changes that will come out of the Big Listen too. I mean another way obviously is bringing more people into Ofsted and some people who are listening might not be aware of just how many of our inspectors don't work for us full time, actually are out there running schools, running nurseries, they come and give us some of their time to take part in inspections. Have you been meeting with some of our, we call them Ofsted inspectors, so that the staff that come in temporarily?
Wendy: Yeah, we are Mark actually we are just in the throes of doing our conferences. We have two conferences a year for our early years workforce and I was in Cobham in Surrey and was sitting with a group of our Ofsted inspectors. And it was a really positive day. And there was lots of opportunity for them to talk about some of those issues that they're facing when they're back in their settings. But also some of those messages and changes we've made, we've been able to cover some of those off in our conferences.
Dan: I was an Ofsted inspector before I was one of His Majesty's inspectors. I think our professional colleagues, those colleagues that come out of their setting for that short time to help to lead and team our inspection work provide that invaluable insight to the challenges on the ground. I spend the majority of my time in schools so I don't think that I'm too far removed from that reality. But I'm also not doing that day job anymore. And so hearing the views of those colleagues, it is really, really important. And they bring a unique perspective as well because they see it from both sides. Because for part of their week, they are sat to doing the day job dealing with the realities, the challenges and the joys that that brings. But then for a few days a week or a month they’ll be working with us and understanding the complexity of getting that work right. They bring a huge amount of knowledge, a huge amount of credibility and understanding to our workforce and they're absolutely invaluable.
Mark: That's great. Thank you very much. And I'm pleased to say that listening into all of this has been the man whose brainchild the Big Listen was – His Majesty's Chief Inspector, the boss of Ofsted, Sir Martyn Oliver. Martyn, what's your reflection, both on what Wendy and Dan have had to say, but also the Big Listen itself? I know you've been doing a tremendous number of meetings with all sorts of different organisations. What have you learned?
Martyn: Well, thank you, Mark. And thanks, Dan and Wendy. It's fascinating to hear what people have said to you so far. And you know, our inspections have come under a lot of scrutiny in the last year and my priority was to make sure that we've been able to review and to make changes about the way that we work and as Wendy was saying, our work should be carried out with professionalism, courtesy, empathy and respect. Because we really want to improve as an organisation. We want to make sure that we listen to everyone that we work with, and everyone that we work for, particularly listening to children and to parents. And yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting 10, inspirational young men in a youth offending institution and listening to what they have to say. And that was one of the groups that was carried out not just by the survey that we've got on the go right now that we launched in March, and it runs until the end of May. So there's still an opportunity for the listeners to this podcast to take part in our survey, just go to gov.uk/ofstedbiglisten to take part - we want to hear from all of your views. But on top of that, we've actually got these two consultations that are put in place from from groups. And one of these groups yesterday were conducting the survey with these 10 young men in this youth offending institution. And we were finding out about what's it like when we inspect in their prison education, what was it like when they were in school before they ended up into the youth offending institution, what's it like when they were in care, many of them were, and how does that affect our work. And this is why it's such an important thing that we hear every voice. And I've also been really clear in saying, Mark, that nothing's off the table. So, we want to hear every voice because nothing is off the table. And after May, we're going to analyse all of the feedback from the survey, and then from the groups who are coming out all these consultations on our behalf to get to these more vulnerable and marginalised sectors, and make sure that we hear everything they've got to say, and then we're going to present it in the beginning of the next academic year, as our response to this exercise. I think it's a great opportunity. So it's not just my views, but it's the views of the entire sector, something like 97,000 institutions that we inspect and regulate, because a lot of people think about Ofsted, and they think about the schools, the 22,000 schools. But as Wendy is a perfect example. There are some 67,000 and growing number of early years providers out there. So we have a wide remit, and we want to hear from everyone.
Mark: Thanks, Martyn. And for people out there who haven't looked at the survey yet, could you just tell them what to expect when they go to the website to fill it in?
Martyn: Yeah, so we've got two particular surveys, one for adults and one for children. And when you go on to the survey, for example, as an adult, you can see that you can select any of the aspects of the work that we do. And so we asked four big themed questions. But alongside the questions that we've set out, every single one of them has a free text box, I think there was something like 30 free text boxes. So if you don't think we're asking the right question and you want to tell us something else, then please feel free to write into that free text box what you think because we really are listening.
Mark: That is important. We hear comments from people and we know people have said well you haven't asked a question about grading or you haven't spoken about a particular aspect of work in further education or whatever it might be. Those free text boxes are going to be looked at and analysed and we will be capturing those thoughts so I think that's really important point. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Martyn. Thank you Dan, thank you Wendy for taking part. It just remains for me to say again if you haven't had your opportunity to have your say through the Big Listen, please do fill in the survey. It is open until the end of May at gov.uk/ofstedbiglisten. As we are recording this, so still with a couple of weeks left, we are over 16,000 responses making it the biggest consultation that Ofsted’s ever run and more than 3,500 of those have come from children which is absolutely fantastic. So do fill it in yourself and if you have a child who wants to express a view about how we inspect their school or their college, please do ask them to complete the survey as well - special survey for children which is a little bit easier to navigate. Thank you all for listening. I hope you will join us again on the next Ofsted Talks. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Briony Balsom
Hello, welcome to Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom, and today we're talking about alternative provision. Firstly, let me welcome our guests, here today with us we have Mark Vickers who's chair of the National MAT CEO network for alternative provision and special educational needs and disabilities and CEO of Olive Academies, we have Grace who attends the Olive Academy in Cambridge. Jo Fisher the Chair of the ADCS, that's the Association of Directors of Children's Services education committee, and we have Steve Shaw, who's one of Ofsted's Senior His Majesty's inspectors for SEND - special educational needs and disabilities. So, alternative provision or AP settings are places that provide education for children who can't go into a mainstream school. In January last year, we launched our new AP framework for Ofsted. Until then, there wasn't much of a coherent overview of how commissioning and oversight practices worked at a local level or of the mix of AP that local area partners were using. So that's why Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission now inspect local areas' approach to commissioning and overseeing AP as part of our joint area SEND inspections. And in February this year, we published a report into our findings about six local areas. We wanted to find out whether AAP is meeting the health, educational and care needs of young people how it's being used, what's helping, and indeed, What's hindering local partners from working together. Mark, can I come across to you to set the scene around what exactly AP is why we need it, who's it for?
Mark Vickers
Alternative provision plays a really important part within the broader education offer for children and young people. At its best, its purpose is to help pupils to reengage with their education generally, often through short term interventions before returning to mainstream school for a fresh start in a new setting, can also be providing more long term placements and support for young people, particularly at Key Stage four. And increasingly AP settings are providing upstream early intervention and preventative support through outreach to avoid the need for exclusions in the first place.
Briony Balsom
Grace, can you talk to us a little bit about your experience?
Grace
So I started last March. And coming into it, I was very, very scared like, because obviously, at the start of my school, I was didn't always feel 100%. I never wanted to go in and my attendance dropped down to about 6%. So it got to the point where they didn't really want me in school anymore, because it it wasn't working for me. So now I got managed move to three different other schools. But that didn't work for me either. So the last opportunity was coming to Olive. So I started here, and at first I was very wary, because I didn't know no one here. But from the first week, I literally just went straight in everyone was so lovely. The teachers are amazing here with like English and maths and that like they sit you down and you just get that one to one. Like in a normal school, you don't get that one to one. It's like, okay, I'll tell you the answer, then it's like you still don't understand, as well here, they'll like repeat it 100 times over and over again until you're like, Okay, I get that now, with like, anxiety wise, I just feel so much more like myself now. And so much more happier than where I was a year ago. I feel like this school is just bring out such like a new person of who I am.
Briony Balsom
What Grace has described sounds like an incredibly special environment for her to be able to develop in how how do you make that work?
Mark Vickers
It's effectively drawing on the very best practice of mainstream in terms of the same expectations. So we don't lower our expectations at all. But what we do is that we do it slightly differently. So the experience for those young people, we're not trying, we're not trying to recreate a small version of the mainstream school because clearly that hasn't been successful. For those young people, they found that a challenge, but we want to not lose the importance of a really strong education in terms of thinking about those educational outcomes as well in terms of qualification so so we have really strong teaching all levels. And that will be you know, a big focus on core to English, maths, science, particularly, but we have a much broader curriculum, and that's based on understanding the needs of young people. So we have a, you know, a therapeutic offer in terms of supporting those young people with a range of therapeutic professionals who are part of our staff group at Olive academies. And we also have a very broad and we think interesting and Grace could tell me otherwise if not outdoor learning curriculum and that's broad and layered again and as personalised and as bespoke as we can make it within confines of budgets to the needs of the young people. And the idea of, of our outdoor learning curriculum, which has been around with Olive Academy, since we started as a MAT nine years ago, is to really build build up pupils confidence through improving their resilience, they come to us with some real challenges around that Grace, obviously, has just articulated doubt in terms of how she felt transitioning coming out of the mainstream school into AP. But one of the things I'm very proud of is hearing Grace, talk about how she's been able to sort of move on quickly in her learning, and engagement at Olive. And that's because, you know, we provide those opportunities to take young pupils slightly out of their comfort zone, but in a very careful managed way, through a range of, we hoped, quite creative, interesting activities. And it just changes the dynamic, I think.
Grace
With off site is it's nice because you have your days on site where you are doing your work, but then you have them days where you do go off site, and you do learn new things. And it is really good, like learning new communication skills, and from doing stuff that you've never done before, by getting out there and doing bold new things that you wouldn't do in your everyday life. It is a great experience.
Briony Balsom
Thanks so much for sharing with us, Steve. So having heard that from Grace, can I come across to you? Just to say a little bit about why Ofsted decided to look into AP commissioning?
Steve Shaw
I think it's probably fair to say that for quite a while, it's had some concerns. You know, we were concerned around for example, where a P wasn't necessarily being commissioned in the best interests of children and young people, some variety around the the quality of AP and the monitoring of pupils progress when they're in AP. And I think we've we've been worried about what the outcomes look like for children in AP. And are the commissioners really clear on what they hope the AP outcomes will look like for those young people. And if you then add into that mix, the challenge around the use of unregistered AP, the multiple routes into AP, from schools through LA's, that has meant that some of the quality of the oversight for children and young people in AP is variable.
Briony Balsom
Thanks Steven, You took the words right out of my mouth. It's just such a complex and fragmented picture with so many different routes and variables that and pathways that young people can take through it. It's incredibly complex. So I wonder whether I could bring you in here just to say a little bit about what the backgrounds of challenges looks like against which I'm we're putting this fragmented AP picture?
Jo Fisher
Before the pandemic, but especially since the pandemic, the the number of exclusions, both permanent and fixed term exclusions is really increasing. And alongside that, we know that so many of our children, young people just aren't attending school consistently in the way we'd want. We've seen the persistent absent rates for the current academic year stand something close to the region of 20%, which is well above pre pandemic levels, we know that there are far too many children who are now not in school or not in any form of education that we really do need to support and, and be clear that actually being you talk to yourself about what's in a child's best interests, we know that being out of school is rarely in a child's best interest. And it's really important that we all work together to build an inclusive education system that puts children I think back in back in the classroom and back where they should be because every day counts. That said, you know, it's really good to hear Grace, talk and, and to recognise, I think that alternative provision does have a really important part to play in all of this. And it's really important, I guess, that it's seen as part of an inclusive education system, it shouldn't be about exclusion. This is about, as Mark said, helping children, young people really engage in learning, but not just that I was smiling as Grace talked, it's about building people's confidence, self esteem and aspirations as well. It's that wider thing. And, and I know when I go out and visit children in the alternative provision, where I work in Hertfordshire, you know, that's when I see the really best practice, it's when I see children, or young people like Grace, not just getting on a learning and, and being interested in, in learning, but also talking about how much better they feel in themselves to so that really holistic picture. And there are 1000s of children every day in some form of alternative provision. Steve talked about the, you know, the fragmented picture that we're seeing, and that, you know, we've got over 25,000 pupils in any time and the sort of state funded alternative provision, so we call them pupil referral units or where I work, we call them education support centres, but also alternative provision academies and free schools. And there's about that number, again, in school arranged alternative provision. You set that alongside all the other types of alternative provision such as special schools. All these independent schools, independent special schools, we've got a massive range of provision out there with a lot of children who deserve, you know, deserve the very best help to be included in school and education. So I think there is I really welcomed the Ofsted report because I think it sets some really big challenges for us all to work together and really be clear about what we mean when we talk about alternative provision, what good looks like what people like Grace and her family should expect when they go to some form of alternative provision.
Briony Balsom
Thanks, Joe. Grace, you spoken about anxiety issues that you've had, do you feel the link between the pandemic? And do you feel like, this is something that's been incredibly formative for you and your peers?
Grace
I 100% agree, because I think with the pandemic, a lot more people stopped going out like a lot more kids just wanting to be at home all the time. And then when it was, they were so used to sit at home on the computer doing all their work all the time, when it was time to go back to school, it was it was a big push again.
Briony Balsom
And Mark that chimes with your experience?
Mark Vickers
Oh, completely. I think it's interesting. I mean, obviously, just looking more broadly at this thinking about my role across the national network. When we look at the current attendance figures, the most recent DFE return show for the first time since I've been in education, attendance in alternative provision, just falling underneath the 60% figure for the first time so close to half and just not not attending, not accessing on a daily basis. Now that that clearly can't can't be a good thing in any way shape or form, it is a real concern. And it is often young people that okay, their attendance is improving when it comes to alternative revision from from their starting points, which could be in the single figures, or zero when they come to learn to come into the setting. But I think it is good to see that incrementally that is increasing in the strongest settings. And as Steve said, there's such a variety of quality around provision and such a variety therefore of practices around how you know schools might start and providers are encouraging young people to come in and managing attendance, particularly through their through their strategy. So I'm delighted that the last year's round of wave of new attendance has included two alternative provision MATS, one in the northeast and Olive Academy's as a second one and being able to support a range of not just AP settings, but mainstream settings as well, because there's lots of good practice that's happening and alternative revision that a number of our mainstream colleagues are really finding useful to really work think about engaging with the hardest to reach young people, particularly.
Briony Balsom
Steve, what do we find in the report what commissioning practices? Are we seeing patterns between regions?
Steve Shaw
we did find some some strong practice. You know, we found commissioning practice that was really clear where it had the best interests of children, young people at heart where there was a real strategy that sat behind it, where there were really clear processes for monitoring the quality of it, and so on. We found some interesting things around the lack of national standards to do with AP. And that's a that's a particularly interesting question around what might national standards in AP look like where to compare the outcomes of young people in AP with the outcomes, even people in mainstream wouldn't be relevant, meaningful or fair in many cases, that kind of absence of clarity from the centre around what my really effective AP look like. And that's something that DFE is working on, but that absence was interesting. We found a lack of clarity on responsibilities for AP commissioning and oversight are leading to inconsistent and effective practice. And often that's made worse by underdeveloped strategic planning, and an insufficiently clear purpose of AP and a lack of monitoring of children's outcomes. So at its worst, I mean, we understand at Ofsted, that there are real challenges around sufficiency and capacity for AP there aren't enough places. And often, AP is being asked to take on a kind of a shadow SEND role a specialist setting for for youngsters with SEND, we understand that, we saw that. But we also saw where commissioning was very much sort of in the moment, what we might call spot purchasing. We sometimes found that agencies weren't strategically collaborating with each other. So for example, the the teams around education around care around health weren't routinely and always talking with one another. And we would find that mirrored sometimes with EHCPs where those services weren't in communication weren't talking weren't liaising with one another, and decisions around placing children in AP were often not rigorous enough, and placements not monitored. So as a result, children's outcomes were were really inconsistent in the areas that we visited, we did find a picture of a system that's in desperate need of reform. We've made some recommendations around the need for real care around what we've referred to as subcontracting. So this is where, for example, a youngster might be placed in an AP. But that AP then decides for various reasons that the youngster needs to be placed somewhere else in another AP or two or more AP. So so that child or young person has a real kind of Jigsaw provision across a week. And that raises all kinds of safeguarding challenges and safeguarding questions, as well as those questions around who's actually got an oversight and a grip on on that, that coherent, cohesive quality of education that that young person is getting, if their education is fragmented across a number of different settings.
Mark Vickers
I was actually delighted to be honest, really pleased about about the kind of recognition of where the where the challenges are, and the you know, the need the need for change. And I particularly liked the fact that some of those recommendations really linked really well to the broader reform agenda DFE's reform agenda for for alternative provision, as set out in the SEND and AP improvement plan, particularly focusing on, you know, the need for clarity around arrangements for young people within AP, because you can't move anywhere near a three tiered, high cost, high quality, three tiered approach to alternative provision, without that clarity around commissioning, particularly.
Jo Fisher
But we also know that too many children do have negative experiences. And too often they don't return to mainstream school, them and their parents feel like alternative provision is more of a destination than a sort of a way of re engaging with mainstream education. So, you know, I recognise what what the report said. And I think, you know, fundamentally, rather than it being a destination, it's got to be a form of intervention that really is crafted towards helping young people really do well, in school in the classroom, you know, alongside their existing schools curriculum. It offers that sort of bespoke sequence curriculum, which often isn't available in a mainstream school and includes subjects and vocational courses such as horticulture and animal care and mechanics. And I met a young person just recently who's, you know, now got onto a great Ford apprenticeship because of the sort of really bespoke curriculum he followed. And there's also something about how mainstream schools play their part in this to make sure there's that very clear, and I can see Mark nodding, but you know, just making sure there's that really clear continuum of support. And I know that many, many schools are really inclusive and work hard to be inclusive. But that's not true of all of them.
Mark Vickers
I really welcome around the recommendations and the findings of the report is it moves, and you put those that report alongside the three tiered approach is set out, as I said, in the AP and SEND implementation plan, you can just see a sort of roadmap, if you like, to a place where young people can get that experience like Grace and others in really strong AP settings have nationally at the moment, but but more consistently. And I think that's so important, because without those points being joined up and the commissioning being absolutely nailed and understood around what what the purpose of that young person's placement is, and crucially, how will How will their engagement and their progress, be tracked, monitored, supported, so that they can truly transition to the next right the right place on the continuum, wherever that might be on their journey.
Briony Balsom
To wrap up, I think probably we need to put a marker down that we've asked more questions than we've got answers for today. So Steve, what are the next plans?
Steve Shaw
We currently have an AP strategy, which is to do with a real focus on for example, how we train our inspectors to go out and inspect AP. So a real focus on making sure that our inspectors are upskilled in, in kind of getting the diversity and differences of AP, and really getting under the bonnet of what's the what's the particular core work on objectives of this AP for this young person? And can we see that and track that back through the commissioning agreements? So that we're really looking at what makes that AP unique? And how does that AP convey the ambition for those young people to achieve in the way that Jo and Mark have described in the way clearly that Grace is achieving? We continue to work as you would expect, and have discussions with the DfE with NHSE, with groups like ADCS that Jo is representing and the sector that Mark represents, to try to make sure that we're really working collectively towards an understanding of what national standards might look like, and how might we get to a point where the ambitions that are set out in the DFE's SEND improvement plan are actually going to be delivered and meaningfully delivered and in a way that is that is sustainable.
Briony Balsom
Thanks Steve. And Grace to bring it back to you. Talking of the future what are your what are your plans, what's next for you?
Grace
I want to be a professional dancer. So we have Jo who comes in on Tuesdays and sits us down and helps with like our college applications in that so I think tomorrow I'm gonna sit down with her and I'm gonna find something out obviously do with what I want to do.
Briony Balsom
Oh, that sounds incredibly exciting. We all wish you the very best of luck with your conversation tomorrow and I just like to thank you and Mark and Jo and Steve for for joining me today. You may have heard that Ofsted has launched its Big Listen, please contribute by going to www.gov.uk/Ofsted big listen
AP thematic review: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alternative-provision-in-local-areas-in-england-a-thematic-review/alternative-provision-in-local-areas-in-england-a-thematic-review
In this episode Mark Leech, Deputy Director of Communications, talks to Kirsty Godfrey, Senior HMI, and Zoe Enser, HMI, about Ofsted's recently published English Subject report.
Transcript
Mark Leech 02:02
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leach and today we're going to be talking about English. We've recently published our subject report looking at the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools and I'm joined today by Kirsty Godfrey and Zoe Enser. Hello, nice to have you with us. Hello. Hi, Mark. So we've published this report. It has quite a lot to say about the different components of of English teaching right across across the age groups. Should we start by just talking through some of the main findings of of the report?
Kirsty Godfrey 02:40
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really good news stories is about reading. We found that the teaching of reading has improved. And that is really to do with all of those things that have happened over perhaps the last 10 years. So we've had the phonics screening check. We've got systematic synthetic phonics that's been put into the national curriculum. We've had our focus in Ofsted are looking at reading so in every inspection with primary age pupils, we're doing an early reading Deep Dive. And there's also the English absolve, they work so lots of policy government changes and our autofocus have really turned schools attention to the importance of teaching reading, and we know that that's been a real success story. Obviously, there's more to do. And particularly when children get to that point of finishing phonics and moving on. We know this sometimes can be less well understood really about how that curriculum is developed, their fluency is considered. And sometimes there's a rush towards going straight to reading comprehension and what those tests might look like at the end of key stage. So that's an area for further improvement, as is that teaching for those children who might be behind with their reading when they enter key stage two, sometimes they don't get sufficient practice to really embed that knowledge or the right sort of practice to make sure that that they quickly catch up.
Mark Leech 03:59
And we see that strength in reading taken through into into secondary school Zoe because I'm interested as well, we talked about sort of the mechanics of how do you how do you teach children to read but there's, there's part of how do you then use that to access the rest of the curriculum, but also how do they learn to love reading with pleasure? Is that something that we're seeing carried through into secondary school?
Zoe Enser 04:24
Well, there's two very different strands there and what we're talking about when we think about the text that pupils encounter in their engagement with reading, you're absolutely right. That access to reading and the mechanics of reading is going to make a huge difference to how they can then access the curriculum more widely. But we've got that reading culture that development of that interest in reading that habit of reading, that is being strongly developed in secondary schools. There are lots of opportunities in Tutor Time where teachers have really thought about what is it that we want our pupils to encounter what kinds of texts nonfiction short stories, poems, that's all being pulled? together as part of that? And then the separate strand around that is what texts do we study for literature? And it was really pleasing to see that there had been a lot of thought that had taken place around what were the most appropriate texts for pupils. To then use as a vehicle for that literary analysis, analysis, sorry, literary analysis, that understanding of the kind of critical approach that we take to text because they they serve different purposes. We've got the text that we enjoy and share and talk about, and then we've got the text that we also study as part of that. And that had been a real shift. And they've really thought about the concepts that they wanted people to understand, and which texts were going to be allowed, allowing them to think about things like themes, different genres, and considering aspects like kind of authorial intent, and how that we've been preparing them for GCSE and beyond.
Mark Leech 06:02
Okay, so that's, that's a really positive picture around around reading and reading. The other key component, of course, is, is writing and it's quite interesting. Children today have a sort of different way of engaging with the world and certainly I had many, many years ago. And I wonder whether whether that does impact on basic writing skills? Because you're looking at looking at primary school looking at the teaching of handwriting, for example. Yeah, something I was never any good at.
Kirsty Godfrey 06:30
We didn't see. We didn't tend to see schools giving enough teaching and practice to help pupils get a high level of fluency with spelling and their handwriting. So that transcription element of the curriculum is something that is perhaps underdeveloped. In schools. For example, teachers are rarely using dictation as a way to help people to practice their spelling and handwriting. And sometimes instead, what pupils are asked to do is do an extended piece of writing well before they've actually been given that knowledge and skills through the teaching that they've received. So as an example, you might have children being asked to write about their weekend or write a story or character description. But in actual fact, they aren't able to form the letters yet, or spell words that they want to write. So that can be that tendency to rush straight into things that are much more an advanced level. So so the main message really is about providing enough practice. So that for teaching first but then sufficient practice so that she'll become fluent with the transcription just like they need to become fluent with their reading. Because of course, it avoids that working memory overload then and they can really focus on what it is that they want to communicate through their writing, when they're not having to think about how to form those letters and spell those words.
Zoe Enser 07:47
I was going to agree from a secondary school point of view because though a lot of pupils are coming up to secondary and they've mastered that and they have got that ability to use that transcription. Well, there are still some pupils, particularly post COVID, who arrive at secondary school where they really struggle with that. Just Kirsty said that places that increase their working memory, and it's then really difficult for them to tackle those even more challenging tasks, is making sure they are getting the most purposeful practice at that point to be able to, again, access that word curriculum to be able to make use of that. And the other thing I would say with writing, particularly in secondary is to, you know, the strongest schools are really thinking about giving them those wider opportunities to write as well once they're ready to do so once they've got that knowledge. And that includes knowledge of the topic, to be able to then write exciting things, stories and poems and descriptions that are not constrained necessarily by the GCSE requirements that are broadening that out and giving them that opportunity, but equally, giving them the tools, the knowledge, the skills that they'll be able to do that with.
Mark Leech 09:02
It's really interesting that you you mentioned COVID there and it's a fairly obvious point that I hadn't really thought of it but remote education not being able to essentially you know, if you're practising writing your book to your teacher, and have them work with you on how you improve your handwriting. Have we seen that as a kind of a widespread issue right across across the country? Following
Kirsty Godfrey 09:27
COVID? Yeah, writing was something that schools really reported to us that had become much more of a challenge for them. You know, just in the amount that children could write and their speed just because they hadn't had that practice. They'd often been working on keyboards and computers and, and not having, you know, that writing with a pencil or a pen. So yeah, it's something that but actually, I think it's also about schools. If not, perhaps thought about what that curriculum needs to look like in those small steps to gain that really important foundational knowledge to be able to become fluent, so that their working memory isn't overloaded.
Mark Leech 10:03
I think I think that's really, really interesting. I mean, is there a bigger shift because people are so used to working on on keyboards, obviously, there's something there about developing as you say, the kind of muscle skills required to write with a pen, but also spelling as well. Everything's automated. Everything's checked for you. Is that that must be a challenge for for teachers where children are used to that sort of way of growing up.
Zoe Enser 10:30
I think I've just come in there from the secondary point of view, because again, I think there can be an assumption that with young people, they are using keyboards, but what they tended to be using more likely is telephones and the and the apps on the phone. So when it comes to then switching and saying okay, so you've got a handwriting, difficulty here, you're finding that difficult to do that speed. Many of those same pupils will still be finding it really difficult to pick up that other touch typing approach. And that places a different kind of load on their working memory for them to then be thinking about all of the other component parts of writing, they've got to think about the vocabulary they'll use, they'll say, I've got to think about the content. They've got to think about the syntax or the grammar, and now they're using a keyboard as well. And that makes it even more challenging for some of those pupils. Whereas if they are developing that transcription, and that's developing over time, and they're being given the precise opportunities to be taught that and to practice that, then those pupils again will be much more fluid and able to pull everything together to compose a piece, but it needs to be stepped in stage it needs to take time
Mark Leech 11:38
talking about how children communicate with each other, brings us on I suppose to the other the other part of of English which is spoken language. And in the report we've said that spoken language isn't isn't perhaps quite such a rosy picture as we're seeing and reading
Zoe Enser 11:56
for example, but I just want to make really clear when we're talking about that we're talking about the spoken language element of the national curriculum. And we're really thinking about what does it mean to develop that curriculum where pupils are being given again, the vocabulary, structures, the opportunities to practice that building up over time, and sometimes, it can see that pupils haven't got the confidence to be able to speak of course, some of that comes with practice and those opportunities, but equally that comes from their knowledge. What does it mean to engage in a debate and a discussion? How might you respond to questions that are framed like that? And so thinking about how that, again, is taught and practice over time is really important. And that starts early, isn't it first, and it also really helps
Kirsty Godfrey 12:42
children with later reading and writing and becoming independent with both of those if they've got that spoken language to draw upon, because then they know how to compose a sentence or relate they can obviously do that in writing so it is really about providing enough time for for children to be able to practice those important skills. I'm really valuing some of the things like storytime and the discussions that take place about stories. And that's because all children get involved in those discussions, not just those ones who are willing more readily because they really got a lot of that knowledge and we find it easier to to be able to contribute. So it's really about how to be very practical that making sure everybody gets the practice that they need in that foundational knowledge that will support them with a
Mark Leech 13:14
later beginning right then and when we move into a secretariat with with coding language, so what's what does good look like when we'll be seeing the good schools doing?
Zoe Enser 13:22
Really good schools is thinking about how they might draw on the models and examples that people have seen an experience so if they're learning about things like rhetoric as part of their nonfiction and exploration of speeches, thinking about how they're presented, how are they then translating into what pupils are doing? Have they seen those opportunities? Are teachers modelling them further and where they are? That's where the people are able to tackle those critical, challenging ways of speaking. They've got their bodies there.
Mark Leech 13:44
So thinking about what this was doing, how is that teaching? Is really well, how are they picking up on the struggling pupils who perhaps aren't where they need to be with their reading their writing and their spoken language? What sort of dimensions are being put into it?
Zoe Enser 13:55
I think the first thing is to be diagnostic and quite forensic about what are the barriers that those pupils experience or is it about adapting their phonics it may or may not be at that stage? Is it about their fluency around the aliotta blends? And can they do that? Is it something about vocabulary? Is it about background knowledge, and they're really thinking about those areas and identifying them, and once they have identified them, that's when they really have that retargeted approach. Biggest challenge on site is when you've got a lot of pupils who are coming into your school from various different product partners. Who might have different gaps in their learning and their understanding. And so taking that time to really think about that, as opposed to perhaps using more blanket approaches, which can be useful for those people to continue to build their fluency in different areas, but those that have the most needs. They really need that same kind of Totti provision that we wouldn't have seen
Kirsty Godfrey 14:40
in primary school. I think it's right on the very beginning is about schools that do not really are the ones that make sure that all people keep up with the curriculum, so that they don't need to have that catch up and those sorts of interventions at a later stage as often. So it's really about the day to day assessment and spotting straightaway which children have grasped it and who needs a bit more help and a bit more practice writing lessons for the next day. And also, there's a challenge for schools because different children will take a different amount of practice to secure the exact same knowledge as their peers and therefore trying to provide the right amount of practice for every single child is always a challenge. And so, you know, going into each new year group, we've got to just resist that temptation to try and expect children to do too much but make sure we go back to the point that they are in the curriculum, and make sure that really secure with that in those basics so that they do become fluent, and it doesn't hold them back. Otherwise, what we do find is that gaps tend to widen rather than close. Thank you.
Mark Leech 15:40
Most of the posts that we've we've done looking at different subjects we talk about the importance of continued professional development for teachers. What does that look like in English?
Zoe Enser 15:50
This was one of our key recommendations because there's been some fantastic work that's happened around reading and to understand by early reading that development of the phonics programmes and then taking that through, as I say, in literature, teachers have really thought about the concepts that they want pupils to encounter, but now it's about that time to really think about what do we make that curriculum for spoken language? What do we need to build on from primary into secondary about their writing? How are we going to see where perhaps some of those gaps are or areas that just need strengthening? They might know it, but they need to have that strengthened? So some time for teachers to really sit and think about that, to consider how they would plan for it. And indeed, that support more widely for what actually that does look like and that sharing of best practice.
Mark Leech 16:41
That's interesting. Thank you. Thank you both. Before we finish, is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Zoe Enser 16:47
I just wanted to give a really big thanks to the schools who welcomed us in and it was a real privilege to spend that time talking to them about their practices, and find out about their contexts.
Mark Leech 16:58
Thank you, Kirsty. And Zoey, that was really interesting. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this podcast. If you have any views about how Ofsted goes about its work you can take part in the big lesson we want to hear from parents and from professionals about every aspect of our work. You can find more about it@gov.uk forward slash Ofsted big Listen, please like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts and we'll be back again soon with another Ofsted Talks.
Ofsted will inspect supported accommodation from September 2024. To support this work, we carried out a consultation where we not only received responses from the sector, we spoke to young people about what they wanted and needed from their supported accommodation.
Read more here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-confirms-plans-for-inspecting-supported-accommodation
Briony Balsom 0:09
Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. Today I'm going to be speaking to our guests about the importance of listening to young people, especially care leavers. So just to introduce our guests briefly, we've got today with us Anna Willow, who is children's services manager at Brent Care Journeys, Tia, who has experienced care, and we've got Lisa Pascoe, who's Ofsted's Deputy Director for regulation and social care policy and Matthew Brazier, who's one of His Majesty's Inspectors, and our specialist advisor on looked-after children. Matthew, tell me about this work, which is new for Ofsted. How did it fit into our work in supported accommodation?
Matthew Brazier 0:44
Yeah, of course, Briony. Yeah, we were asked maybe three years ago now by the Secretary of State to regulate supported accommodation, which obviously was going to be a really big task. There's around 7000, a little bit more, young people living in supported accommodation, or different types of accommodation. So it's things like single bedsits, but group living situations also supported lodgings. So we've been working on that for three years now, and will start inspecting this year as well. We thought it was it was a really fantastic opportunity to make sure that we spoke to young people, to make sure that we we heard from people with lived experience, to make sure that when we do inspect, and when we do register providers, that we were focusing on the things that matter most to young people. We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years working with them, helping us plan the consultation, but also listening what they think was important for young people. All of the organisations that we've worked with have been really helpful in making sure that we've had the voice of lived experience, really heard, and it's been really strong throughout the project. And we've worked with Barnardos Brent Care Journeys on the project along with a number of organisations.
Briony Balsom 2:06
So Anna and Tia. Just to start with you. I'm sure we all know instinctively why we think it's important to listen to young people, but could you just kick us off by telling us exactly why it's important?
Anna Willow 2:17
I think what we know in systems is that people with a lot of authority and power traditionally get together in kind of formal surroundings and make decisions that affect children and young people and families lives all the time. But if we're doing that, with insight from people with lived experience, then we're missing so much, we're really missing the richness of what we need to work with. My colleague, Tia is an Assistant Project worker in our team, and working with the insight of her and her colleagues with us, is completely crucial part of what we do so Tia, do you want to answer that question as well about why you think it's important.
Tia 2:58
Listening is the easiest thing to do. But actually hearing someone doesn't come as easily to everyone. Because as natural human beings like we tune into different conversations that probably doesn't relate to us, like we're on the bus, we hear everything, we can choose what we want to hear and what we want to respond to. So I feel like in the past, professionals have just listened to this to give a reply back to but not listening to understand and comprehend. So that we bridge the gap between the professionals and the young people, they both can be in the same room together and coexist. Whereas beforehand, that wasn't a space that ever existed. It was two separate entities like the people who made the decisions for young people, and then the young people who had to just live with his decision. For a long time, young people in care was accepting bare minimum, but it was just the bare minimum.
Briony Balsom 3:50
Thank you both so much. And I really love your reframing that question around the power dynamic and to your distinction that you drew between hearing and listening, Lisa and Matthew, I'm sure a lot of that sounds very familiar. are we hearing anything in addition to that around at Ofsted, or through mechanisms such as our care leavers survey?
Lisa Pascoe 4:10
I think we've always tried to do some listening to children and care experienced. I think what we've learned and what we've done differently, and people like to have helped us to do is to do more of that co-producing with children and young people in our supported accommodation project. It's the first time that we've really worked with young people from the beginning. So rather than coming up with a set of questions we want answers to, we've asked young people to help us -what questions should we be asking you to understand and do things better? And I just think that's been, you know, a great step forward from us. We're probably in a different place than we would have been if we hadn't done it this way. And we haven't had people like Tia help us along that journey.
Matthew Brazier 5:00
The've given their views about how we should inspect what we should focus on, and we haven't always agreed, sometimes they've said things that we've had to explain that we're not quite able to do that. But, you know, some good robust discussions. You know, I think they've appreciated our honesty, and we certainly appreciated theirs, and it's really made a difference. So what we've ended up with, hopefully, is inspection arrangements that really focus on what makes matters most for young people.
Briony Balsom 5:28
Yeah, it sounds like such a natural and obvious way to sort of build the model to start with these voices, but also feels quite revolutionary in the way that Ofsted has done it.
Matthew Brazier 5:37
It's revolution in the way they've helped us to do it. Actually, I should say, because I think we've learned from the young people. And, and as I say, we're really grateful for that. And they nudged us as we've gone along when that when they think we're not, we're not quite doing it, right.
Anna Willow 5:51
A lot of this work before you kind of start doing it, planning it, or operationalizing, it is about mindset, it's about that kind of humbleness. It's about working in the open. It's about a willingness to say, to an external environment, I don't think we got this right before, but we're learning and we're listening. And we're willing to kind of keep iterating and changing what we do, based on what we didn't get right or based on what we saw be nurtured through what we tried. So that is, you know, our partnership with people model is just kind of our five pillars which have been very emergent through working with a test and learn approach. And that mindset of just putting that tentatively one foot in front of the other, importantly, redressing power, like willing to kind of fail fast, and stopping when things aren't working. So you are taking risks, but you're taking manageable risks, acceptable risks, but if we don't take those risks, then we feel like nothing will change. I've talked already about power, and we've only been talking for a few minutes. But I'll always talk about power, where it's kind of hoarded or hidden or visible or invisible. We work really hard to disrupt and redistribute that. We also think about environments and where we do things, and who's most comfortable in the room. For example, environments are crucial. When we want to listen, or we say we're working with the voice and influence of young people, we take them into our professional spaces where we feel in charge. Learning has got kind of two main streams for us. The first is that we learned together. So we learn in an integrated way. We don't send different people off on different learning journeys, we go on the same one, because we think that when we're all learners, we're at our most ready and levelled and humbled to accept the things we don't know and the things we can learn from one another. And the other is inverted learning. And that was our kind of very first interaction with Ofsted, in this space of regulation change for supported accommodation, was to say, and I'd really like Tia to say a bit more about it, if she's happy to. We've developed some learning because in this instance, we think we have the expertise, we have lived experience of living in unregulated accommodation at a stage of life where if you're lucky, you have a lot more support and guidance and kind of comfort around you. And so we would like to educate you, we would like to be at the front of that classroom. And we would like you guys to be our delegates. And that was the very beginning of our journey. From that which followed on was educating 40 placement inspectors for Ofsted.
Tia 8:32
I feel as though although they are they're professionals when they get things wrong, they don't want to admit it. Once they do, it makes it easier for everyone else, it makes it easier for the young person, they live a better life a more fulfilling life with less to worry about. And the professionals feel rewarded. Once their people feel like they've got something out of it. Then the professionals have they're like, Well, I'm doing my job great because my young person is very happy. I mean, relationships are always changing. I feel like as you get older, you rely on people less than you would. And I feel like that's also something that's really hard to like swallow and accept because people like you're professionals, and I think actually each team can see me every single week. I feel like we need to do all these plans every single week. But actually people are ever growing, like people starting to find employment like education, it's giving them that space to like, grow as well. Because nothing's worse than like a professional like on your case all the time. When you can't do it by yourself. You just want to show that space of independency and a lot of young people also are scared to say something- but they really shouldn't be because actually these decisions are about them. And then don't take on my own experience. But I wish I had spoken earlier. Again that power back in your hands is very vital in anyone's life. To be honest.
Briony Balsom 9:53
I just wonder whether Lisa, Matthew, you could say a little bit about what Ofsted has learned from working with Anna's team?
Matthew Brazier 10:00
While we learned a lot, what I was struck most by was just how it gelled as a group and you're talking about relationship being really important but the relationships we have with each other was clearly important, they got a lot of support from each other, they trusted each other. And we got the sense that they expected their views to make a difference. They weren't there thinking, they were hopeful, or they might be grateful for us to do a couple of small things, I think they were there with the confidence that we were gonna go away and do something different as a result of what they told us. I mean, they also told us a lot about what they thought supported accommodation should look like as well. So it's really practical things, you know, about the quality of accommodation, but also about things like, you know, support for emotional well being and, and having someone to turn to in times of crisis or in times of worry. So here's some real practical things that, you know, some really important things they were telling us that we could take away.
Lisa Pascoe 10:57
This isn't something you can just do as an add-on. It's something that's got to be integral to your thinking right from day one. Because actually, it takes time. And it takes it takes careful thought, and it might slow you down. And it might take you in a route that wasn't the one you were really planning. And you have to be sort of prepared for all of those things and prepared to go with that and think about how you're going to manage that. And for an organisation that can be quite delivery focused, because that's our job, you know, we have a job that we have to do. It's how you balance those two things and get get that right is something that you know, I really want us to reflect on.
Briony Balsom 11:36
So it sounds like the spirit of this partnership is definitely something that needs to live on across Ofsted in terms of consultation and partnership working but specifically with this partnership, what's next?
Lisa Pascoe 11:47
We don't want it to be the end. We haven't started inspecting yet. Well, we have more things to learn, we'll want to reflect on are we doing the things that we set out to do. And we'll need people to reflect on that with us. We can't just reflect on that ourselves. So I'd like to see us work in partnership with the many groups that helped us to get to this point.
Anna Willow 12:10
I think too often may be in kind of participatory spaces. We see people say well, a young person said that was okay. There's that there's some kind of tokenism or lip service paid to this kind of work. But I think and I hope and I think that also, what Matthew was witnessing was the result of tough love, which is actually like a really open, honest and often challenging space, where we don't just necessarily agree with the young person because they're young person, but we hold one another to account. And we're willing to be challenged, and to offer fair challenge if we think it's in the best interests of that young person. And the reason that Matthew, I think people there were talking confidently about, 'This is going to change because I said it', is because they followed a process. They've done their research. And they've developed a robust evidence base for what they're saying. And they know that that weight is going to see a change.
Tia 13:06
I feel like legacy is such a scary word to me because it's like planting seeds in a garden you never get to see to be honest, you just have to trust that was left behind will be nurtured or the plants you will be planted will be nurtured and will be taken care of so that the next cohort of caregivers can reap those fruits that we sowed in that garden and just hope that was left behind what we left behind will still be cultivated and grown. And year after year, all those seeds will be replanted. And new caregivers upcoming, like babies who are just coming into care now, will be 18 in 18 years and still using our work that we have produced. You know our garden has ever so... it's naturally renewable because those same seeds will grow back again and come back again. So it's like you only need to plant it once for it to sustain itself forever. So that's what we've done. Five years in the making. And I'm so excited to discuss when I come back when I'm 25 and I'm not a care-leaver anymore.
Briony Balsom 14:03
Tia, I can't think of a more perfect way to finish today's podcast. Thank you so much for those words and thanks to all of our guests for all of your really insightful comments. We spoken a huge amount today about listening and getting diverse voices and hearing as Tia said, diverse voices. Thank you so much everybody. You may be aware that Ofsted are currently launching our Big Listen, so please do contribute. Please know the values of your own voices and opinions and contribute wherever you can. It's really vital. Just go to www.gov.uk/Ofstedbiglisten
In this episode, Briony Balsom (Head of Internal Insights) talks to our new HMCI, Sir Martyn Oliver.
Transcript
Briony: Hello, I’m Briony Balsom and welcome to Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. Ofsted Talks is the official Ofsted podcast, and we cover everything from early years to schools, social care to further education and skills, alternative provision, special educational needs and more. Today you join us for a slightly shorter but also slightly special edition where we take the opportunity to get to introduce Ofsted’s new chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. Welcome, Martyn.
Martyn: Hello, Briony – thank you.
Briony: Martyn, you've had a full career in education as a teacher, then a Head and most recently as Chief Exec of multi academy trust. But, can you tell us a little bit about what it was that drew you to teaching in the first place?
Martyn: Yeah, feels like an awful long time ago now. It must be 29, soon 30 years, ago and it wasn't one thing that started me in teaching. If I look back to my own school career, there were some teachers that absolutely stood out to me. But then it was a passion for my subject, art - fine art - which I absolutely love and I spent my entire childhood engaged in seeing some of the great galleries in the country. But it wasn't just that, it wasn't the inspirational teacher, it wasn't just the subject, it was the fact that I think I've always just enjoyed teaching. I've enjoyed working with people. I love the idea of getting up in the morning and wanting to help other people. And so being a teacher, the act of teaching, was something that I was just really drawn to, and then with my subject expertise, and then my inspirational teachers that I had as a child, it pointed me naturally to this, all those years ago.
Briony: Wonderful. And I was about to ask what was that you enjoyed most about teaching and leading schools. It sounds very much like it was the people overlaid with the subject?
Martyn: Children and working with children and seeing the joy of teaching something new and watching children really get it. And then, you know, even whether it was children who enjoyed the subject and wanted to pursue it themselves, or those that just found it an interesting moment, or part of their week, that all gave me joy. But also, what is incredible about teaching and working with people who care about children is you just come across likeminded professionals. Just such good people that work in the sector.
Briony: You talk incredibly glowingly of teaching. What was it about the role of HMCI that really intrigued you enough to apply?
Martyn: It's interesting because all of my - well, certainly the last 14/15 years - of my career, I've tended to go in after Ofsted into schools that were in difficult circumstances and pick them up. So, I've always had a tremendous amount of interest in Ofsted’s work and its role and the importance of what we do in finding and supporting schools and providers and helping the system to understand where things can be better. So, I've always been a long admirer of the importance of the work. And then I was encouraged by a tremendous amount of people. It's very humbling to see so many people ask me to consider to apply. And so, taking the importance of it, the fact that I was encouraged by so many of my peers to go for the role, it’s something that I thought I should do. And I've come to try and make sure that for young people and parents and how then for the staff in all of our settings - not just teachers or staff in schools, all of our providers, childminders, people who work in children's services, everyone everywhere, further education and skills, making sure that we can provide them the most modern, fit for purpose inspectorate that supports all of them to do their really important work for those children and young people.
Briony: Absolutely. And you've touched on this a little bit, but now that you're in role and you're bringing the weight of your vast experience to bear, can you tell us a little bit about your priorities?
Martyn: Yeah. And today when we're recording this, it's an interesting day because the Education Select Committee’s just published a report, and we welcome those findings. And if people were to listen to what I said when I appeared myself in front of the Select Committee, and some of the things I've talked about in the media, it's about making sure that we are a professional, courteous, empathetic and respectful inspectorate that understands the difficulties of the moment and how hard it is in the system right now. And this holding the system to account in a way which is gentle and for children, and for young people, making sure that their voices are heard and the voices of parents are heard. So, we're going to do an awful lot of work on that. But really importantly, Briony - I don't think I've spoken about this before - that the system should be subject to the new chief inspectors thoughts alone. And so, the most important thing is that we're going to begin a ‘Big Listen’. A lot of people have said an awful lot, especially in the last few weeks and months, about Ofsted. But we want to hear and make sure that we get to as many groups, especially not just the sectors but the parents and the children themselves. And that together, we co-construct this modern, fit for purpose inspectorate, not just for the medium term, but for the long term that will deliver for everyone.
Briony: And I think our listeners will be incredibly interested in our ‘Big Listen’, which we’ll be launching in March. Just to say that we’ll be publishing another podcast then with more details so if you don’t want to miss it, please follow and subscribe.
Martyn, thank you so much for taking time out with us today.
Martyn: Thanks, Briony. And thanks everyone for listening.
On this episode, we're talking to two further education and skills leads from Ofsted about the FES curriculum and what it means for students and teachers. And have you seen this report we've published into FES curriculums for business, both classroom-based and work-based?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-and-skills-report-business-education
Anna Trethewey: So, today we’re talking about what high-quality education looks like in the further education and skills sector, with two FES Senior His Majesty's Inspectors – Dr Richard Beynon and Dr Becca Clare, from the FES policy team.
Richard, could you say, succinctly, what high-quality education is in FES?
RICHARD BEYNON: Yes, I’ll try. As with all education, the curriculum is the key. High-quality education means good curriculum design, coupled with effective teaching. And good curriculum design means selecting the content that is the most important and useful in a given subject, and then teaching the content in an order that helps learners to understand it. In maths, for instance, that means, probably, teaching learners to calculate area before volume. That doesn’t change, whether it’s further education or education for children.
The evidence shows that it’s really important to think about the key building blocks of a curriculum – what foundations need to be laid first so that learners can make connections and build secure knowledge? What we learn isn’t retained in isolation.
Instead, what we learn is connected in our memory to all kinds of other things we have learned before, and forms connections to things we learn later.
Sometimes we refer to knowledge as ‘sticky’ – that’s because some kinds of knowledge enable other components to ‘stick’ to them and this helps to expand our expertise in a given area. Think about the really fundamental knowledge in any subject – it’s probably like this. In English, for instance, if we know what a noun is, we can build on that to learn about sentence construction, proper nouns, collective nouns, abstract nouns. In maths, if we understand about division, we can go on to learn about fractions, peRebecca Clareentages, proportion, ratio and so on. In carpentry and joinery, if we learn about the properties of wood – how and why some wood is soft or hard, how different kinds of wood absoRichard Beynon moisture, structural defects such as knots – we can work out which kinds of wood are suitable in which situations.
REBECCA CLARE: So, the curriculum content that is selected and put in place early in the curriculum really makes a difference to what learners can learn next. We often explain this by using the image of a Jenga tower – what are the knowledge and skills that really need to be at the base of the tower? What do they support? What happens if that component is missing – what can the learners not learn, if they don’t understand division, or sentence structure, or the properties of wood, or basic sociological concepts like class and gender, or – in beauty therapy or health or sports - anatomy and physiology. The key thing is to select the really key content that learners need if they are to develop expertise in that subject. What are the foundation stones? What content needs to be in place to enable further content to be learned?
And in terms of teaching methods, it involves using methods that help learners really to embed the knowledge and skills they’re learning. I can remember – just – when I was at school, and quite often, as soon as I’d sat an exam, I’d forget the stuff I’d learned – because I’d only learned it for the exam. A really good education isn’t about just teaching to the test, though of course exam results matter. But it’s about teaching learners so that they can remember what they learn long term. Then, if they learn it well, they can use what they learn in their lives and jobs, they can add to it, evaluate it, critique it, apply it in all kinds of situations. It’s the opposite of the jug and mug approach, really. Sure, learners need to remember what they are taught – but it’s not about filling up memory just for exams – it’s about real learning, to enhance real jobs and lives.
RICHARD BEYNON: and that is likely also to involve a curriculum that helps learners learn about how knowledge is produced and evaluated – so, not just learning about atoms, but learning about scientific method. Not just learning about theories of leadership, but learning about how such theories are produced, tested, revised. What counts as knowledge in a given subject or job? Why? What are the rules of the game? Knowing the rules helps learners develop real expertise at work and in further study. It also helps them, incidentally, to know how to tell the difference between a warranted conclusion and an unwarranted one, high-quality information and fake news, a valid conclusion and a conspiracy theory.
Anna Trethewey: Thanks. So, what else can we say about curriculum design? What should be included?
REBECCA CLARE: One thing to think about is: is the curriculum broad and ambitious? A high-quality curriculum is knowledge- and skills-rich. It focuses on the content learners need if they are to increase their expertise in a given subject. What do learners need to know if they are to go on to become expert joiners, bricklayers, mathematicians, hairdressers, chefs and engineers? What content needs to be in place now, at the level the learners are studying, to provide a foundation for later development of increasing expertise? Of course, some learners may choose not to go further, but that should be their choice, not the teacher’s. A good curriculum opens more doors; it’s up to the learner to choose which doors to go through and which to close. If the curriculum itself closes doors because it misses out key knowledge and skills, learners’ options are limited. This is the opposite of an ambitious curriculum.
RICHARD BEYNON: and in terms of teaching, learners need several things. First, it’s usually best if the teaching methods really focus clearly on the curriculum to be learned, if there is plenty of time allocated to the subject, if teachers use methods that evidence shows encourage recall and support understanding (methods like very clear explanations for and spaced repetition of the most crucial content, expert demonstrations of skills in the classroom and at work, use of case studies, explaining how new fits with old, reducing distractions), that usually has a positive impact. Teaching is an evidence-based profession – there is a good deal of reseaRebecca Clareh about what works. Of course, there’s room for innovation too, but really good teachers are familiar with the evidence and have expertise in what is sometimes called pedagogical content knowledge … that means, they know how to make a subject accessible to learners. We’ve all met experts who really know their subject but can’t teach it for toffee… well, an expert teacher not only knows their subject, but they know how to teach it in ways that help learners to understand it too.
REBECCA CLARE: Yes, and that means having really high expectations of what learners can do. You know, Amanda Spielman talks about the fact that social justice is at the heart of high-quality education, built around a rich curriculum. Amanda’s view is that the best way to tackle inequality and the lack of social mobility is through high-quality education – given we are all educators, that’s presumably a view we share. Knowledge is power. The more knowledge and skills we have, the more options we are likely to have and the more control we have over our own careers and lives. Of course, other things contribute – but, in our role, we are concerned with the transformative power of education. A really high-quality education – which means a really high-quality curriculum, taught well – should be available to all. Our job is to help ensure it is.
Anna Trethewey: knowledge is power, and life transforming. What about skills? Is there a divide between knowledge and skills?
REBECCA CLARE: we can think of skills, actually, as a kind of knowledge – it’s sometimes called know-how, or procedural knowledge. Think about the skill of planing a piece of wood, or playing the guitar, or changing a tyre. And lots of skills – think about giving a facial massage, for example – are actually really very complex composites, made up of a whole collection of individual parts that learners have to master before they can do the skill. So, beauty students have to learn about facial anatomy and physiology, contraindications, beauty products, client care, massage strokes, and more, before they can give an expert facial massage. This is crucial – in FES, learners and apprentices are learning really very complex material – learning the theoretical knowledge (like anatomy and physiology) AND, often, a skill such as different massage strokes … and then, they need judgement to know which knowledge and skills to apply in which situation. That really is the development of expertise – knowing how to work out the products and techniques to use for different clients, knowing which wood to use for garden furniture and which for bookcases, knowing how to make decisions that result in profitable, thriving businesses, how to diagnose and remedy faults in cars and software. So, there are different layers of curriculum content, and it's not possible or sensible to say that the theory is more important than the skill. They go together. I think it’s also interesting to think about what some people call ‘muscle memory’, or embodied cognition … think about learning to play an instrument, or dance, or knead bread.
RICHARD BEYNON: and, of course, there is the need to think about, in apprenticeships particularly, the knowledge that is learned on the job too – the workplace knowledge, sometimes tacit, that needs to be passed on, the sequence of things that are learned in the classroom and on the job. We’ve seen really good examples of education providers working with employers to plan a curriculum that helps learners and apprentices make great progress and do really well at work – for example, by ensuring that the apprentice chef has learned about food hygiene before they start working in the kitchen.
Anna Trethewey: Of course, parts of FES have such strong links to work and the economy, and to making sure learners and apprentices have the right skills for the economy.
REBECCA CLARE: Yes, and the right knowledge and skills for their own careers and lives. Education is about an enriched, empowered life, holding conversations and holding jobs.
Anna Trethewey: So, a high-quality curriculum often has a line of sight to work.
REBECCA CLARE: yes, to broad careers especially. A really good curriculum prepares a learner to be a master carpenter/joiner who can turn their hand to a wide variety of different jobs and employers and self-employment. It doesn’t just prepare them to perform a narrow range of tasks for one housebuilder, for instance.
Anna Trethewey: Got it. And I guess that’s one of the reasons why it’s important to include really fundamental principles and theoretical knowledge, rather than what used to be called a competency-based approach?
RICHARD BEYNON: Yes. If learners just learn competences, or just learn by imitation, without understanding the reasons and theory underneath what they’re doing, they have a narrow understanding. They can perform a technique, but they might not understand why they are doing certain things and what the effects will be. They almost certainly won’t be able to judge for themselves what is the right thing to do – they won’t have the expertise.
Anna Trethewey: so, is there one approach to curriculum design in each subject that is best?
REBECCA CLARE: There are usually multiple effective ways of planning the curriculum. Some subjects, like learning to read, probably require a more consistent approach – it makes sense to start novice readers of any age with phonics, rather than handing them pieces of text. But, think about a subject like music, where there might be a number of different starting points – learning stave notation, or listening to plainsong, or finding out about the history and context of the development of jazz and blues, for instance. Similarly in sociology – would you start with teaching Marxist theory? Or stratification? Or the key social institutions? Or crime and deviance?
The important thing is that curriculum choices make sense and help learners to make good progress. For example, if I am teaching English and I want students to analyse a political speech before I’ve taught anything about rhetoric, the students may well make less progress – that is, they would understand less about the speech – than if they’d studied some rhetoric first. I might also need to pre-teach some of the political concepts in the speech.
RICHARD BEYNON: When we’re inspecting, we have conversations with teachers and curriculum leaders about the components they choose, and the order in which they teach them. We want to understand teachers’ decisions. We also find out about the impact on learners – can they in fact analyse the political speech well? Can they read music, or explain the origins of jazz and blues? It’s no use asking a learner to debate something if they have no knowledge of the topic; it’s no use expecting learners to cook a souffle if they don’t know how to crack an egg. So, logical sequencing to enable the learner to progress through the curriculum is crucial.
REBECCA CLARE: and if learners and apprentices aren’t making much progress, then we need to think about why that is. Is it because the curriculum design has gone wrong? Or is it because it hasn’t been taught in ways that help learners learn?
Anna Trethewey: is that different for adult learners? Do they need different ways of teaching?
REBECCA CLARE: The novice / expert distinction is key, not the age difference. An adult just starting out on a new curriculum is a novice, and novices need clear exposition, plenty of practice, tasks that enable them to learn the curriculum, and corrections of misconceptions. However, there is evidence that novices and experts learn in slightly different ways. Once a learner has developed expertise in a subject, they may well benefit from more group work and debate and discussion, as there is less risk of sharing misconceptions and more chance of sharing knowledge. Bear in mind that an expert is an expert in a particular curriculum. A learner might have a PhD in maths but be a novice on an art curriculum. And the effect applies regardless of age – group work and debates and independent learning are more likely to work with learners of any age who have mastered some of the curriculum and who have knowledge to share and build on.
Anna Trethewey: What does success look like for learners in FES?
RICHARD BEYNON: It means, first and foremost, that they have learned and can use more of the curriculum. Chefs understand the fundamental principles of cooking and can apply them to a wide range of dishes in lots of different ciRebecca Clareumstances. Sociologists understand sociological theory and reseaRebecca Clareh methods and can apply both to a wide range of topics. If learners learn more, remember more, understand more and can use more of the curriculum over time, that’s likely to be reflected in achievement rates, promotions, good grades, good jobs and so on.
Anna Trethewey: Is there not always a positive correlation between making progress through the curriculum and passing exams?
RICHARD BEYNON: Almost always, but not always. For example, very occasionally we see high grades that are a result of learners being on a course that is too easy for them. But usually, the best way to exam success is to learn and understand more of a high-quality curriculum – it’s usually win-win – learners develop expertise, and this is reflected in exam results and other things, like more responsibilities and promotion at work.
REBECCA CLARE: Success is relative to the curriculum too. For instance, in adult and community learning and on programmes for learners who have high needs, learners may not be on courses that have exams. Success might mean increased independence or reduced isolation or greater involvement with the community. You can see, though, the common theme – it’s empowering learners and apprentices, whatever the context.
Anna Trethewey: Thank you Richard and Rebecca – empowerment is probably a good point to finish on!
In this episode, Mark Leech (Director, Strategy and Engagement) talks to Paul Joyce (Deputy Director, Further Education and Skills), Helen Flint (Specialist Policy Adviser, Quality and Training) and Commander Kate Scott of the Royal Navy about Ofsted's recent Welfare and duty of care in the Armed Forces initial training report.
Transcript
Mark Leech
Hello, welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. And today we're talking about an interesting area of work. And one I thing a lot of people are quite surprised at we are talking about inspecting training facilities in the armed forces. This is what we do on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. And every year we publish a report summarising this work, which is called the effectiveness of care and welfare arrangements for recruits. trainees and Officer cadets. We've just published this year's report, and I'm delighted to be talking about it with some great guests. So I'll start with my Ofsted colleagues, and we're joined by Paul Joyce, who is the director, looking after all of our further education work. We're joined by Helen Flint, as well as specialist advisor in the further education team and our Armed Forces lead. And Helen, I think you also have a bit of a background in the Armed Forces yourself before you joined us here at Ofsted.
Helen Flint
Yeah, that's correct, Mark. I did spend nearly 20 years as a training education specialist in the Royal Navy. I have to point out that was actually over 10 years ago and I've done many things since joining since leaving the Royal Navy including being an HMI since 2014.
Mark Leech
I'm also really pleased to say that we're joined today by Commander Kate Scott of The Royal Navy and Kate is also the Ministry of Defence link for us here at Ofsted. Kate did you want to talk a little bit about your background and how you ended up in this role?
Commander Scott
Yes, yeah. As you say, I'm Kate Scott and I have been in the Navy just over 20 years and I am what is known within the Navy as a Training Management Specialist. I have done several roles across many of the training domains. Looking particularly at the introduction of new equipment and the training associated with this and this is my first foray into Ofsted and carry on welfare and duty of care from an MOJ perspective.
Mark Leech
Thank you. So Paul and Helen. As I said this is work that a lot of people will be a bit surprised to know that Ofsted does it sits within our further education team. How did it come about? How did we get to a position where we were asked by the Ministry of Defence to inspect training in the forces.
Paul Joyce
Thanks Mark. You're right. It's a relatively small piece of the further education skills remit. But an incredibly important part, Helen, I think you know the background to this really, really well. Would you like to just explain why we're doing this.
Helen Flint
Thank you, Paul. So this work all stems back from some deaths in the army in the late 1990s and the early 2000s at a place called Deep Cut barracks in Surrey. And there were a number of young people in that particular establishment who, over that time period took their own lives. And that was followed by a number of inquiries and reports. The outcome of one of those was that the then adult learning Inspectorate was asked by the Ministry of Defence to be an impartial and independent Inspectorate. Looking at what went on in basic training amongst all of the armed forces and effectively be exposed to civilian look at what's going on inside those establishments primarily through a care and welfare lens. So this work stems right back to that time, the adult learning Inspectorate was then if you'd like subsumed into Ofsted, and Ofsted has now completed 15 different cycles of inspection into basic training, which is if you'd like the Phase One element, which is where you civilians, join the armed forces and go through basic training in the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force. And then on to their trade training, which teaches them to be all the different job roles that you can possibly get in the armed forces. So teach them for example, to be engineers or chefs, or infantry folk. All of that is what happens in their initial trade training or their phase two. Our remit as Ofsted, as commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, is to go and look at how well those different training establishments are looking after the care and welfare of those young people. And that includes looking at it through the lens of training because at the end of the day, that's what they are doing in those establishments. They are there to train, but they also live there. They've got a full experience that goes on, and it's our responsibility to go and see how well the Ministry of Defence is looking after them through those training. Those training phases.
Mark Leech
Thank you so much. Okay, so I suppose what's the view from the other side of the fence as as the MOD representative, clearly going all the way back to the deep kind of really serious and sensitive area. A big focus now for the armed forces.
Commander Scott
Yeah, absolutely. We absolutely as the emoji are delighted that Ofsted come and see our, our initial training. We've got an enormously good relationship with Ofsted. And welcoming new into our establishments to have a independent third party, assess how well how well we deliver the duty, duty of care aspects of our obligations to those people that join the armed forces. is absolutely key. And the inspectors that comes to the establishments have a wealth of knowledge. They are able to look at a number of establishments in each inspection cycle, and their ability to then triangulate that triangulate their data and allow us to see the trends and the consistency of which we are delivering the duty of care where we can develop our policies and procedures and where best practices is being delivered allows us really to, to get after those areas where we can do better for our people, and where we can bring a mindset of continuous improvement through the inspections that you deliver. So absolutely. We welcome them. They're very good for us and yeah, may they continue.
Mark Leech
Thank you. And Paul, so you said this is quite a quite a small team. How many people do we have and how many places do we inspect? I mean, obviously on the list, you've got some pretty famous names, Sandhurst. Where else are we going?
Paul Joyce
Well Mark as you quite rightly say, and as Kate has just said, it's influential work. Because what our inspections find and the recommendations we make, do make a real difference to the establishments that we inspect. It's a slightly different framework. So whilst as Helen has already said, it is training that we are looking at, but it's specifically the welfare and duty of care aspect, in addition to that training, that's important, and we do around 20 inspections, a year 20 inspections. Each cycle, and we are alone with Kate and MOD colleagues. Helen decides where to visit, what units to visit. And that's done on a sort of a risk and priority basis. And we then go and inspect and as we do in our other remits, we report as we find, but the difference in in this remit particularly the reports already very, very high level by senior and MOD staff. There's an annual report produced signed off by our chief inspector and by the Minister responsible for defence, and importantly, as a result of individual establishment inspections and the annual report, improvements are made and improvements are made not only to training, but also to infrastructure to resources. And to accommodation.
Mark Leech
Just out of interest. Do you inspect reservists as well as regular units?
Helen Flint
Actually this year because we have not been to inspect any reservists other than the university service units. Which aren't strictly reservists because we are doing a piece of work alongside the Ministry of Defence to review the training in each of the armed forces, reservist organisations and look at the best way that we could possibly inspect those. So this year coming we are going to do a piece of work alongside Kate and her team and alongside the single services to look at how training is in the reserve world for certain parts of the organisation. So the nice thing about the work that we do is it doesn't it changes often we do different things we don't we're not fixated on what we look at, the MOD will ask us to look at something different perhaps this year, next year, the year after. And we are agile enough to look at what we do and say that we can try and do things differently. That's a really nice piece. of work that Paul, you talked about that relationship between the Ministry of Defence colleagues and ourselves and we are responsive to something that they might like us to go and look at outside of what we've looked at in the previous year.
Mark Leech
So just looking at the kind of span of places that we go and inspect. We've talked about some of the sort of famous officer training establishments or centres where else do we go?
Helen Flint
Yeah, absolutely. Mark. We went to all three of the very prestigious officer training Establishments this year, so we went up to RAF Cranwell, and also we went to the naval College in Dartmouth, as well as Sandhurst, as you mentioned, but we also have been to the Phase One training establishments at RAF Halton, we've been to some of the army training establishments such as Winchester. And then we've talked about the sort of phase two which is the initial trade training, which is where the recruits will go next to learn about their trades. So we went to places like Portsmouth, Fareham near Portsmouth and we also went up to Cosford, and I mentioned about the fact that these were places that sorry, there were places that we've seen make definite improvements. And those last two are really good examples of establishments that we have inspected that we did not think we're good for reasons various people can read the previous annual report if they want to know why they weren't good the previous time, but when we went back this year, both of those establishments are good examples of places that have gone from requires improvement to good so they're really good news stories.
Mark Leech
Thank you for the process of inspecting the establishments. I'm interested in how that how that differs perhaps from some of the other inspections that we do. So most people obviously think about school inspections where our inspectors will go in and they'll sit at the back of a class and watch some children being taught. They'll talk to leaders in the school, they'll run through curriculums and really look into the level of detail I mean, how hands on do we get in inspections in Ministry of Defence?
Helen Flint
To be honest, Mark the type of activities we do on any sort of inspection are fairly similar. So the activities that inspectors in the MOD team will do will be fairly similar to the sorts of things they would do for example, they were going to visit a college but there's just a slight sort of nuance in the emphasis so they will still go and look at training that's happening it's sometimes in a classroom but often it's out in in the field or a workshop or on an assault course or out on the playground. And we do that because we are interested in the quality of the training and we've got as Kate mentioned, we've got a huge wealth of experience in our in our inspection workforce, who many of whom have been inspecting either post 16 education or been involved in post 16 education and training for many years. So that we find is something to have useful conversations with the mid about but we're also spend a lot of time talking to new recruits and trainees at these establishments and finding out what life there is like from their perspective. And one of the things that we do that possibly colleagues and other inmates wouldn't do is we go and have a look where these where these young people are living because we're really interested in the sorts of accommodation facilities that they are experiencing in their time while they're under training. And we'll go and see where they eat, and we'll go and see where they are able to relax out of their working time because these are all things that we have. Over the years our experience has shown them really important for the well being and care of those young people who, for whom this training is is actually quite robust and quite physical. They're doing stuff they may never have done before. They're living away from home for the very first time. Some of them are particularly some of those who are a bit younger. So we do want to explore all of those things with them and find out how well they are being supported and cared for by the establishment staff both uniformed and non uniform. Because let's not forget there are a lot of civilians working in these organisations as well as military and all of those things will help us sort of get a rounded picture of what life is like for those people going through that training under those circumstances, and yes, we will also spend a lot of time talking to staff and a lot of time talking to the senior leaders or the command team of the are responsible for the training for the care for the welfare of those new recruits and trainees. So those activities are similar, but as I say slightly nuanced, slightly different because we do have an emphasis on how good the infrastructure and the resources are, because of our experience over the last nearly 20 years is what an impact they can have on the well being of people that are going through that training off the top off state.
Mark Leech
Yes, and then the infrastructure is something that I know we've drawn out in the latest report and in previous reports. Should we talk a bit about what we've found over the course of the last year and what people can read about if they do pick up a copy of our report?
Helen Flint
Yeah, sure. Well, first thing to say about our report and about our findings across this year's cycle, which the report talks about, is how good the training is in all of the places we visited. And not a single establishment or University Service Unit.
Mark Leech
If I can just stop you there. Helen, would you mind just letting our listeners know where the University Service Unit is?
Helen Flint
So we went to 11 Different regular training Establishments this year and by regular I mean regular army regular Navy and regular air force. We also went to a number of university service units. And this year we chose the RAF and we went to some of the university air squadrons visited a number of those across the country. And remember that these are not just in England like Ofsted. Other work often tends to be in England, but these are all over the United Kingdom. So we visited a number of those. And these are units that are attached to universities. So you can go to university as a student, and you can apply to be a member of the University service units which are what really what they say on the tin they are service organisations which train students who are effectively become officer cadets in their time there and they train them to do various different activities. There's no requirement to join the military afterwards. That's not what these organisations are about, but because they are paid service people because they are effectively doing what could be constitute as a sort of phase one phase two type training. Then the then the mid asked us to start inspecting those in around 2018.
Mark Leech
That's great. Thank you for that. Going back to what we found this year during the inspections. You were saying that all the training we inspected was good.
Helen Flint
What we found everywhere we went is that the training and the quality of support that all of those young recruits and trainees were experiencing in the places who went to this year was good. Not a single one was not so that's a really good finding. And I'm really delighted for MOD colleagues. That that is the that is the case. There were pockets where we were saying hang on a minute. Some of these young folk going through training. They haven't quite had enough time, for example, to really think about what they've learned before you then teach them something new. So let's have let's have a look at that, please. And that's one of the recommendations in the report. We've also said please can you remember that they also have to have time to to maintain the level of fitness that you've got them to because that's something else that we found within the report. We've asked the RMIT colleagues to seriously think about the level of nutrition that recruits and trainees have and teaching recruits and trainees more about the nutrition that what they need to fuel their body particularly when they're undertaking quite strenuous physical activity and strenuous training. So there's a conversation about that. And that's one of the recommendations. Two of our major recommendations, though, and your listeners may well have actually seen these in the press because some of these were picked up by some of their large newspapers and indeed, I think some of the meet other media outlets were that we did find that if you're a woman or if you are a smaller, recruit or trainee, not everything fits as well as we'd like it to. That's particularly around some of the kits such as body armour or rucksacks. Or also known in the military is Bergens. So there was a recommendation around the making sure that clothing uniform and equipment fits properly. And our major recommendation this year, as it was in the previous year, and indeed the one before that is about improving swiftly the particularly that combination for other infrastructure. And that was a major finding this year because sadly this year we actually went to probably one of the worst places in terms of infrastructure that we've seen in in quite a long time. And that particular institution, we felt so bad that we gave it adequate rating overall. And that's quite rare. Which comes back to my first point, which is most of what we see across the military state across military training is good. And we do report that.
Mark Leech
I think I think that is really important because obviously there was a lot of focus on on some of the some of the infrastructure. Kate, I'm not trying to put you on the spot at all, but do you do recognise some of that? Is that a fair assessment do you think of the current current state of play?
Commander Scott
Yeah, I think Ofsted inspections are always fair. I I shadow a few to understand how Ofsted undertake their inspections. I think that's part of my role. It allows me to talk to the command in the command in command and chains of command within the establishment with a more informed view of how inspections have been undertaken. And it helps me in in my role when I'm answering questions. So absolutely. I think the MOD absolutely recognises that across what is essentially an extremely large training estate, that there are certainly buildings that are require much more investment we have quite a quite a number of graded buildings, which the investment for which is obviously enormous. And there is a mid infrastructure strategy that is is developing how we then look to modernise our training estate to ensure that we absolutely get after these issues to ensure that the defence view on duty of care and care and welfare for our trainees not only covers all of the welfare side, but also all of those sides that Helen mentions including accommodation and infrastructure. So yes, it is recognised and I think the MOD strategy is strong, it will take time, but it's absolutely on the radar. And I think when it comes to equipment, certainly across all of the services, there are absolutely programmes in place to develop the equipment that we have for both males and females. To ensure that when we undertake not only our training, but also throughout our careers, that the equipment we have is the best that it can be. And it allows us to do the jobs that we do to the best of our abilities. So once again, that takes time to develop but it's absolutely there.
Mark Leech
And have you seen over the season over the years that Ofsted has been doing these inspections and someone's gonna have to correct me on the number of years we've been involved in this. Have you seen some steps forward? On the on the back of some of the reports that we put out?
Helen Flint
So absolutely we do and I'm reminded of a little story of when our some of our inspectors were at an RAF establishment that shall remain nameless. And we had we pointed out that it wasn't really great that they didn't have hot water and heating in that particular establishment and the young people going through the training that was phase two training stuff, couldn't have hot showers because the heating system kept failing. And some inspectors went back a little while longer. A little while after that and they were taken to a big hole in the ground by by one of the establishment staff and so they go we're putting in new heating. It's not quite there yet but we're putting in new heating and when we did go back to inspect that fully. The big hole have been filled in I'm very pleased to say but they've actually got their heating system sorted out and there was such thing as heating and hot water and that might sound a bit trivial to people that listening that are thinking wow, these are rough tough to service people and you know they've got to live to learn in in quite harsh conditions and that is true. But when they're out there doing the job properly. Not while they're learning to be sailors and soldiers that's really important that we as a society give people the chance to do things like wash themselves when they've been out crawling through mud or running around and assault course. You know, those are basic, we think basic sort of requirements really in this country and it's right and proper that the mid should fix things when they are broken. And to be fair, wherever we have gone back to reinspect. Somewhere that we have set an aspect isn't good enough without any exceptions. There has been improvement every single establishment where we've said in the in an inspection. This isn't good. This requires improvement. We've gone back and we've seen an improvement without exception.
Mark Leech
That's really good. I think your point is really well made as well. You know that this idea that might exist out there that Oh, well. You know, the whole point of joining the armed forces, you've got to be tough enough to deal with cold showers and all the rest of it but we're talking about young people starting out in a career in the military and it's as you say, it's only right and proper that they that they have a modern lifestyle when they're when they're not out doing their actual day to day training. I mean, I'm interested as well in what we've learned as an organisation from this work because obviously your area of work covers whether education colleges or comes prison education as well. What have we learned from our experience working with the armed forces?
Paul Joyce
A great deal, Mark. I mean, it's great that our inspectors have this as a an additional element to their work stream. So Helen, as has been said before, has a small team of of experienced inspectors that do this work, but they learn an awful lot from the inspections they do in MOD and they're of course able to bring that back into our work and into the training that we do for the other activity. I mean, what's most striking for me here is the relationship that exists between Ofsted and the MOD so between Helen and Kate and colleagues. And the biggest learning point here that we try to replicate throughout the remit is around that communication is around that risk management that risk intelligence and about communication in terms of conducting inspections and making recommendations. Because as we've heard from Helen and Kate, this is work that is influential, it does make a difference. If we find something that needs improvement, and we get that recommendation right. The MOD act on that those improvements. So it's a really good additional sub remit to the work we do in Further Education and Skills
Mark Leech
That's interesting thank you and I suppose just bringing it back to where we started is this sort of sensitive area, the inspection of these facilities, the welfare concerns came out of some difficult times in the history of the armed forces around Deep Cut and elsewhere. We've talked about things that have been learned through inspection on the sort of facilities and improving the infrastructure. Kate, how do you think there's been changes made that have made a material difference in terms of that wider care of recruits?
Commander Scott
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, out of out of Deep Cut, we had a significant report and that had over 30 recommendations. And it is it is from those recommendations we have absolutely based on care and welfare and duty of care for our for our recruits and trainees and, and that stems from the need for us to make sure that not only our trainees are, are well cared for but also our trainers are in the best position to deliver the responsibilities that we give them as trainers within HR establishments. So we have absolutely put in place levels of training for trainers. We've got strategies for additional training, whether that be on radicalization and bullying. We've now got self harm strategies. We've got suicide awareness strategies. And all of this as part of that continuous improvement mindset that we've got for both our trainers and trainees with regards to how can we continue to develop the care and welfare and duty of care aspects of our training that goes so, so hand in hand with also delivering the military side and the capability side that we want to instil in these trainees that come into the armed forces? So absolutely, we we have changed as an organisation post deep cuts, and for the right reasons and we continue to change and develop and that's exactly where Ofsted provide that underpinning data alongside lots of other reports and strategies that we have at the defence level to provide us with that constant check to ensure that we are going in the right direction and that we are sharing the best practice across the establishments so that we are absolutely doing the best for the people that join the armed forces.
Helen Flint
Yeah, I'd endorsed what Kate's just said there, Mark because I think the landscape has changed considerably since those days and Ofsted are really proud partners in that journey. You know, the Ministry of Defence I've done so much work in these areas. And it really is a very, I've been kicking around for a very long time since those days up until now and they've made such significant changes in the way that trainers are trained and as well as the way that trainees are trained and the whole the whole way that young people are looked after I say young because they're all younger than me. I mean that doesn't mean that there's some of them are in their 30s. So there's still a lot younger than me. But the whole the whole way that this system, the training systems within the armed forces are run is markedly different as they were really proud to have worked hand in hand with the Minister of Defence during that whole journey.
Mark Leech
Thank you. It's clearly really, really important work. Thank you so much for talking today. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Kate. I hope you've enjoyed listening. Do give us a like and follow and we will speak again another topic soon.
In this episode, Mark Leech (Director of Strategy and Engagement) talks to Richard Beynon (Senior HMI, FES Policy) and Kate Hill (Specialist Adviser, FES Policy) about enhanced inspections and how colleges are meeting skills needs.
TranscriptMark Leech
Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. My name is Mark Leech and today we're going to be talking about an area of work in our further education and skills inspections. We're going to be talking about enhanced inspections of colleges. So this is inspections that particularly are focused on how colleges are meeting skills needs. Today, I'm joined with two colleagues from our further education and skills team, Richard Beynon, and Kate Hill, welcome to you both. Let's start with you Richard, perhaps we can have a little chat about why this is important and what the expectation is on colleges in terms of meeting skills needs.
Richard Beynon
There's a growing force behind this I think that we've seen developing across the past three or four years and it came to a head I suppose in 2022. There was some legislation that actually directed colleges to think about their skills work but colleges have always been the engine of skills in our economy. They've always dealt with vocational skills, they've always dealt with personal skills for a lot of learners. They've always been responsible for the upskilling of adults who come back to learning after a pause or a gap in their education. So colleges have always been there with this skills work. I think it's just that in the last couple of years, government has focused attention on that area of colleges work.
Mark Leech
Is it sort of looking nationally or more regionally? How wide are they supposed to be casting their net?
Richard Beynon
It's both really, because some colleges for example, land based colleges or specialists dance and drama colleges, serve a national need.
Mark Leech
That's really interesting. Kate, so that's what we expect colleges to be doing, our role obviously is to go out and check that it's happening on the ground. How do we go about doing that?
Kate Kill
We actually have usually two dedicated inspectors, one will lead on the skills aspect, and then they'll have a colleague that will work with them. What they'll do is they'll spend some time talking to different stakeholders attached to that particular college. We came up with some headings and they were community, education, employers, and civic. When we make a call to plan the inspection, we ask that the leaders arrange calls with their main stakeholders from those four groups so we start to get a picture of how they're contributing to the priority sectors in the region or area or nationally. At the same time, our team inspectors are deep diving into some chosen subjects. If we looked at health and social care, for example, we would ask the Curriculum Manager to arrange for a couple of calls with some health and social care stakeholders that might come in and talk to learners, might be involved in designing the course and having a say in what they think would be useful for them to learn, or in what order they might need to learn things.
Mark Leech
Thanks Kate. I suppose the big question then is what are we finding on these inspections? We've been doing them now for a little over a year. How many have we done and what are we finding?
Kate Hill
We've completed 65 of these enhanced inspections, that's as of the end of the academic year. Out of those, we have found that four of those colleges or providers, we judged them to be making a limited contribution to meeting skills needs, 40 were reasonable, and 21 were strong. Overall, 94% percent were strong or reasonable.
Richard Beynon
It's worth saying we use a three scale criteria for this skills judgement. We don't use the normal four scale grades that we use for other things on inspection. We just say that a college is either strong in its contribution or reasonable or limited.
Mark Leech
So what's the difference? If you're strong, what are you doing that the others aren't?
Richard Beynon
For college that strong, typically you'd find that they have a good range of stakeholders that cover different fields. They might be employers, they might be civic stakeholders, they might be community groups. So there'd be a diversity in that range of stakeholders. Also, those stakeholders would have a good contribution to the strategic thinking and positioning of the college's curriculum. So senior leadership teams might involve stakeholders in discussions about where the college positions itself and where it's heading in the broadest top level terms. But also to be strong, a college would need to have curriculum engagement with stakeholders. And that could be, for example, engineering staff when they're devising their curriculum, work with local engineering employers who come in and deliver a bit of the curriculum or who revise the curriculum each year with the teaching staff and make sure it's up to date and captures all of the things necessary for the sector. It would vary depending on the curriculum area. For sixth form college with A-levels, the stakeholder group might be universities who might come in and deliver talks to students about the sorts of things they do at university if they were studying law, or accountancy, or whatever it might be. So the nature of the stakeholders is different depending on the type of college. But with that strong judgement, we want to see the top level strategic stuff going on, and the curriculum input. It's very important to see it both in the classroom and at the top level strategic thinking.
Mark Leech
Kate, so looking at the other end of the spectrum, I'm sure if there are college leaders listening, they'd be interested in where colleges are perhaps falling down on on this measure. So where we have found that they've not been up to scratch, what typically isn't happening that should be?
Kate Hill
I think it would be fair to say that most of the colleges are making a reasonable contribution to meeting skills needs. Where they are not quite meeting the strong criteria, generally they're not consistently involving those stakeholders in the design and implementation of the curriculum to make sure they're preparing those learners for future work or future education. And that's one of the criteria that we see repeatedly that it's not consistently done. It might be happening brilliantly in A-level psychology, but there's nothing really happening in the engineering level three course. The other area is making sure that not only is that curriculum well planned and well taught, but those learners including apprentices are actually learning skills they need.
Mark Leech
Do we talk to the learners and apprentices to get their perspective on their training and how well they feel prepared?
Richard Beynon
Yes very definitely and to the employers of apprentices as well. So we'd ask the employers, what are the skills that the apprentices bring to the workplace and are they up to date and current and useful? And we'd ask the apprentices how they feel about the skills they're learning. Are they learning them in a coherent way? The usual kind of curriculum questions.
Mark Leech
I'm interested in this area of how we're preparing learners for the local economy and the national economy. We talked a little earlier on the balance between the two. To what extent are we reflecting what's already there broadly speaking in terms of job opportunities I guess. And to what extent are we trying to move that market to create more skills in the economy in certain priority areas? So I'm thinking about a green technology, for example, now how much of that plays into our work.
Richard Beynon
Well, as inspectors go into each college for an enhanced inspection they receive from our data and insight teams in Ofsted, a very detailed skills analysis which looks at the part played by the LSIP in the area, the Local Skills Improvement Plan. It looks at skills shortages across the region, sub region, and in the local economy. So the inspectors are very well briefed about the way the college positions itself and about the needs of the local and regional economy as well. Often we'll find that, colleges have identified a shortage area with their stakeholders. And maybe they haven't put courses in just yet, but they're planning those things. Not everyone can react to a skills shortage or a skills need instantly. It takes several years to perhaps develop programmes and develop expertise amongst staff, but we recognise work in progress where it's happening.
Mark Leech
And how much of this sort of enhanced element feeds through into the overall grade that we give a college. How does it stack up with the other aspects that we look at on inspection?
Kate Hill
There's always an influence very much. When we're talking about skills and making sure that learners are developing the skills that they need. There is of course, a crossover with the quality of education. Then there is of course, a crossover with how well the leaders and managers are leading and managing that aspect. But as Richard already said, we make a sample judgement using a set of criteria, which will give them a separate judgement separate from the overall effectiveness and the key judgments, even though there will be an element of it that will filter into at all.
Mark Leech
You can certainly see why this area is so important because ultimately it is about people leaving college with something that's really useful to them in terms of the future economy and in terms of its future health.
Kate Hill
And it may be that, you know, we find that for example, construction is a particular need and a sector priority in an area and the college we go to doesn't offer construction. But they will say to us in one of our many conversations, well the reason we don't do it is because the college down the road are doing a jolly good job of it. And so therefore, we work with them and they do construction and we focus mainly on engineering because that's where we are experts. And so the conversations we have with the leaders and managers make sure that we understand how the sector priority is met if it's not directly themselves.
Richard Beynon
It's important in a metropolitan area or a large city that we take into account the other providers in the neighbourhood in the kind of locality. And we look at the way providers map their provision across one another to make sure there's no overlap and no unnecessary duplication.
Mark Leech
That's really interesting and thanks very much. I think that's been a really good look at this area of work. It's clearly really important and growing in importance. So thank you for your time Richard and Kate and thank you to everybody who has listened to this podcast. If you want to hear more from us, do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and listen out for the next episode.
In mid 2023, Ofsted published a report into T levels: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/t-level-thematic-review-final-report
Here we hear from two college leaders, John Laramy, Principal, Exeter College and Diana Bird, Principal, Shipley College, about the challenges, opportunities and hopes for the future of the newest addition to the qualifications on offer for learners.
Shreena Kotecha 0:00
Hi I am Shreena Kotecha head of strategy at Ofsted. And joining us today we have Diana Bird from Shipley College and John Laramy Principal from Exeter college and we also have Ofsted's finest Richard Beynon and Paul Joyce, from further education and skills. So today, we're going to be talking about T levels. We're actually recording this podcast the day after the announcement by the Prime Minister about plans to change T levels and A levels. We're awaiting the developments with interest. But in the meantime, we're going to talk about T levels. Anyway, a question for our two guests - are our students enjoying T levels?
John Laramy 0:43
They very much are. So we get really good feedback from the students who take them. And they go on to some amazing progression opportunities. I would say that we certainly had really positive feedback from the students who have chosen them. I think that they aren't for every student. I think it is a demanding programme. It's a big programme. And I think in certain areas, finding the industrial placement is a real challenge. But students are really enjoying the T level, we're getting a lot out of it. And what we've been amazed by is how students have been able to progress straight from a T level into things like a degree apprenticeship.
Diana Bird 1:17
Yeah, I'd agree with John, I think it's very much about making sure that you've recruited the right students onto the T level programmes. And for the students that are well suited to a T level, it is a fantastic experience. And we've seen similar things in terms of our students' progressions, so great experiences when they get into the right placements with employers who appreciate what those students are contributing to those organisations. And a number of our students have progressed to employment in those organisations where they've had their placements, which has been an amazing outcome for them. So for the right students, a fantastic programme.
Richard Beynon 1:55
Can I just ask, one of the things that we reported on in our thematic review of the rollout of T levels was that some knew, I think it was a small minority, but some T level students had difficulty getting their T level recognised as an entry qualification for higher education. Is that still a problem? Well, or has that been a problem for your students?
Diana Bird 2:25
I'll be honest, in the area that we're working in, in West Yorkshire, we've not found that at all. So we even had one of our first cohort, secure a place at one of the Russell Group universities, so that was really positive outcome there, in terms of our local universities, which is where the majority of our students generally from the college tend to progress and we work really, really closely with them. So I think it's about the work that you do with your local universities or with the universities, to help them to understand the T level. And I think that's been one of our big challenges. As the as educators and as colleges, we've, we've become very familiar with the T levels. But I don't think that that's something that is, a generally shared piece of knowledge. And that's, that's going from schools to students to parents and and also into the university. So we've we've worked with them to help them to understand the curriculum to help them to see what students will be studying. And the universities have then been very happy to take our students but equally, they've amended their own curriculum in response to what's in the T level curriculum, because what we were finding with a lot of the curriculum in the T level was replacing what was in the first year of the degree. So they've had to amend their programmes. So we've we've certainly won them over. Because the amount of content and the challenge, the difficulty of the T level convinces universities that that those students have really demonstrated a high level of skill when they've achieved a good grade in a T level.
John Laramy 4:00
I think it's a great question, which I think my my experience is a little bit different to Diana, I think in terms of some universities are very open to T levels, where they understand that they've learned about them, I would say that it's not yet uniformly accepted right across the full suite of universities. And I think that's a piece of work for us collectively to do to help the T level brand grow, that help it be more recognised. So I think that there are opportunities for young people to progress to university from T levels but I think it's probably slightly narrower than we wish it to be. And there's probably a narrower choice.
Shreena Kotecha 4:42
Both of you sort of emphasised in your opening remarks that these are great for the right sort of student. Can you do a sort of pen picture of the sort of student you think really benefits from T levels?
John Laramy 4:53
So it's a young person who has a particular interest in a particular vocational discipline. If where they sort of know, that's where their passion lies, is relatively able. So I think one of the things that we need to be really open and honest about is that T levels are very rigorous and large programmes. The assessment mechanism is very, very challenging. And the content in some areas, I think, as Diana was saying, you're in some cases you're studying at year one of degree level content. So that does mean you need to work very hard to get the right student on the right course. And I think the industrial placement also adds an extra element of excitement, there's no doubt that is a bit of the magic formula. But that hybrid working, that changed after the pandemic has put some additional barriers in certain areas. And I think, in some areas, we've probably got a pre COVID policy for a post COVID world. And I think, you know, and I think that was something Ofsted commented about, about the particular challenges in in some areas. But my experience is, it's the young person who may have in the past done A levels, and this young person has chosen to do something in an area that they're really interested in.
Shreena Kotecha 6:11
And kind of conversely, do you have any students who you think don't do well with T levels? And can you do a sort of similar picture of what what that sort of person is like?
Diana Bird 6:19
Yeah, I'll pick that one. I think John talked about assessment. The assessment is extremely rigorous, and, and very, very academic. And that's not suited to all of our students. I think at the moment where we're in a position where, where T levels form part of an offer, that sits alongside A levels, B techs, various other types of qualifications. And we're able to identify those sorts of students, it provides another option for a different type of student, so probably a student, you know, who would have gone down that A level route. So conversely, the T level is not appropriate for a lot of the students who have traditionally taken those vocational qualifications within colleges. And I think from my point of view, that's, that's the group of students I'm most worried about at the moment, I have an alternative for those students. And those students are still able to study to level three to be able to demonstrate their skills in a very different way. Not always through that sit down formally examination, but being able to demonstrate them in much more practical, consistent, other rigorous ways of assessment. And, and so at the moment, while we have that option, the T level enhances the qualification offer that we have for our students. My big concern at the moment is that all of the research that has been done has been looking at students that have been selected or have been guided towards the T level, because we know that they are, they fit that profile that John was talking about. My big concern is that we haven't really considered and the T level review doesn't really consider how they will be rolled out, how they will serve and meet the needs of students who are who we currently are not choosing to put onto T levels because there's something else that is better for them. And I think that the review might have looked very different, had had it been done in three or four years time, if that were to be the only level three offer that we have for our students.
John Laramy 8:17
I think the other thing I'd probably add to that is just around the capacity and space to deliver things like your GCSE retake. I think one of the positive things about a T level is the expectation of additional teaching hours. I think with that comes the challenge that if a student has a particular skill in an area, like English, but hasn't quite got there for maths, alongside other level three programmes, we're able to fit a GCSE, retaken alongside that, where the young person is a level three student, but just has one area that they need to work on and retake that isn't possible with in my experience, that's not possible with the T level. So it's it's legally possible. But it's not practically possible. And I think that's something that we just need to be really cognizant of. And I think is is a challenge, which sort of leads to to the point that Diana was making really is that, that it's important that we do have other options. They're not for every student.
Richard Beynon 9:15
And John, you referred to it not being practical or possible to introduce other qualifications alongside that simply because the hours involved in T levels soak up the students timetable, make it impossible for them to do another qualification alongside,
John Laramy 9:36
correct. So it's partly the hours that need to be deployed and the hours that need to be deployed for the industrial placement. But it's also the content there in some of the the T levels, the exam elements 60 hours in duration. So to fit that exam in one needs to start assessing that in February. And of course that's a particular challenge. There's only so many hours in the day. For many colleges, young people do quite a commute to get to college, because they've chosen that college as their destination of choice. So, you know, it's not practical because a logical explanation could be, could you stretch the day, these young people, they're already leaving home very early in the morning, getting home quite late at night.
Richard Beynon 10:19
And you both talked about the assessment element of the programmes. One of the things that we highlighted in our thematic review, and actually we made as part of our recommendation back to the Department for Education was to look at the assessment loading across T levels, because some seem to carry a very heavy burden of assessment. Staff found that difficult, students found that overpowering, really, is that something that you've been aware of? And it has that perhaps even shaped your choice of which T levels to offer?
John Laramy 10:57
I think, for me very aware, and I think it's one of those challenges that, you know, one of the the nice things about the Ofsted review is you looked at the totality of the T level. If you look at different elements, if you take the health T level, for example. And you look at the different I think it's eight different components in the assessment on their own, each of them look really good. But when you add them all up the scale and bureaucracy to manage that particular process, with potentially quite a big growing cohort of students, all of a sudden isn't any longer a viable proposition. So for me, I think it's it's almost using the the findings that you have as Ofsted and using that to really scale up T levels and say, well, if they were bigger, what would the assessment regime be like, and I think that's where we need to do that piece of work now, to not lose the ethos, but to actually make it scalable. So that would be my experience. I don't know, if Diana's had a similar experience.
Diana Bird 11:57
I agree. I like the style. I'll talk again about the health one, I particularly like the style of the way that that's done and the way that mimics the kind of assessments that that young people would have if they progress on to university or if they take on that career. But the sheer numbers of staff, physical space, so the rooms that you need to do that. And you also need a you know, a large number of specialist staff to be running those assessments. And not all colleges will have seven or eight people who are specialists in that area who can run that qualification. And I'll tell you, we actually had an up when we made the decision, the employer Set Project, which is the eight assessments in lots of different spaces for students separated, obviously, so they can't communicate, we opened at the weekend, because that was the only way that we could find the space to do that while the college was was running. So it's it's very, very resource heavy, apart from the pressure that it puts on staff and students.
Paul Joyce 12:56
Great to hear the things you're doing to to make T levels work for your for your students. I think we found, you know, at their best T levels are a really, really good programme, and students and providers do do really benefit from offering them within a wider curriculum offer. John, you touched on and it's something we we majored on in our review about industry placements. And some of the challenges there, could you tell us a bit more about that John?
John Laramy 13:31
There is no doubt that the industry is it is a magic element of the T levels. So I would not, you know, for a minute be saying it's not a great idea. But I think in certain areas, by geography, by location, by the type of industry that sit in an area, I think that we do now need to think carefully about what is reasonable and achievable for each of the different individual pathways. And I think that how I would like to say it is on a continuum. If you had child care at one end of the continuum, where you would say that there is no way you can replicate looking after a three year old having two children myself, I can understand what that's like, there's no way you can replicate looking after a three year old in any other way than actually doing that. So so for me that needs a pretty big sizable industrial placement, because that's what's required. The digital? Today we're doing this podcast in different offices spread across the country. That's how many digital staff now work. We can give individuals and young people great experiences of new digital experience new digital platforms, different coding that perhaps doesn't sit on the syllabus to enhance their learning if they're unable to get an industrial placement for the full duration. And it seems to me that sort of one size fits all model isn't quite right for the post COVID world that we now operate in, and perhaps T levels need on that continuum to have an expectation at one end of childcare, and then perhaps a slightly different expectation, if it's a digital T level. And I think it's almost it's just really important that this honest conversation to continue the development and evolution of them so that they are great that they make a difference to UK PLC, and so that providers are able to scale and improve them year after year.
Diana Bird 15:25
Our students have some amazing experiences. Like John said, I think that anybody who's been involved in work placements will tell you that when students go out and have a good experience have a really high quality experience. What they learn on that is completely is completely irreplaceable. So you provide students with that whole range of employability skills, and and you give them real life experiences, and you put them head and shoulders above other students. And I'll be honest, the student - my children have gone through and done done A levels. So they go through, they do their A levels, they gain the qualifications, they they you put them alongside a student who's been on a T level, who spent hours in a placement in industry. And they, I would argue they can't compete in terms of those employability skills and the stories that they have to tell and what that adds to their CV. So in the best placement students go in and they're given particular tasks to do, they're given projects to carry out and to take ownership of, and that gives them an amazing story to tell at interview. However, it's really challenging to provide that consistency of quality to scale up those number of placements. So at the moment, you know, I think last year, three and a half thousand students did a T level. And we found it difficult to find the right sort of quality placements for all of those students. Now, three and a half thousand is a really, really small number across the country.
Paul Joyce 16:54
A really good point.
Diana Bird 16:54
It's a very, it's a very big challenge for us to find the number of placements that are required and and we'll be competing with each other we'll be competing with the other colleges, we will be competing with schools who start to come on board, and who also want to deliver to deliver placements. But we're also competing with universities, who can who can pay towards their placements. So that, you know, that's been a bit of a challenge for us. And I think the other big challenge that we found is that we are talking about 16 year olds starting on these programmes. Now your 16 year olds, particularly in the post pandemic world, they're often quite you know that there's a poverty of experience there. And we, you know, a lot of what we talk about those employee employability skills and behaviours that employers are looking for. Now at 16, many of our students, they don't have them yet. And so we can talk very, very convincingly with employers about them, and we can give them great examples. But when we send that when we send that 16 year old, they leave us they, they obviously we go through a long period with them of preparing them, we talk to them about behaviours, we train them for those behaviours. But when they go into that placement as a 16 year old walking in, they don't always exhibit those behaviours that we're expecting them to present by the end of their programme. And so you know, there's a, we have to work really hard with employers to set very realistic expectations of what they're going to get with a 16 year old who comes in on placement, we have to convince them of the value that that will bring to their organisation. And you know, and we've had a lot of success with that. But they also need to know that they are investing in our young people, that they will be part of that young person's development and growth. They're getting a young person who needs their support, their guidance, and an opportunity. So I think that's a challenge. The other one I would say very specifically around the health area is it's a real challenge to get a 16 year old, a placement in a hospital, the experiences that they get on the very best placements, we have students within the first week, see a baby be born see a hip replacement, but we also see how the students see see somebody on their ward die. And these are big issues, both very positive and very sad realities of the industry, they're going into that we have to prepare them for. So the challenges are are huge, but the benefits are immense when we get it right.
John Laramy 19:24
I think the only thing I'd probably add would be you know, not to not forget is travel. I think particularly in rural areas, where young people are doing, you know, significant commutes to get to their college or provider. I think then to try and find a travel route to a different location of a great employer who just happens to be in the next town or the next city or in the middle of nowhere, as as you would imagine in Devon we have occasionally. I think that's an interesting - just bear in mind that sometimes it's it's a practical challenge.
Richard Beynon 19:57
In a strange way there are difficulties if you're in a metropolitan area, because different colleges might be soaking up the available employer placements. But actually there are also difficulties in in a rural area where the opportunities are further afield and more more sort of thinly spread. On on the back of what you've both said about students being ready and you know, hitting that age of 16 entering such a big demanding programme. Can we talk a little bit about the transition programme for T levels? There's a one year transition programme at level two for these these programmes. We found some some shining examples and some less positive examples when we did the thematic. Can I ask you, first of all, do you do you engage with the T level transition programme and your views on it? If you do?
Speaker 3 21:00
In our in the first few years, we haven't. And we found that to be a really difficult sell to students in terms of sort of what they're going to get from that. Because often what they need is a lot of maths and English, which isn't necessarily the appeal. So yes, it has the placements, but they're going to be spending time resitting and you know it, that's often the barrier to them being able to engage on a T level. However, we have introduced them as of this year, we can see the benefits of developing a programme, which essentially looks something like a three year programme. So for some of our students, they will need that three years in order to achieve a T level.
Richard Beynon 21:39
So the two are very closely integrated the transition programme and then the eventual T level.
Diana Bird 21:46
Absolutely, yeah.
John Laramy 21:47
We've been running the transition programme for a while. And I would say that I think the main function of the transition programme needs to be to help the young person achieve their maths and English. I think we see that as an absolutely critical element. I think our learning thus far has been that it also works well to have a small vocational qualification within that, even though it's not mandated within the guidance, we've found, it's actually really helpful for a young person to have a bit of a North Star that's going, 'well the thing I'm passionate about is this so that if I can keep working towards a qualification in the thing I'm interested in alongside my maths and English', we think that's probably the solution we're homing in on.
Richard Beynon 22:32
And presumably that gives them a sense of achievement after year one builds their confidence if they get that nested vocational qualification?
John Laramy 22:44
Yeah, absolutely. And it was really lovely, actually, we had a visit last Monday and one of the students who's now on the health T level did the transition programme the year before, managed to get their maths and English, but also got some skills around that health component. That's a great stepping stone, if you like, into the T level. But you know, designing a programme to lead you on to another programme is quite a complicated thing to say, you know, 'I know you're passionate about IT, great news, you're going to be studying quite a lot of maths and quite a lot of English'. Designing those programmes and getting the right staff and the right environment. I think it's a really important element.
Richard Beynon 23:20
You know, part of the T level transition programme offer is meant to be some form also of work placement. Does that have additional difficulties in that some of those transition level students may be, you know, a step further back to the folks you were both talking about earlier on, even less ready as it were to go out and engage?
John Laramy 23:45
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, it's also been exacerbated by that by the pandemic, there's no doubt that, that I think young people have learned less social skills, just because they have had periods of lockdown. And I think we're all working very hard to get the right behaviour, attitudes and attendance into young people. So yeah, it's it's definitely amplified the challenge.
Paul Joyce 24:09
One of the things we found was some difficulty that staff that typically taught on BTech and and other programmes, found the transition to T level teaching and particularly assessment, a little bit difficult. One or two issues with sort of staff retention and recruitment on these programmes. Can you give us a bit of a flavour about how you've dealt with that?
John Laramy 24:31
I did have a bit of time to listen to the Prime Minister's announcement yesterday and was very, very pleased that staffing in favour education and staffing in technical disciplines where it was sort of front and centre. It's not been easy. It's a great quote that I really like, which is 'any education system can only be as good as the people who work in it'. And certainly that's my experience. So we've have we have found it difficult. But we've also found that we've got some amazing staff who've come from digital, who have really embraced the concept of the industry element of the T level. But it's not easy, you know, on our college risk register. Staff being particularly for those higher technical roles is probably our biggest risk and our biggest challenge.
Really interesting. John, Diana, what, what's your perspective on staffing?
Diana Bird 25:27
I think we've experienced the same sort of challenges as John in terms of trying to recruit people with the right skill set into into the organisation. One of the ways that we've we've worked with our current staff, obviously, there's been quite a considerable amount of training that's been put out by the Education Training Foundation, which we've prioritised for our staff, we've also encouraged them strongly encouraged them to do much more in terms of sort of industry updating, so getting them back out into the sector. Having lots of conversations with employers so that they can update their skills, you know, if it's existing staff who are moving across the T level, we need to make sure that their skills and their knowledge are you up to date with the with the industry. And you know, a lot of the industries we're working with are incredibly fast paced. But also we've recruited from industry as well, and that comes with, that brings great benefits because they come very, with very current knowledge. But then you're taking somebody who is a specialist in their area, and you're developing them as a teacher, whilst also developing a brand new programme and some of the challenges additional challenges we've had around that have been the amount of materials that we've received from awarding bodies or the you know, the example questions or style of exams, because everything's so new. We're not just bringing on bringing people in from industry to train them as teachers in something that as colleges were hugely confident with, we're actually asking them to develop brand new programmes alongside that. So industrial updating and relationships with employers are absolutely essential to ensure that the teaching and learning is currently is up to date and is inspiring for our for our young people. But it is a really challenging area, and recruiting staff from industry where they can be paid significantly more than I'm able to pay them at the college. You know, there are lots of people, I think who will be interested in moving into teaching and sharing the experience that they've had over years. But the salaries are just not comparable.
Shreena Kotecha 27:31
Thank you very much, everyone. It's been really interesting to hear about T levels. We've just got time for a few final reflections. And I wondered as part of that, whether you'd be able to say whether, if you had your time again, you would do a T level? And if so what in?
John Laramy 27:45
Well, that's that's a pretty easy one for me to answer. I think, after starting doing an apprenticeship, I then did a BTech ONC back in the day, and then a BTech HNC. ONC, which is an ordinary National Certificate, HNC a higher National Certificate, all of that part time. So I definitely would have been a candidate for a T level back in the day.
Diana Bird 28:07
I would do any traditional a level route. So I if I'm quite honest, I think that's probably where I would go again, it's where my children have gone. Also, however, having seen the huge benefits that come with the quality industrial placements, I would like to see those added into the to the A level programme, because I think that they give young people an amazing advantage over students who take that classic academic route.
Richard Beynon 28:36
I think probably I'd be quite interested in one of the T levels that's being launched this this year, which is in the fourth wave of T levels. And that's the legal one always had a hankering to be a kind of a courtroom, a courtroom voice. I think I'd pursue the legal one.
Paul Joyce 28:57
I had a very similar journey to work to what John described with apprenticeships and technical and vocational education. My background been in construction and engineering. So I'm certainly a T level fan. I would happily go and do a T level at their institutions. I think that there are some issues that policymakers need to address to make these truly reach the potential that they're capable of.
Shreena Kotecha 29:26
Thank you so much to our guests Diana and John, and thank you very much to Ofsted's finest Paul and Richard for a really interesting conversation about T-levels.
Are young people getting the #careers information, advice and guidance they need? Listen here to our podcast on careers with thanks to Nicola Hall, Careers and Enterprise Company, Ryan Gibson, Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Katy Tibbles, Turner Schools.
Mark Leech 0:12
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech and today we're going to be talking about the wide world of careers and careers education. Ofsted has recently published 'The independent review of careers guidance in schools and further education and skills providers' - quite a long title. But a very interesting report and we'll talk about that in a little while. Joining me today I have quite a big panel actually Paul Joyce Ofsted's Deputy Director for further education and skills, Ian Tustian, who is an advisor on policy and quality of training at Ofsted. Nicola Hall, who is Director of Education at the Careers and Enterprise Company, Ryan Gibson, who is senior advisor for careers at the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and Katy Tibbles, the trust head of careers at Turner Schools. Nicola, I wonder if you can talk a bit about the current landscape and the big changes in careers guidance in schools and further education recently and a bit about the pressures on careers leaders at the moment?
Nicola Hall 1:22
So, the careers guidance system has changed immeasurably over the last few years, and has really significantly moved forward. And we now see a modern industry-lead careers guidance system, which has been embedded through a national infrastructure of careers hubs, which is delivered and led by trained and qualified careers leaders across the country. So over 3000 careers leaders have now been trained through a fully funded suite of qualifications, which is supported by the Department for Education. We've seen over recent years almost universal adoption of the Gatsby benchmarks across schools, special schools and colleges throughout England. And those benchmarks set out a world class standard for those institutions to follow. And there's no cost to any of these services to educational institutions in England. Additional changes include a really increased focus on parental engagement within careers guidance, but also the introduction of enhanced provider access legislation to ensure that young people are accessing parity of impartial information regarding apprenticeships and technical education. Whilst the professional status of careers leaders and the elevation of careers leadership develops well across the country. There are still some pressures that we commonly see. Firstly, a lack of strategic leadership support. This strategic support allows careers to be aligned when it's done well to school development and improvement priorities. Another potential barrier for careers leaders is when they are being asked to undertake two roles. So that of the role of careers leader which is oversight and leadership of the whole careers programme in an institution. But also sometimes it can be problematic when the careers leader is also asked to undertake the role of impartial specialists careers advisor. Both of these roles are essential within the careers guidance system. But both of them are significant in size. And if we see those two roles conflated it can pose challenges for careers leaders. In some cases, careers leaders have a lack of allocated time and resource. For example, it might be still commonplace in some institutions, for careers leaders to have a small TLR (teaching and learning responsibility) and a couple of hours a week allocated to careers leadership. In the context of the size of the role and the achievement of the eight Gatsby benchmarks. This is likely to be insufficient, unless there is well layered wider operational support for the careers leader. And sometimes careers leaders can tell us that they're a lone voice. However, I like to liken careers to agendas like literacy, and the development of literacy so that everyone in a school or a college has responsibility to be careers curious to be able to hold careers, conversations with young people and to be able to effectively signpost to specialists as well as help young people understand careers opportunities by building those conversations into curriculum plans.
Mark Leech 4:37
Thanks. Thanks, Nichola. So there's lots to unpack there and I think maybe before we come to the Ofsted team to talk a bit about our report and what it what it found it be quite interesting to hear from Katy, I think on on some of those challenges and how you deal with them, I suppose in in the day job as it were.
Katy Tibbles 4:58
Lots of the points that Nicola has highlighted, things that either I've experienced in the past, or I know that my peers in other schools are still experiencing, particularly around the pressures involved with careers leadership and the need to have a strategic role and to have a vision and to be in a position where you can drive that forward. I do know lots of careers leaders who are also careers advisors. And that's something that doesn't sit very comfortably with me, because I think they are two very different roles.
Mark Leech 5:34
So yeah, to the uninitiated, include myself in that, do you want to join a break down the differences?
Katy Tibbles 5:40
Yes. So for me, like a careers leader is you need to have a good knowledge and understanding of the careers landscape. But you need to be able to turn that then into a strategic vision that meets the needs of your school. So there's no one size fits all I would say in careers, the Gatsby benchmarks provide a fantastic framework for us all to work towards. But for a careers leader, you really need to consider how they fit within your own context, and how you can meet the needs of your pupils through the benchmark, that is quite a different skill set to perhaps a careers adviser who on a day to day basis, might be more operational, working more directly with the young people delivering guidance interviews. And there are two very different needs to different skill sets. Some people can do them both, which is fantastic. Some people have strengths in different each of those areas. So for me, I do think that that's very important to recognise the role that the careers leader plays beyond that of a careers advisor, and the need for that leadership, development, strategic thinking, but also to be able to be an advocate at a senior level for careers in a school because whilst we have made huge progress over the last few years, there is still a long way to go. Some circumstances there are senior leaders that still need a bit of convincing actually about how important careers is within a school setting. So your careers leader needs to be able to be an advocate for careers and always be fighting for it when we're talking about school priorities and trust priorities. They need to be the person in the room that saying, Okay, how can careers contribute to this?
Mark Leech 7:33
Thank you. That's, that's really helpful. And I'm going to come to Ian in a second to talk about our report. But, Ryan, I just wanted to bring you in quickly because we've we've heard a lot about the Gatsby benchmarks. And again, if you're not from the careers world, you might not be as au fait with the with the benchmarks do want to talk a little bit about what they are, how they're used, and how that plays into the role of careers leaders in schools.
Ryan Gibson 7:56
The Gatsby benchmarks as both Katy and Nicola have alluded to define what good looks like in relation to careers guidance, there based on international evidence of what works and achieving all of the elements of each of the benchmarks is what constitutes world class careers guidance. It's good to see the recent education select committee report and indeed, Ofsted independent review of careers guidance, recognising that schools and further education and skills providers find the Gatsby benchmarks useful in developing and reviewing their careers provision and was great to hear Katy allude to that just now. When we think about the benchmarks, they've become the bedrock really of career guidance in England. They're embedded in the government's career strategy, they are central to that. And CEC data shows that over 90% of schools and colleges now measure their progress against this framework. Nicola used the phrase almost universal adoption. And that's what we've seen, we've seen almost universal adoption of the benchmarks. And that's something that was confirmed in our own open consultation survey, which we ran at Gatsby earlier this year. It what that shows is that belief in the value of the benchmarks is strong, and it's widespread. And I think that's because they're working, and they're having an impact. We heard the importance there earlier of senior leaders and the role of senior leaders and senior leaders have consistently shared with us that the positive impacts that the benchmarks are having on outcomes for young people. And this is definitely reflected in national data, which I'm sure Nicola will, will talk about. But it shows that many more young people are leaving education with improved career readiness now, improved destination outcomes as well with the greatest impact being on some of the most disadvantaged young people in some of the most disadvantaged circumstances.
Mark Leech 9:58
Thanks, Ryan that's, that's really helpful. So I've got a couple of colleagues from Ofsted with me before going to - Paul, just quickly do you want to talk broadly about the part that careers plays in in our inspections?
Paul Joyce 10:15
Sure, Mark, and really nice to hear colleagues there endorse many of the findings of our report. We all know careers, education, advice and guidance are absolutely essential to enable children and young people to understand the full range of available options. We really did see many examples of good practice, as we conducted the survey, a really strong commitment to providing good high quality careers advice and guidance. But as Nicola said in what I thought was an excellent summary, you know, much more work to do. It is an important part of of inspection in both schools, colleges and other providers. And inspectors do spend an amount of time focusing on careers advice and guidance, to make sure that children and young people are getting the full range of information and are equipped to make the right choices going forward. So really important part of of inspection, and really pleasing, Mark, as Nicola, Katy, Ryan have said that we have seen certainly on inspection, and as confirmed through this survey, and improved picture over time, significant change careers hubs, Gatsby benchmarks, tools and resources, making an awful lot of difference. Whilst not always, more to do and, you know, areas and aspects that could be better, but generally a positive picture, I think moving in the right direction.
Mark Leech 11:59
Fantastic. Thanks. So. So Ian has been very patient. Do you want to come in and just add a little more to what Paul says?
Ian Tustian 12:06
Absolutely. I mean, there's a couple of points that other guests have already said already. Katie talked about the sort of permeation, if you like of a culture through a school, and certainly in the work that we did, where we identified that high quality careers guidance, there was really a whole school approach. There was significant buy in from leaders and staff. And really that model of effective careers being seen as everybody's responsibility in the school with that real clear emphasis on effective communication between the careers leader, between staff members, between career specialists, curriculum leaders, and the like throughout the setting, and also in terms of reference to what Ryan talked about. We saw almost all schools using the Gatsby benchmarks to structure and review their careers programme, and school leaders viewing those benchmarks in a really sort of positive way. And as being a useful framework for what good practice looks like. In terms of in some of those those wider findings, in general, leaders in both schools and FE and skills providers understood their statutory responsibilities for careers. And that includes in reference to the updated January 23 guidance. And that came through strongly in much of the evidence collection that we did as part of the review. We saw many schools ensuring that pupils received the unbiased guidance that was balanced between those academic and vocational options. But that really wasn't the case in all schools. And actually, a lack of unbiased guidance wasn't usually about schools deliberately choosing to sort of push pupils in particular ways. More lack of that, that strategic planning again, which Katy and Nicola alluded to, and that that real careful attention to the needs of the individual young person in that setting, we saw teacher's knowledge of those technical pathways could be a little bit more limited, especially in respect of T levels. And with some learners in VI Forms and VI Form colleges really wanting more information on technical pathways, post 16 and post 18 as well. Gatsby four, which talks a lot about linking curriculum and careers together, we saw that working well actually in a lot of schools that we visited about two thirds of the schools. In those instances, we saw curriculum leaders working well with careers leaders, and assigning a high profile within subject areas to careers education, and we saw that integration of careers into curriculum plans. However, not always the case, though, and still some work to do in some instances and to make sure that, that work of the careers as Katie said that work of the careers leader is not in isolation, but feeling its way through into lessons so that young people are able to see how their learning in mathematics will help them going forward. We saw sometimes a lack of clarity around specific aims for year groups particularly lower down the school in year seven, eight, it sometimes wasn't clear what the thinking behind the careers programme was. In terms of the pandemic, that negative impact on careers especially around work experience has moderated a little bit. As in the working world, as we're sat here working at home, there has been a change in the way that we work. And that's presented real challenges for schools in terms of ensuring that young people have those high quality encounters with the world of work. Two more points just quickly Mark, to draw on for schools and FE and schools, providers that were engaged with career hubs, we could see those played an important role in ensuring effective employee engagement and they contributed more widely to careers programmes. But one thing that leaders in schools and FE settings picked up was around the use of destinations data to improve careers provision, some noted it was actually really difficult in practice, because of time and resource to collect this data. And because of restrictions around things like data protection requirements, some leaders really wanted some additional help with this, and thought the system in their local area could be improved. So those are sort of if you like the broad brushstroke headlines from the thematic review.
Mark Leech 15:56
Thanks Ian, so interested in views from colleagues, particularly from outside Ofsted whether you think that those findings chime with what you're seeing, I'm interested as well in this idea of the linkages with with employers, the opportunities for work experienc the impact of the pandemic, and how we're seeing things now a little while on from, from lockdown.
Nicola Hall 16:23
it was great to hear Ian, refer to the efficacy of careers hubs when they're really being used well within local areas. But of course, some of our listeners might not know exactly what a careers hub is. So a careers hub is a place based entity whose function essentially is to bring together schools, colleges, employers, and apprenticeship providers, and frankly, anybody that is involved in the careers guidance ecosystem in a local area, across England. So we currently have 90% of schools and colleges that are eligible to join a careers hub there's geographical coverage for 90% of institutions in the country. And we expect that to rise to 95% across the course of this next year. So their goal locally is to make it easier for schools and colleges to improve their careers guidance offer to be able to enable and prepare young people for their next steps. So careers hubs support progress against the Gatsby benchmarks. And they help careers leaders to collaborate locally in a focused way, bringing together good practice and local labour market insight in particular. So, I see the careers hub as a dedicated support team for a careers leader. A careers leader in an institution should be connected into their local careers hub infrastructure, and they will be able to unlock some of the relationships and some of the developments that that help with some of the agenda issues that have been raised. So work experience opportunities, for instance, would be a good example of that. I mean, in essence, they are there to help a school build their capacity. They're, they're there to help careers leaders with their professional development. And they're also there to help them build networks, particularly with industry. So a careers hub will be able to point a careers leader to professional development opportunities, they will be able to signpost careers leaders to high quality and fully funded training offers to help them undertake their roles. They facilitate local communities of practice so that careers leaders can work together to share practice to not reinvent the wheel, and to really ensure that careers guidance keeps moving forward. But also careers hubs are able to unlock funding to pilot innovative approaches. At the moment, we have 10 projects across the country who are working intensively to support to support disadvantaged young people with effective transitions to further education. And it's a really intensive support programme. And those types of programmes come round all of the time. So this year, this financial year, we're focusing on investing an additional 3 million pounds across the country to support further work experience opportunities, and they look different in different parts of the country overall. Careers hubs will be starting to really focus on quality of provision. And this year, they will start to implement something called the careers Impact System, which is a peer to peer review system to enable colleagues in schools and colleges to work together to really drive their strategic careers programmes forward so that they really are focusing on the needs of individual young people, irrespective of their circumstances in institutions across the country. In short, really you'd be crazy not to engage with your local careers hub, because it is their job to help you address some of the challenges that that have been surfaced as part of the Ofsted thematic review this year. And I think that the more engagement we have, the further and faster we can drive these initiatives forward across the whole country and really make a difference and impact for every young person.
Ryan Gibson 20:28
I would endorse exactly what Nicholas said engagement with careers hopes sees accelerated progress in terms of Gatsby benchmark achievement. And we know the more benchmarks that are achieved the greater impact on outcomes for young people. Just picking up on that point on employers. Employers are absolutely crucial to good career guidance, and probably worth just reflecting back on the framework of the Gatsby benchmarks here. It essentially provides a common language for engagement and benchmarks five and six, in particular focus on employers and experiences of workplaces. But of course, employers can have a role across many of the benchmarks. And we've seen tremendous practice, for example, in employers supporting schools to link curriculum to careers (benchmark four in our language). And there are many ways that employers can engage. And these are outlined in our 'Navigating the education landscape' document, and indeed, picking up on that consultation that we held at Gatsby earlier in this year. We saw employers agree that the benchmarks provide a strong framework for career guidance for employers endorsing that. And employers actually themselves identified an improved relationship between educational institutions and employers as a result of the Gatsby benchmarks. So employers are absolutely crucial. And we see fantastic engagement through career hubs.
Katy Tibbles 22:02
Just to really reinforce everything that Ryan and Nicola have said, to pick up on Nicholas point, actually about careers can sometimes be lonely. People often say that when you work in careers, sometimes you are the only person in the school, I'm really lucky because I have a team, which is fantastic. But not all schools are that fortunate. And it can be a lonely world. So actually linking in with those networks that are available through the hub, through other schools, which you know, the careers hub helped bring together as well, I think that is incredibly important. So, again, when we're thinking about the pressures on careers, leaders, they can get support from those networks, it is important that they engage, because there are, there's support there. And there are opportunities there. So it doesn't have to be a lonely world. And it doesn't have to be pressurised because there are solutions out there.
Ian Tustian 23:00
Young people are still saying that they value those quality experiences in the workplace and how important they are in terms of future career decisions. And thinking about those in the round beyond simply a week in year 10 or a week in year 12. Thinking about those in terms of running a student enterprise, participating in things like social action projects, work tasters, and those those that wider opportunity to engage with those employees. And the pandemic has had an impact there. And schools are working hard to try and try and if you like rekindle some of those relationships with employers to make sure that pupils can benefit from those those wider experiences.
Nicola Hall 23:38
It's a common misconception that work experience is the only approach. And in some, in some institutions, a traditional form of work experience works brilliantly well. And it's well established. But there are many, many opportunities to embed experiences of the workplace and encounters with employers across a whole school offer and in a very progressive way, from year seven all the way through to year 13. To enable young people to really layer and layer and layer experiences with employers and industry all the way through. And some of those are much more achievable than the logistical challenge of taking 200 young people in a in a year group out for a week's work experience overall. And also those opportunities will present themselves all the way through an academic year, not just in one week's window in the course of a year. So we are really urging school leaders to think hard about their models of experiences of the workplace.
Ryan Gibson 24:44
The benchmark is carefully titled 'experiences of workplaces', and that's to allow that deliberate flexibility experiences of workplaces are absolutely crucial, but there are many different models. Thinking about the purpose of the experiences and how they're set and sequenced within a progressive programme and approach is absolutely crucial. And that's what we've seen when we've engaged with both employers, schools. And when we spoken to lots of young people as well.
Katy Tibbles 25:16
From our kind of on the ground perspective of how we are actually making that happen, because I think sometimes, for leaders in schools, they can think it's a very big challenge to meet that benchmark. And it can be quite overwhelming. And they think it's going to be complicated. But actually, there are some really easy solutions. So, so we do do work experience all of our year 10s, and twelves, in all of our schools go out and do work experience. But in addition to that we might do for example, you know, take the Business Studies class to go and visit a workplace just for a couple of hours. Or even more simple than that is right from year seven, when you're doing a trip, build into that trip, the people that you meet to talk about their job. So if you go to a museum, when you're arranging that visit, ask if there is somebody there a curator that has 10 minutes to spare to talk to pupils about what they do in that setting. Because every single time you take children out of school, the chances are, you're going to some kind of workplace. So there are so many opportunities there to hear from all of these different people. And actually, it's just incorporated in what you're already doing. It doesn't have to be an arduous activity.
Ian Tustian 26:39
And absolutely Katy that extends to pupils with special educational needs as well. In some of the the evidence that we collected as part of the review, we came across schools, for instance, running specific career sessions for pupils with SEND to focus on things like life skills, managing home and travel training. And in one school, we came across an instance where pupils were actually given a fake bank account and credit card and had to play the role in terms of visiting the bank. So it's that preparedness in terms of the range of careers and sort of workplace opportunities are there beyond school.
Nicola Hall 27:08
Probably helpful at this point, also to mention a tool that's available to careers leaders and school leaders, which is called the future skills questionnaire, future skills questionnaire is available at key stage three, key stage four key stage five, and there is also a special educational needs version of the questionnaire. And what that helps education leaders to do is measure the effectiveness of their careers programme through the voice of their young people. So essentially, the questionnaire measures careers readiness in young people. So an education leader is able to use that with their cohorts all the way through from year seven, to see the growth in their development, all the way through their school journey and their careers learning journey as it progresses through the school itself. What it helps you to do very, very quickly, is identify gaps in your careers programme and provision through the eyes of the young people that you're delivering it to. And and I think actually, from my perspective, as a school leader, it's an absolute game changer in terms of being able to listen to your young people at scale in your institution, and really make adjustments to the strategy to make sure that it's responsive to the young people within your cohort.
Mark Leech 28:26
course, those are those academic pathways are have changed are changing. Paul, I mean, I don't know if you want to talk a bit about T levels. We've we've looked separately in a separate study at the introduction of of T levels. And I think we've had some positive things to say but recognise that there were perhaps some some early early issues, some teething problems in the introduction of T levels. How do you see that playing out in the careers work?
Paul Joyce 28:54
Yeah, thanks, Mark. And I think the conversation has come around to the crux of the matter, really. And that is the focus on the quality of the careers programme for the individual for the cohort. So you mentioned T levels Mark, and there's a lot of change in the technical and vocational, post 16 landscape, and we certainly found on T levels. And as Ian has already said, we found also on the career survey, where knowledge and understanding of technical and vocational routes, particularly T levels, is a little bit thin on the ground at the moment, perhaps not surprising. They are relatively new. But certainly a key job for careers leaders, careers advisors, is to ensure the knowledge of those full range of options post 16 and post 18 to ensure that children and young people are getting the right information and are getting the right encounters, the right experience. To make those choices, some will have a very clear idea of what they want to do and what path to go on. Others are going to need more help.
Ryan Gibson 29:03
At Gatsby, we're thinking about the next 10 years of good career guidance and what would potentially lead to even greater impact on outcomes for young people. And of course, careers advice is is absolutely crucial, that role of personal guidance, benchmark eight in particular. And at Gatsby, we're really pleased to be working with the CDI, the Career Development Institute on a project to build career advisor awareness of the technical options that exist, so that they have got an up to date understanding of those options
Paul Joyce 30:53
As qualifications change, as the landscape changes, absolutely vital that careers advisors are, are in front of the curve there really, so they know what the landscape looks like. They're equipped to provide that essential information, advice and guidance that our children young people are going to need.
Ian Tustian 31:15
Absolutely. And building on what you've said, Paul, and what Ryan said, through this through the work that we did, as part of this review, we did see that pupils' awareness and understanding of the technical and vocational pathways varying across schools. About half of the schools, pupils said they didn't really understand the technical pathways well enough, or the inspector noted that they weren't able to demonstrate a real detailed knowledge of them. And again, that's not because, the review certainly didn't find that the schools were sort of shovelling, if you like, pupils into square pegs into round holes in effect in terms of pathways, but it came back to that strategic planning, that strategic understanding across school settings, and within careers advice to ensure that that knowledge was at hand so it could be shared, so that pupils were able to make those clear individual choices that were that were best suited to their needs.
Paul Joyce 32:01
The provider access legislation, the so called Baker Clause, the key thing that inspectors look at on inspection. But you know that the most important thing is making sure that the careers, leaders, careers advisors themselves, have a really clear understanding about what those options are for the young people that they are advising,
Nicola Hall 32:26
it's really important that all young people get this information. I think, you know, historically, we may have seen some selection around which young people are accessing what types of information about different types of provision. But obviously, we have a moral responsibility to make sure that every young person has a full suite of information to enable them to make those really well informed choices overall,
Ian Tustian 32:51
Some schools, the fact that key stage four options can actually create a barrier to pupil's future pathways and future possible career avenues. The importance of effective careers advice, helping people see beyond their immediate next step, seeing their next step. Next step in effect, you know, if young people are thinking about choosing their degree course, for instance, what does that mean to them post 21. But especially around key stage four options, what does that mean for me? How does that limit? Or actually how does that create further opportunity for me, post 16 post 18, post 21.
Katy Tibbles 33:24
Our careers programme starts in year seven. And that is incredibly important to us it is front loaded, because they need a whole core foundation of knowledge and skills before they reach those key decision making times in their lives. So for us, we start in year seven, and we start talking about pathways and options. And it's not about them making a choice at that stage is just making them aware that there are different pathways. All of our year nines take part in a workshop. It's called what happens next. And we do exactly what you have said Ian, we talk about not just the next step, but the step after that. And even the step after that, because particularly for those young people that do have a career goal in mind that are very focused and they have a dream. They need to know that the choices they make at 14 affect the choices they can make at 16 which then affect the choices they can make at 18.
Mark Leech 34:26
So thank you to all of you for joining today Paul, Nicola, Ian, Ryan and Katy. I hope you enjoyed listening and you will join us again on the next edition of Ofsted Talks, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts.
In this episode, Shreena Kotecha (Head of Strategy) talks to Lee Owston (Deputy Director, Schools and Early Education) and Wendy Ratcliff (Principal Officer, Early Education) about the second part of our early years research review series.
Wendy and Lee explain how this report builds on the first part of the series and share what the next report will focus on.
TranscriptShreena Kotecha
Hi everyone, welcome to this edition of the Ofsted Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about the Best start in life part two research review. And today I've got with me Lee Owston and Wendy Ratcliff, who both work on early years in Ofsted. I'm gonna start by asking, this report obviously builds on part one that we published late last year. Why is it so important that we're continuing to focus on education?
Lee Owston
Yeah, hi Shreena. Good, to talk to you again. It's absolutely vital that we have a focus on early education at Ofsted. It's obviously reflected in one of our strategic priorities, which is about the importance of all children getting that best start in life. Because we know that whether children have a good early education or whether they have a poor one, those experiences will live on and they will affect how they achieve in later schooling and actually in their life generally. And that's why I'm sure lots of people listening will have heard me say a lot, a child's early education lasts a lifetime. So we need to make sure that what we do in Ofsted, and in the sector as a whole is grounded in the very best evidence of what works. And this report is part of the series, so it's part two, and it's what we're trying to achieve, by really setting out what we believe the best evidence looks like.
Shreena Kotecha
Brilliant. Wendy did you want to come in as well?
Wendy Ratcliff
Yeah, absolutely and thank you for asking me to join you today. Just building on from what Lee said, very much the work with our youngest children is so important. This report, we hope it's going to be really helpful for practitioners and for those who are actually working with the youngest children day in day out.
Shreena Kotecha
Lee, can you tell us a bit about what the key findings from this report are?
Lee Owston
Yeah, there's hopefully lots in there and I think what's really important is that there should be no surprises. Much of the content will be very familiar to those working in early years settings. So just some of the things to highlight in the time that we have, communication and language we know is such a fundamental aspect of every child's thinking and learning and the rate of their development in this particular area depends absolutely on their interactions with adults.
Actually, something that did surprise me in looking through the research and kind of pulling it together with the team was that more talkative, confident children actually receive more interactions and time with adults than the less confident, less communicative children. Which, to me is kind of counterintuitive, isn't it? But now that we have that, in our research, it's set out, I think it just makes everybody aware that we need to focus, particularly in terms of interactions, on those children that aren't necessarily going to come up and ask for our attention, those children that aren't going to be the ones that want to take us by the hand and lead us to the interesting things that they've spotted around the setting. So, I think if we don't address the fact that those children who are less confident in their communication and language have less of the knowledge and skill to be able to do that, then obviously, we're just going to cause those gaps, particularly for disadvantaged children and particularly for boys, to widen even further.
And, in terms of personal social and emotional development, we know that that underpins children's early learning and emotional well being. We know that those warm positive relationships with adults really help children to understand and manage their emotions. And I think just through those two elements alone, and just those kind of snippets that I've managed to share, the fact that when we are talking about the prime areas of learning, which is the focus of part two of our research series, they are so interrelated. There are elements of communication and language that influence other areas. And I think, while lots of us will have appreciated that already, because they're the prime areas of learning for a reason, actually, it doesn't harm and it doesn't hurt to reiterate that there is a mountain and there's a raft of evidence that supports us.
Wendy Ratcliff
I think also, you've mentioned communication and language there Lee as well personal social and emotional development, but let's not forget about physical development as well and thinking about children needing to be physically active. Physical development, it's central to children's health and their and fitness providing those important foundations for later in life. And practitioners play such an important role in encouraging those less active children to move more and teach movement skills such as balancing and jumping. And I think, you know, when we think of three and a half year olds who are in settings now, those are children who were born at the beginning of those first lockdowns and missed out on some of that physical activity.
Lee Owston
Yeah. Great reminders about that. And, you know, we hear a lot don't we about communication and language and we've actually as an organisation had a particular emphasis on communication and language over the last eight months or so. But, let's not forget physical development and let's not forget personal social and emotional development as well.
And, just to pick up on what I was kind of sharing earlier, yes the prime areas are of course interlinked. And just to give you a sense of what we mean by that, we know that if you have more developed communication and language, then that's associated with better emotional well being because you can communicate your feelings. And actually children who are more physically active in the early years are better at regulating their emotions and tend to then do better across primary school particularly.
So, I think they're all of value aren't they as individual areas of learning - communication and language, physical development, personal social and emotional development. But actually, the benefit is how they all interrelate and interact, in terms of providing that really firm grounding that will allow children to learn and develop so that they can have those successful early years experiences, but also go on and achieve well across school, and obviously into their later life.
Shreena Kotecha
Well, this is all making me feel a lot better about my four year old who doesn't stop moving or talking. Something that is mentioned quite a lot, which Lee you've talked about a little bit, is the importance of high quality interactions. And I just wondered, Wendy or Lee if you could expand on what you would want practitioners to take away from this bit of report?
Wendy Ratcliff
Yeah, I think one of the things there, the importance of those high quality interactions it is threaded throughout this report and it comes through loud and clear. And it's because those frequent, high quality interactions between children and adults, they play such a fundamental role in building the knowledge and skills that children need.
And thinking about what practitioners and adults can take from this, we know that those high quality interactions are more likely to take place when adults notice what children know and can do and they respond accordingly. And when adults know the curriculum in advance, so they know what it is that they want their children to be able to do during their time in that particular setting.
Lee Owston
Yeah and can I just add, I think it's important that we keep acknowledging that this is what's important for all children. Do all children experience enough planned and incidental interactions with adults to learn what they need? We know, for example, some babies and young children will need more targeted time and attention than others. And, as I said earlier, you know, it's really easy, isn't it to talk to the chatty children? But actually, what about deliberate interactions with those that have less development and skill in terms of communication and language, and they're, they're just as important. And I think I mentioned earlier, because we particularly know that the gaps are wider for disadvantaged children in communication and language, and particularly boys.
Wendy Ratcliff
It is definitely easier to chat to those chatty children. They're the ones who are always keen and eager to come up and talk, because they've had lots of practice at it.
Shreena Kotecha
Brilliant. And expanding that just a little bit further, is there anything other than what you've talked about that you would like early years practitioners to take from this research?
Lee Owston
There's lots of key messages in there for practitioners and we've tried really hard, even though this is a research report, to ensure that the messages we give are really practical. They're really easy to implement and digest so that people who pick up the report can take bits of it into their into their practice the very next day, if that's what they wish.
That means we would encourage everybody to try and dive into the report and have a look, we hope that by seeing some of these important messages that it'll help alleviate some of the worry that providers have, particularly about Ofsted. You know, what might inspectors want to see when they inspect you. And we want to be clear that if you're doing what is right for your children, because you have the unique position of knowing your children better than any inspector who is essentially a stranger to your setting on a particular day, then if you're doing what you know is right for your children, those in front of you today, then essentially, you can plan for what what you know, they do know, and what you know, they don't know, and ensure that they get the best possible curriculum and experiences.
And ultimately, that's what inspection is about, trying to understand why you do what you do and whether that's making a difference to the children's learning and development that you intended. And while that's kind of boiling inspection, down to two questions to two sentences there, that is the crux of what inspectors do when they visit you as part of an inspection. So why do you do what you do? And is it making a difference to the children's learning and development that you intended? And we've got, as I'm sure you all know, we've got various ways of doing that on inspection, whether that's a learning walk, conversations, but essentially it's those two things that we try to get underneath.
Wendy Ratcliff
Absolutely, and you know, we really do want people to have the confidence to do what they do every day and don't do anything different just because the inspector calls. And I think the other thing, thinking about this report in particular, is that there's some key messages for each of those prime areas as well that I think those working with our youngest children would find useful really. And I think the other thing we do know, of course, is that the decisions that managers and leaders take are important. And by prioritising the prime areas in their curriculum thinking, and allocating sufficient time and resources, they can make sure children, all children, get off to that best start in their early education.
Shreena Kotecha
Brilliant. And finally, I understand this is part of a trilogy, this is part two of a trilogy, and we've got the last last part to come, can you give us a bit of a sneak preview as to what part three will focus on?
Wendy Ratcliff
We've been really clear about what part three will look at and that will conclude this research series for those working with the youngest children. So that's birth to four, so pre-reception children. And it's going to build on part one and two, but the focus will be on the four specific areas of learning.
Lee Owston
Absolutely. And I think just to add to that as a package as a whole, once we have part three published, so parts one, two, and three, is essentially about a broad curriculum which is well thought out, makes sure that all staff make the most of those planned and incidental interactions, and essentially ensures that we think about both the prime and the specific areas of learning.
And to leave people just with another phrase in which they can think about this, again, something I say all the time, ultimately we want all children to experience a curriculum by design, not by chance. And that means we want staff to be thinking through these decisions that they're making. In terms of what it is they do and don't do in terms of all children and particularly those that we know have gaps that either through the pandemic or just in terms of individual children and what they do and don't understand yet. We want staff to be able to use that knowledge to ensure that all children get a curriculum that they have designed, not one that's just just by chance. Watch out for part three. We do hope that will be published certainly in the in the next few months.
Shreena Kotecha
Brilliant, thank you very much Lee and Wendy, it's been really nice to talk to you. Thank you to everyone for listening. And please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and look our for the next episode.
Ofsted has published three new subject reports evaluating the common strengths and weaknesses of different subjects in a sample of schools. The new reports cover geography, PE and music.
We talked to the leads for each report to get a quick preview of what they found and what teachers can take away from each report.
TranscriptShreena Kotecha
Hi, I'm Shreena Kotecha, Ofsted's head of strategy. This week we're talking about our subject reports.
The reports evaluate the common strengths and weaknesses of different subjects in a sample of schools that we've inspected. They build on our research reviews, which identified factors that lead to high quality curriculums and each of the national curriculum subjects. We've already published reports on science, maths and history. And last week on geography, PE and music.
You can find all of our reports on our website or by searching 'Ofsted subject reports.' And just to pique your interest in these, I've spoken to leads for each of the new reports to get a preview of what they found.
First up, is Mark Enser who is Ofsted subject lead for geography. Mark, what did you find in this new report?
Mark Enser
I think one of the most important messages is just how much of an improvement there has been in recent years. When you look back at the report in 2011, the previous subject report, you can see that geography wasn't in a good state, across the country. It pointed out that, in too many schools, geography had been removed completely. Children weren't getting a geography education. And even when there were lessons that were called geography, the geography content had often been removed and replaced with more generic competencies.
But what we see in the report now, is that geography is very much back, it's alive and kicking. And much more thought is being given to what children should learn. So I think that's a really key message.
But there's also some really important messages on where we need to go next. We know particularly in primary schools, that there's been a lot of work on progression within a topic. So pupils learning more say about a topic on rivers, and the knowledge on rivers is built in a sequential and meaningful way towards an endpoint. But once they've finished studying that topic, they never come back to that body of knowledge. It just sits in isolation, they're not using it, they're not building on it in the future.
And then when we look at secondary schools, we find a similar problem at Key Stage 4, less so at Key Stage 3, but at Key Stage 4, the exam specifications have often become a de facto curriculum. So one of our main messages not just for people in schools, but for policy makers, for our subject associations and others, is that we really need to think carefully about how we turn an exam specification which prescribes content into a curriculum, which orders it in a logical, meaningful way that teaches pupils about the geography that sits behind that content. Simply working through an exam specification is not the same as teaching our subject and recognising the potential that our subject has.
Shreena Kotecha
And what messages would you like geography teachers to take away from the report? What can they take back to the classroom?
Mark Enser
There's a number of things that I'd really like teachers to take back. We've subtitled the report, 'getting our bearings.' And I think that's the first thing that I'd like teachers to take away is that it's a moment to pause, to look at where we've come from. And then to think about where we want to go next, as a subject community. It's an invitation to have those conversations and to have those discussions.
A couple of areas that I think a lot of work could be done is around skills, geographical skills, the body of knowledge about how we do geography. And one thing we see in the subject report is that's not often taught well. There's been a lot of curriculum thinking about the more substantive knowledge, about those different geographical concepts, and so on. And people thinking about how they want to teach that content in a logical way.
But not when it comes to geographical skills. They're not considering when to introduce those skills and how there should be progression over the years in them, and even less so when it comes to field work. There were very few schools in which there's a curriculum for developing field work. For how are pupils going to get better at carrying out field work over time? What pupils are getting are a number of individual experiences where they go out of school and experience some field work, but no sense of a sequence that's going to lead to them getting better.
Another thing that I think teachers can take away is around how places are used in geography. Quite often, when we talked to pupils, we found that they had a very fragmented knowledge of the places they'd studied. But they could remember isolated facts, little bits and pieces, but they couldn't use them in any meaningful sense. They couldn't tell you how those places had changed, or why they had changed or why they were the way that they were. They could just remember a rundown of some key information. They couldn't use them to do geography.
And when you look at the curriculum in the schools where pupils were struggling, what you see is they're being taught in a very fragmented way. They're doing a topic on say, a named country but with no particular intent behind it, of what that country is being used to demonstrate or to show. Which geographical themes or processes are being shown through the study of that place? Which geographical questions they want pupils to be able to answer about those places? It just becomes little more than a fact file.
So I think there's something there. When are they teaching certain places? When are pupils returning to those places? How are they layering up knowledge about those places? And what questions are they going to answer about those places?
Shreena Kotecha
Thanks Mark, very interesting, and lots to think about.
Next up, we have Hanna Miller, who's our subject lead for physical education. Hanna, what did you find?
Hanna Miller
Just before I talk about the main findings, I just want to say a really big thank you to all of the schools who really welcomed us into conduct the research visit.
I think in terms of the key areas of strength, the extra curricular programmes that were in place were really broad and ambitious, and that provided opportunities for lots of pupils to develop what they were being taught in lessons.
I think another real key strength was in secondary schools that we visited, where qualification PE was taught at Key Stage 4, or 5, or both. Most schools had thought really carefully about what to teach and when, and why. And many of those decisions were really quite carefully informed by some really positive work with the qualification specifications, and using them to inform the structure of the curriculum. And in all of the qualification lessons that we visited, there were strong teacher subject expertise.
There was some variability across the schools as well. So obviously, a couple of those key strengths were coming through. But there were also some areas of development that leaders had spoken to us about as well. And what was really clear in a lot of those schools was that leaders really wanted to provide a range of sports and physical activities for pupils through the PE curriculum. But what we found in some cases was, although the curriculum was incredibly broad, there were times when it didn't match the ambition of the national curriculum.
And there were also times when the curriculum was very tight, it had a lot packed into it. And I think assessment was also an area that schools spoke to us about. And leaders often explained that it was an area that they wanted to work a bit more on, to really ensure that the methods that they were using to assess pupils were effective, and how they use that information that they gathered to inform their next steps as well was really effective.
And I think just to kind of round that off, what was particularly interesting was some of the barriers that leaders had shared with us and they'd identified. Particularly around COVID-19, and the impacts that that had had on the PE curriculum when returning from partial closures, but also the implications of some of that now. But also some, some real positives, were coming out around building links with other schools and building local links within the community as well. So really positive messages coming through as well.
Shreena Kotecha
And is there anything in particular you think PE teachers should take away? What are the key messages for them?
Hanna Miller
Yeah, I think these will link really closely to what I'd said about the areas that leaders had identified themselves, things that they wanted to improve in schools. And obviously, what we'd found on the visits as well.
One of the first things is around breadth and depth. In PE that's always been a really interesting debate. And there isn't necessarily a magic number of how many sports and physical activities could or should be within a curriculum.
But I think what is really, really important to carefully consider is, if all pupils have enough time for the high quality instruction, practice and feedback that is absolutely needed to get better. For some pupils, that might be the first time that they're exposed to some of that content. So really ensuring that there is that time, so that pupils learn the curriculum, not just cover it.
And I'd probably say my third thing would really be just that point that PE is for all pupils. So thinking really carefully about lessons, the support that some pupils might require. So, some pupils will have gaps in their prior knowledge. And obviously, the support that they will need to access the curriculum will need to be precise, and it will it will mean meeting them where they are. And that might mean for example, practising and refining some fundamental movement skills. And sometimes that can also be pupils with SEND. Some of those pupils with SEND might need another demonstration, they might need some more practice time, they might need slight adjustments to the task, for example.
So those kinds of things are really, really important to think about within lessons. Because although sometimes it can feel like there's an awful amount to get through, there's lots that you want to get through in lessons, it's really ensuring that you're bringing all pupils with you on that journey so that all pupils know, and can do more in PE.
And I think that's also where assessment is incredibly important. Really identifying what pupils know, and can do, and what they don't yet know or cannot yet do. And then using that information to really guide those decisions about what's taught next, and why that's taught next.
Shreena Kotecha
Thanks so much Hanna really useful.
Finally, let's hear from Chris Stevens, who is the lead for music report. Chris, what can you tell us about the report?
Christopher Stevens
So this report highlights really the significant variation in the quality of music education in the schools that we visited. We visited 50 in total.
Nonetheless, since the time of our previous subject report which was in 2012, many school leaders and particularly in primary schools have taken really important steps to give music and more prominent place on the taught curriculum. And many pupils now have regular opportunities to learn music.
However, despite the significant improvement, several of the concerns that we raised in that report in 2012 remain. Particularly around Key Stage 3 music, where a proportion of the schools we visited really didn't give pupils enough time to learn the curriculum as they'd set out. And that meant in some cases, pupils were not well prepared for the next stages of their learning, or if they wanted to go on for further musical study.
And I suppose concerningly in some schools, pupils were only well placed to continue their musical education and achieve well after Key Stage 3, if they have access to paid instrumental or vocal lessons. And there is a clear divide between children and young people whose families can afford to pay for music tuition, and those who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. So that inequality of opportunity, which we highlighted in our previous report still persists.
Shreena Kotecha
And is there anything that you would like music teachers to take back to help their students?
Christopher Stevens
Well, I think the schools we visited wanted pupils, it was quite evident, to develop a real love and passion for the subject.
But our evidence shows that music was stronger and pupils achieved more in those schools where leaders had gone beyond those broad curriculum aims of developing a love and passion. Leaders had in these schools identified specific endpoints and the building blocks of knowledge and skills they wanted pupils to achieve at various points throughout the curriculum.
I suppose in a way what these leaders had done is they asked themselves the question, 'what can pupils realistically learn, rather than just encounter in the time available?' They'd crucially considered ambition in terms of pupils' musical development, rather than the range of musical opportunities on offer.
So, one of the things I'd be saying to teachers and to leaders is to be really clear about what it is precisely you want pupils to do as a result of your curriculum. And also, to make sure that pupils get regular and repeated opportunities to be able to practice that knowledge and those skills in the time available.
Shreena Kotecha
Fascinating. Thank you very much, Chris. And thanks again to Mark and Hannah.
There's a lot to digest there and 3 fascinating new reports to read. Do look out for them on the website and Ofsted's social media or by searching 'Ofsted subject reports.'
That's all we have time for on this short episode of Ofsted Talks. Remember to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks for listening.
In this episode, Mark Leech (Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement) talks to Matthew Brazier (Project Director, Supported Accommodation) and Rachel Holden (Senior HMI, Supported Accommodation) about the development of our plans for regulating and inspecting supported accommodation.
Alongside the podcast, you can learn about the following related topics on our YouTube channel:
- Notice of inspection for supported accommodation
- What makes effective supported accommodation?
- Supported accommodation inspection outcomes
We have also published guidance detailing what providers need to know about registering with Ofsted and running or closing a supported accommodation service.
TranscriptMark Leech
Hello and welcome to another bite sized episode of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech [Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement]. Today we're going to be talking about supported accommodation. This is accommodation for 16 - 17-year-olds who are in care or who have just left care, and who may need a place to live where they're supported by responsible adults. Despite the need for support and guidance at this stage in their lives we know for many young people this is an uncertain time, and they've sometimes been placed in poor quality accommodation, which is why the Department of Education has asked Ofsted to start regulating the sector and make sure standards are high enough, to help young people feel safe and supported as they make the transition into adult life. Earlier, I spoke to Matthew Brazier, our Project Director for Supported Accommodation and to Rachel Holden, our Senior His Majesty's Inspector for Supported Accommodation about our plans for regulating this sector. We talked about what we think good supported accommodation looks like, what young people have had to say about their needs, and why this new area of our work is so important. So Matthew, hi, I think we should start by talking about the children who are placed in supported accommodation just to get a sense of who we're talking about.
Matthew Brazier
Yeah, of course Mark. We think there's around 7,000 children in care or care leavers aged 16 to 17 in supported accommodation, that's what the data from last year tells us. And they'll have a range of different backgrounds, the needs can really vary, it's really important not to see them as an homogenous group. And when we inspect, we'll be focusing on how providers understand and meet those different needs. But generally speaking, they'll be children who are in care and care leavers who are able to manage an increasing amount of autonomy, or independence in their lives, while they still get the kind of help and protection that all children should expect. And as I say, there's around 7000, we think, which is a not insignificant number, it's pretty similar to the number of children in children's homes. So you can tell from that comparison that it is a large number of children but all with with different needs.
Mark Leech
That's really helpful. Thank you. Rachel, in terms of the accommodation itself, obviously, supported accommodation is rather different to children's homes. It's a pretty varied sector. So what sort of thing are we looking at?
Rachel Holden
You're right there Mark, it is very varied. And the regulations split it into four different categories. So the first category is like when you have a spare room in your house, so it's a family home. It's called supported lodgings and they're host families who're hosting a young person. And they share all your other living facilities that you have in your house, your kitchen, and they become part of a family really. So there's that type, then there's more like self contained flats. So like a bedsit or a studio, that type of accommodation. And then there's shared houses. So you might have three or four young people living and sharing the same house, but having, obviously their individual bedrooms. And then there's accommodation, which is a little bit more like a house of multiple occupancies. So it could be that you're living with other people that are maybe age 22-23. They come from a different background than you, they haven't been in care or care leavers. And that's the fourth category that I was speaking about. So even though we split them up within those categories, there's quite a lot of variation, and quite a lot of variation between the housing throughout the country as well. So we've seen a lot of difference in the sector. So I'll just point out the difference between supported accommodation and children's homes. So for children's homes, they're looked after by staffing within the home, they're cared for, they're parented - if you like - by staff in the home, whereas supported accommodation, [they] are supported, and they're supported on their journey to independence. So they may not have staff there 24/7. They may not have staff to handle the time, but actually they know who to contact in an emergency they are supported to proceed into college or an apprenticeship. So there there's lots of different models out there of supported accommodation.
Mark Leech
So given that it is such a varied sector, then, I suppose our role is going to be a bit different in terms of the sorts of inspections that we can do. We're going into, as you say, Rachel, really different types of places. Matthew, what are we going to be looking for when we start to inspect from April next year, April '24.
Matthew Brazier
Well, we started consulting on a number of things in July, for the way we'll inspect from April and one of those proposals was about the main things that we should expect for children in a strong supported accommodation service. So some of the examples of the criteria that we'd be looking for is that children should feel safe and settled where they live. There should be strong support for their emotional, their physical health, and good help with their education, training and employment. We'd want leaders and managers to have high ambitions, high expectations for children. And fundamentally, the accommodation itself should be of good quality, but it should also meet children's individual needs. So we've set out those criteria that were very broad criteria that will help us develop the final evaluation criteria. And we've based those proposals on lots of discussions that we've had, in the last year or so with commissioners, providers, children's advocacy groups - their views have been really helpful to help us develop those proposals - but most importantly, we've worked really hard to speak to the care-experienced community - care-experienced people who were young and old - we wanted to learn from their lived experience and make sure that the things that we look at when we inspect are going to be the things that are most important to them.
Mark Leech
Yeah that's a really important group isn't it? So what have we heard in particular from young people, or as you say, from people who've been through the care system themselves?
Matthew Brazier
Yeah, some of the things that are coming out loudly and clearly from them is about feeling safe, fundamentally. They agree that the support should match their individual needs. So wherever they live, that support is tailored to them as individuals, but a common theme was about how they should be allowed to move towards increased independence at a pace that suits them. And it's important to remember these are children and that we shouldn't expect them to be fully independent at the age of 16, or 17. This is about a path towards adulthood and a path towards independence. So the pace that they move out towards that independence is going to vary and the support they get should reflect that. We are quite clear that supported accommodation should not mean an absence of care. And children were particularly clear that they want the opportunity to have the growing independence as they get older. But they also want safety nets, they want to have financial security - so they're not really worried about the financial or money issues unnecessarily. They want the support of adults who care for them and who they can trust. But they also want to be able to enjoy the kinds of things that all children and all young people should expect and deserve. So their insight has been really, really helpful. We think we've got to a point where the proposals that we'll make for what we look at on inspection will reflect a consensus. It'll strongly reflect children's views, it will take into account the views of professionals and other interested parties. But we've also looked at research - the available research on supported accommodation - and that's been helpful, too. So we think we'll have an evidence-based inspection framework that will focus on the right things and hopefully be looking at things that, most importantly, children feel that they're the most relevant things for them to make progress and have good experiences.
Mark Leech
I mean that sounds that sounds really positive and a big step forward. Because currently this is a bit of a grey area, isn't it, supported accommodation - it's not currently registered, it's not currently inspected. So we need obviously the people who are running this accommodation - the providers of this accommodation - to register with us. What happens if they don't register with us? So how do we stop there being this kind of grey area? And what happens if we're going into some of these providers and finding that they're just not up to scratch?
Rachel Holden
Yeah that's a great question. So as we said earlier, this is a new area, and we need providers to register with us by the 28th of October and have that application accepted. After that they will be acting unlawfully, and local authorities won't then be able to place children who are 16-17, who are in care or care leavers with them. So it's really important that providers do get that application in. And when we go out, and if we were to find serious and widespread weaknesses in the provision that they are providing, we have a raft of powers available to us. That could be an issue in a compliance notice on a certain area of service that they need to improve on. Or it could be that we suspend the service straightaway because there are really serious safeguarding issues for children and we think that they might be at an immediate risk of harm. So we would be looking for those children to move out. But on the whole, as we do with children's homes, we work with providers because we realise that children - if they're living there, they're settled a lot of the time - we give providers opportunities to put the issues right. Always bearing in mind that the safeguarding of children comes first and foremost.
Mark Leech
It's always a tough balancing act, isn't it, in the areas that we regulate? And people don't always know with Ofsted, we have these two functions. We're an inspectorate - obviously most famously we're the schools inspectorate, but we don't actually regulate schools - we don't have the power to open schools or close schools; that's the Department for Education. But in social care, we do have some of those those harder-edge powers. But as you say, it's often about working with providers to make sure they're meeting the standards because we don't want to disrupt the lives of young people unnecessarily. But we have to always maintain that focus on safety. So thanks for that. I think that clears up a bit on how we're going to work in this new sector. So what are the next steps for us now?
Rachel Holden
So the next steps for us now are to issue the inspection framework, which will be coming out early next year. And we are already gearing up to do the pilots of that inspection framework. We'll be going to around nine providers of all different types - and I spoke earlier about the different categories of registration that we have. So we'll be doing a wide range of small, large, supported lodgings, houses of multiple occupancy type provision. And we'll be testing out what's really working obviously for children and young people first and foremost. We'll be liaising with the providers to make sure we're doing the best that we can for them. And we'll be speaking to the inspectors who do those pilots. So by the time we come to start the inspection year in April, next year, we'll be fully up to speed and getting out there and making a start on the inspections.
Mark Leech
Fantastic. So it's also a new area of work as well for you two, who've obviously worked for a long time with Ofsted in social care more generally. What drew you to supported accommodation?
Matthew Brazier
Well, Mark, my experience as an inspector, and then in policy at Ofsted, and in a previous life in a local authority, I think it means that I know the positive difference that the right kind of help in the right place can make for children, and that - you know - what impact really good provision can have. And I suppose I was drawn to this particularly because I'm convinced that regulation is necessary. I think it can make significant changes and improvements to children's lives. And I think this has been unregulated for such a long time, and there are so many children in this area, I think it's fair to say that there's a consensus across the sector, that regulation is really necessary, notwithstanding the challenges that lie ahead for lots of different parts of the sector. But I think we really can make a difference. I think we can get to a place in April, where we have a framework that focuses on the things that matter. And it's something that everyone can sign up to, and hopefully [it] will shine a light, celebrate good practice, hold poor providers to account, but also drive policy and further improvements as well more widely.
Mark Leech
That's great, thank you. And Rachel, how about you?
Rachel Holden
So I've been working for Ofsted now for about 10 years, and I started my career in regulation. So I used to regulate children's homes, independent fostering agencies, etc. And I saw the real difference that we can make through regulation to the quality of service for children and young people. And [I] also heard those positive stories that young people spoke with passion about their carers, and what a difference that they had made to them. So after I followed my career through Ofsted, I still take a great deal of interest in regulatory work. So when this opportunity came up to manage the central team, I put my hat in the ring, and it's been a great opportunity to offer providers and children consistency of our approach to our registration, and also be able, as Matthew said, to engage with the sector and to engage with them, to answer that question 'what does good look like?' But I suppose on a more personal note, I've got three girls of various different ages now that keep me really busy. And the oldest two are 16+, and I've seen what support they need at that age. And they need a lot of adult input, guidance, discussions - you name it - so I think it's a really important time in a young person or a child's life to make sure that we're actually there for children and that we guide them and support them to become responsible individuals and adults. So yeah, it's been a bit of both really, so a bit of a work journey and also a personal one, but I like to say I'm really enjoying it.
Mark Leech
That's great. Thanks, Rachel. That's really helpful and I think summarises the importance of this area of work for young people just coming to the end of their care experience and going out into the world. So, thank you so much for your time and Matthew for yours as well. Thanks very much for listening. I hope you found it interesting. Do tune in again to the next Ofsted Talks wherever you get your podcasts.
As schools return and settle into the new academic year, host Shreena Kotecha talks to Lee Owston, Ofsted’s deputy director of schools and education, about some of the recent changes made to the way Ofsted inspects schools. Shreena also finds out what schools inspectors get up to during the summer break. For more information read the Ofsted blog or sign up to an Ofsted webinar.
Shreena: Hello, and welcome to a bite size episode of Ofsted talks to mark the start of the new academic year, which I'm very much looking forward to because my youngest starts reception. I'm Shreena Kotecha and I'm head of strategy here at Ofsted. I'm here with Lee Owston, who is Deputy Director of schools and education, and we're going to talk about what we've been up to at Ofsted during the summer, including some of the changes that have been made to the way we inspect and report. So Lee, one of the questions we often get asked is what happens at Ofsted when the schools are closed?
Lee Owston
Yeah, hi, Shreena. Good question. It's certainly true that we don't inspect schools during the six week break. But we don't just inspect schools. So you know, our inspection and regulatory work does continue in early years and further education and skills and some of our adults learning provision. But all of our schools HMI have been former leaders in schools. So, myself included, we're certainly used to longer summer breaks. So, many people enjoy some annual leave during the summer. But we don't get all of the time. You know, we don't get all of the six weeks. There are a number of activities that we undertake when we're working, but schools are closed. So, for example, we might look at completed evidence bases, or we might look at reports to try and gather together some information on a particular theme. So, we've recently done something on careers education to try and understand, you know, how much do inspectors get underneath that in their evidence bases do they then report on it. And of course, if we pull all that information together, it really helps me and my teams understand whether we need to, do we need to deliver some training do we need to adjust our handbooks? Do we need to have a focus in terms of quality assurance? So, there's plenty to keep us busy, even though schools are closed and inspection isn't continuing. But we really do, you know, maximise that time so that we can hit the ground running just as you said, you know the start of a new term, Ofsted's just the same, we try and get as much done as possible so that we can be prepared for what the year ahead brings.
Shreena Kotecha: Brilliant. And you mentioned that one of the things you get up to over the summer is adjusting inspection handbooks. Could you tell us a bit more about the changes that have been made the schools inspection handbook.
Lee: Yeah, and this is, this is an approach we kind of try and do or take annually. So we try and make as few changes to the inspection handbook as we can. And if we are going to make some changes, we try and do it at this point in the year. So we do it just before the summer, and publish just before everybody goes away on their summer break. So that again, come September, we can implement that new handbook. So we've made a number of updates, actually, for this year, ready for September. And there's probably far too many to list here. But just to give you a kind of flavour of some of the main ones. And actually, before I start, it's important to reassure people that when we do make changes, including this year, they're not fundamentally changing anything about, you know, what we look at, what we evaluate, or how we go about our work. What we're keen to do is try and clarify some of the areas that we know people are less sure about and where we've heard through our engagements that they're just unclear. So we try and review every year and ensure that you know, the messages are as clear as possible. So one of those areas for this year, we've taken a good look at safeguarding in particular, we've tried to reduce some of the duplication. So we recognise that some of our guidance around safeguarding sits in different places and we've tried to pull it all together into the school inspection handbook. So there's one place for all of the important messages. And that means we've also cut down on some of the repetition, we've been clearer in terms of what we mean by an effective safeguarding culture. We've pulled together all of the bits where we try and describe culture, we've put it in one place, we've also provided some more detail on what constitutes ineffective safeguarding practice. And we recognise that we can't write, you know, a long, long list of things because there will always be situations that we can't cover, but we've tried to give, you know, as I said, give a flavour of what can effective safeguarding practice might be to reassure people that it is not only those significant issues that affect the safety of pupils that that would lead us down that ineffective path. We've also provided some additional importance and words on how we judge behaviour and attendance. Again, those two areas are often in conversation when I'm talking to trust CEOs or head teachers or teachers or anybody essentially in education. Those two words keep cropping up, behaviour and attendance, because we know that they remain really kind of live challenges. We know they were tricky during the pandemic, we know they still remain tricky as we move out of that, but again for reassurance, so if I just take attendance as an example. We've tried to reassure people that we're aware that attendance isn't where it once was, you know, lots of schools are finding it really hard to get back to the attendance levels that they had pre pandemic or higher. So we've tried to set out in our handbook that as long as schools are doing all that they can reasonably do to achieve the highest possible attendance, then it shouldn't be an issue on inspection. So we'd expect some understanding of the causes of absence, we'd expect some kind of strategy or plan to address attendance for all pupils, particularly as you would expect persistent or severe absence. And as long as there's some evidence that attendance is moving in the right direction. So it might not be where it once was or higher. But as long as there's strong evidence that it is moving in that direction, because of all of those things that schools have done, then schools leaders shouldn't have any issue in terms of how we might evaluate that on the ground. And then there's a few other little bits and pieces, throughout the handbook, that we've adjusted too. Things about, you know, who can I have sitting alongside me in a meeting. We recognise, some people might need a bit of extra personal, or professional support. And of course, we've also clarified at the end of an inspection leaders can share their inspection outcome provisionally with others in their school, before the final report is published. There are one or two caveats there, you know, we would say that we want to speak to parents, pupils or staff on their own, so that they can kind of talk freely without, without a senior colleague there. And of course, we would also say don't share the outcome with parents until the final report is published. Because, of course, everything goes through a quality assurance process. So that's just a little bit of a flavour of some of the things that we've updated and changed. There are far more. And I would encourage people to, if they haven't already, and they get a chance, just to have a look at that document, which, as I say, was put online, on our gov.uk site just before the summer.
Shreena: Brilliant, I was actually just going to ask you, where people can find out a bit more?
Lee: Yeah, so all of our main changes, as I said, go on the Ofsted website. That's a gov.uk website, but we're also publishing a range of other things. So obviously, we've got this podcast, which gives a little bit of a flavour of what we've been doing, we hope to have a back to school blog that we can publish, that, I suppose repeats some of the things that you'll have heard here, but also give a little bit more detail about some of those other areas. And of course, we have a regular programme of webinars. Those are directly aimed at people in the sector, everybody's welcome to attend those this term. In particular, we have some sessions looking at in depth changes. So as I've just said, there'll be webinars on our safeguarding changes, there'll be webinars on attendance and behaviour. And we're also going to do more general overview right at the beginning of September, similar to kind of our back to school blog, but just giving you a bit of a heads up in terms of those changes we've made to the inspection handbook. So I think it's fair to say we've got a pretty full and, and varied programme for the year ahead. And actually, lots of our topics are driven by what teachers or leaders tell us they want to hear more about or where they want some further clarification or reassurance. So we're always keen to hear from people if there's something that we could do, whether that's a blog, or whether that's a webinar, because we want everybody to understand inspection as it truly happens. You know, there's lots of myths out there for various reasons. And of course, it's always better to hear about Ofsted from Ofsted than to rely on somebody else. So we intend to keep going with our webinars because we find them a really valuable way of sharing some of the reality of inspection, rather than some of the myths.
Shreena: Brilliant, and how can people get in touch to you suggest topics they'd like to have covered?
Lee: Yeah, there's, there's a way of communicating with us through the website where you know, there's very many, many of us in the team on social media channels. When we're out and about Don't be frightened coming up and talking to us, you know, I've got a heavy programme of engagements across the autumn and beyond, which means I'm out and about and one of the faces of Ofsted, reassuring people and answering questions, which I think is a really good thing for us to be doing. So again, don't be frightened to come up and approach me. We're always keen to kind of pool together everything that we hear and then choose the topics that people want to hear most about. Whether that's webinars, and all that other types of communication
Shreena: I can definitely confirmed to all of our listeners that Lee is not scary and people should definitely feel free to approach him. So I think that's pretty much all we were gonna cover today. So we will put links to the blog and webinars in the description of the page. Thank you for coming along Lee I know it’s your first week back from leave this week. Did you have a good summer break?
Lee: I did. I did. Thank you. Yeah. The usual holiday with family, caught up with friends, read plenty of books, not the handbooks I might add, I promise and generally just had time to recharge. And I think that's important for us all, isn't it because I get the same feeling now, as I did when I was back in school, you know it’s that time of the year when you're preparing for the year ahead, end of the summer beginning of autumn. And that still comes with equal amounts of excitement and optimism for what's to come as well as a little bit of anxiety on that first day back because well, whether you're in school or whether you are working for Ofsted none of us can quite predict what might be just around the corner next. So yeah, important to get a good break, which I hope everybody has. And then we're able to put our best foot forward aren't we for whatever challenges come in the academic year ahead.
Shreena: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much, Lee. If you enjoyed this episode, and don't want to miss the next one, please don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from.
Ofsted has launched a consultation on proposed changes to our post-inspection arrangements and complaints handling, closing on Friday 15 September 2023. Host Shreena Kotecha, Head of Strategy, speaks to our Principal Officer for Inspection Quality and Complaints Administration, Paul Trusselle, about the consultation and proposed changes.
To respond to the consultation, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-ofsteds-post-inspection-arrangements-and-complaints-handling-proposals-2023.
Shreena: Hello and welcome to the first of our more regular bite sized episodes of Ofsted Talks. I'm Shreena Kotecha, Head of Strategy here at Ofsted. These new episodes as the title sort of gives away will give shorter updates on what's happening here at Ofsted, but don't worry if you're one of our keen listeners we’ll still be running the longer deep dive episodes every month. So, if you want to keep up to date with everything we do here Ofsted please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. So, in June, we announced several changes to our inspections and we launched a formal consultation on proposed changes to our post- inspection arrangements and complaints handling. With me today is Paul Trusselle, who is our Principal Officer for Inspection Quality and Complaints Administration, and he's here to talk us through the consultation and the proposed changes. So Paul, could you start by just telling us why the current consultation is happening?
Paul: Hi, Shreena. Yes, no problem at all. As you know, we keep all of our processes under review to make inspections as collaborative and transparent as possible. We last changed our post inspection arrangements and how we handle complaints about our work in 2020. And since then, we've carried out over 50,000 inspections across all of our remits. As such, and building on lots of experience from our current arrangements, we've been reviewing what we do, developing some new possible approaches and piloting some of these on inspections over recent months. These approaches were then formalised into a consultation that was launched in June with us seeking feedback on four key proposals. As these proposals are applicable across all of our inspection work, we're really keen and seeking views from all providers that Ofsted inspects and regulates across early years, schools, further education skills and also social care.
Shreena: Brilliant, Paul. You mentioned that the consultation has got four proposals. Can you tell us what those are?
Paul: Yeah, sure. It's important for us to have a right first time approach to inspection where we can consider and resolve any issues during the inspection process wherever possible. We also want providers to be able to seek a review of the inspection findings and for them to feel confident that any challenge will be considered fairly and thoroughly, including a chance for them to contribute to the process. Importantly, any process must also be deliverable within the resource and scope of Ofsted. But broadly, we've got four proposals, two of which link more closely to the inspection process and two link to how we handle complaints about any activities that we do.
Shreena: Would you mind starting with the two proposals that relate to the inspection process?
Paul: Yeah, our first new proposal is about enhancing professional dialogue during inspections, as we know that effective communication is key to successful inspections. Our inspection handbooks set out how inspectors will engage positively and professionally with providers and inspectors already routinely check with providers during an inspection whether they have any issues. But we propose to formalise this approach by asking inspectors to check with providers at a few specific stages of the visit and make a record of this. We'd need to tailor this accordingly to the type of inspection that we do. However, the principle of trying to address any issues before the end of the inspection visit is applicable about our work. We've been piloting this approach in some of our early years, schools and social care inspections in recent months and feedback from providers on this has been really positive, with providers commenting that they valued this further focus on professional dialogue throughout the inspection visit. Our second proposal seeks to introduce a new opportunity for providers to contact Ofsted the day after an inspection visit if they've any unresolved concerns. We know that providers will reflect afterwards and might think of important points they want to raise. This might be to clarify what happens next and when they will receive their inspection report, to query an aspect of the inspection process and what was found, or perhaps to highlight something that they feel was not fully considered during the visit. As such, instead of the provider having to wait until they get their draft report to submit any comments to us, we propose to introduce a new opportunity for providers to call Ofsted the day after the end of the visit to discuss any unresolved concerns. Calls will be directed to inspectors separate to the inspection in question who will discuss any issues with the provider so they can be resolved at the earliest opportunity. Again, we've been piloting this in some of our early years, schools and social care inspections in recent months. The number of calls to Ofsted has been quite low, helpfully demonstrating that inspectors do deal with most queries during the inspection itself. However, providers who have contacted Ofsted the day after an inspection have reported that they found this really helpful, welcoming the chance to speak to an inspector to discuss the queries that they've had. We've also had some feedback from providers that didn't call us but liked knowing that they could have done so if they needed to.
Shreena: Brilliant. Could you talk about the third and fourth proposals for after the inspections?
Paul: Sure. The third proposal is linked to our processes for finalising inspection reports and considering any formal complaint or challenge before the report is finalised and published on our website. As we show in our published annual report and accounts document, the vast majority of our inspections do not lead to a formal complaint from providers and these reports are published promptly. We often receive requests from providers for the report to be published as soon as possible, so they can celebrate and share the positive outcomes of their inspection. However, we know that in some cases providers want to formally challenge the inspection findings, and we'll continue to consider these complaints thoroughly before we finalise and publish their report. We're proposing two new routes that providers can follow when they get their draft report. First, if a provider wants to highlight minor points of clarity or factual accuracy, we will consider these promptly and finalise the inspection report. We expect the vast majority of providers to follow this route, allowing reports to be published quickly for the benefit of providers, parents and other service users. However, if providers choose this route, they’ll not normally have an opportunity later to raise a formal complaint or challenge. Alternatively, if a provider wants to seek a review of their inspection findings and judgments, they can submit a formal complaint. As now, if a complaint is submitted, it'd be investigated by a member of Ofsted staff independent of the inspection. We also propose that this investigation in future includes a telephone call to the provider to explore their concerns fully and resolve issues quickly. An investigation could result in no changes to the report, changes to the report text or perhaps the grades awarded, or the inspection being deemed to be incomplete and confirmation that there'll be a further visit to gather additional evidence. We also intend to revise complaints outcome letters to be clearer for providers about the reasons for the decisions we've made. Taken together, we feel that these proposals - the two on inspection and the one about the post inspection approaches - if agreed, will help us achieve that right first time approach to inspections that we want and will strengthen current arrangements on handling complaints about our work. Our fourth proposal is to remove the current internal review step in our complaints process. This step is a review, by Ofsted, on how we handled the original complaint and is not a reinvestigation of the issues raised. Also under our current process, this step must be completed before a complainant can contact the independent adjudicator, known as ICASO, to ask for an independent review of how their complaint was handled. To help reduce the burden on providers, we propose that if complainants are concerned that we have not followed our complaints handling process correctly, they can raise it directly with ICASO. Instead of the current escalated levels of review, Ofsted will therefore consider any formal complaint only once and thoroughly. We also propose to introduce period reviews of how we handle complaints about inspection and to do this, we'll take a sample of closed cases and submit them to a panel of external reviewers, including representatives from the sectors that we inspect. The panel can provide challenge and transparency on how we've handled complaints about our work that will then feed into future improvements. So those are the four proposals.
Shreena: How can people respond to this consultation and when is the deadline?
Paul: All the details of the consultation are available on the Ofsted website, including the link to the online form. We’ve already had more responses than we did when we last consulted on post-inspection arrangements in 2020. Also, responses so far across all inspection remits have provided broad support for all of the proposals. We’re really keen to receive as many responses as possible. And it's for that reason that the consultation period is much much longer than in 2020. We started in mid-June, well before the summer break, and mindful of summer closures for some providers, the consultation is remaining open until Friday the 15th of September, a few weeks into the new academic year. So, plenty of time for people to submit a response if they'd like to do so.
Shreena: Thanks, Paul. It's really good news that we've had so many responses so far. Do you know when we will respond to the consultation and when you’ll have reviewed all the responses?
Paul: With the consultation closing on the 15th of September, we'll be reviewing all of the responses received well into the autumn, including all of the free text comments that are submitted through to us. This feedback will help form our decisions on the new processes and how we handle complaints about our work going forward. In due course, as we did in 2020, we will publish a report on our website with the outcome of the consultation, including setting out next steps that we’ll be taking as a result.
Shreena: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Paul. So just to remind our listeners the closing date for the consultation is Friday the 15th of September. We will put a link to the consultation in the summary of this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss the next one, please subscribe and leave us a rating wherever you get your podcasts.
One of Ofsted's key strategic priorities acknowledges the relationship between early childhood experiences and a range of life outcomes, from educational success to well-being and good health. Read more here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-strategy-2022-to-2027
Shreena
I'm Shreena Kotecha, welcome everyone to the Ofsted podcast. This time we're talking about the best start in life. Just start with a few introductions first introduction is the new co host on the podcast Mark Leech, who is acting director strategy and engagement.
Mark Leech
Hello, I'm stepping into Chris Jones's shoes. And part of that is to join the podcast, which is very exciting. And we have two special guests from outside Ofsted. We have Molly Devlin, who is headteacher at ARK Start in West London.
Molly Devlin
Hi, thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to join you.
Shreena
And we have Helen Donohoe who is Chief Executive of PACEY, which stands for the professional association for childcare and early years.
Helen Donohoe
Hi, everyone, like Molly, I'm really delighted to be doing this.
Shreena
Last but not least, we have our very own Lee Owston who is Deputy Director for schools and early education. I mean, it's great topic for today, because the best start in life is one of our strategic priorities and Lee and I have had lots of lovely chats about it. Lee do you want to say a quick hello?
Lee Owston
Hello, everyone. Good to be here. Good to have a conversation with Helen and Molly as well.
Shreena
Shall we start with like a really sort of easy question in a way? Which is why do we think it's so important for children to have a high quality early education? Molly, do you want to start because you'd nodded enthusiastically?
Molly
I'm absolutely enthusiastic about this. I think there's no lack of evidence and research that early education is one of the most important things for children to have, so that they have the opportunity to thrive. But more than that, it's not just about education, right? It's about being able to fully participate in our democratic society. And it starts with our youngest children, actually, what we know is that it starts in the womb. And that early years is not the only factor in ensuring that children have the best start in life. But it is the factor that Helen and I have clearly chosen to be incredibly passionate about and dedicate our lives to.
Helen
Yeah, I mean, I fully endorse what Molly said, it's a universal understanding that the earlier we can, we can start with the next generation, the better. And as Molly said, it's not just about linguistics, or numeracy or those important things we need, but it's about the person, that that child and eventually that young person will become, and allowing them to make the get the best out of their life and and the best contribution to their communities. It's also about safety. Sometimes we forget, you know, I think in an ideal scenario, every child would get along to their kind of childcare, early education setting of choice and have a brilliant, fulfilled, experience. But sometimes it's it's around kind of let's see the children, let's let's be aware of the children in our communities and make sure we're keeping them safe as well.
Mark
I think we early on, we've kind of touched on something that has always interested me, when I was at nursery, way back in the 1970s, we called it play school. And that was a really interesting formulation of of words, right? Because it cuts to a debate that I think runs through early years and still runs through early years in the balance between children being taught children being educated and children playing and exploring their surroundings and sort of learning as they they go. And I just wanted to touch on that. Because I think it's interesting, obviously, for people who work in the sector, I think it's also something that parents think about when they're when they're looking at nurseries for their kids. What what what sort of environments is it going to be? How much are they going to learn and develop? And what sort of play experiences they're going to have? I wonder whether Helen and Molly, you wanted to talk a bit about a bit about that.
Molly
I think there's quite a controversial debate around sort of explicit facilitated teaching, and what is play and I think, really, they're so intertwined, that you can't pull them apart in any thoughtful way. Because what we know is that to use resources, well, thoughtfully, and with purpose, that actually the adult takes the role of the facilitator there. And there are some resources where you need to do more of that facilitation at the forefront. And there are some resources where you may do that facilitation in the middle, or when you can see that they're, you know, coming up to a problem. A great example of that is watercolour paints. So I was in one of our nurseries last week. And actually, it's really frustrating to use a watercolour paint set if you don't know the rules for how to use watercolours. If you don't know that you need a wet paintbrush, and actually, you probably need to make 10, 15 circles so that the paint is opaque enough to then be able to see it on your blank sheet of paper. That is a really unfulfilling resource, however, a little bit of teaching, facilitating at the beginning on how to use that resource successfully. It gives children more independence as they go through that play and practice of using those paints. And it's then that you might choose to step away and observe and think and if they have a problem with that you might jump in, or you might not. Because you might be interfering. And it's all about having really, really attuned practitioners who know their unique children, and can make thoughtful choices about now. Not now. If it is now, what are you going to do? How are you going to support them? Is it enough to just say, it is tricky? How could we solve this problem? Do you have any ideas?
Mark
That's really interesting. Thank you, Helen, do you?
Helen
Well, I think there's two things here. First of all, we devalue play. Let's remember, play is a wonderful thing in its own right. And we've become so prescriptive around what early education should be, notwithstanding the fact that we have a world class EYFS curriculum. I had a catch up with some colleagues in Singapore earlier today who want to learn from us and they basically plagiarised our curriculum. So, you know, it's, it's important to remember that we are world leaders in that, but we devalue play. And I think as part of that we just we take on a too narrow definition of education, because education is, is just everyday life, isn't it? You know, it's from the spectrum of getting up in the morning to doing an open university course. But I was at my eldest daughter's school graduation yesterday. 16 just finished her GCSEs, you know, at the other end of the spectrum, and every brilliant teacher that stood up from that from the person in charge of welfare through to the head teacher talked about lifelong learning. And this isn't where education stops. This is, you know, and there's exactly the same applies to to youngest children. And some of the children that will learn most are those that don't have that that privileged life outside the setting. And that, you know, they will learn to live, communicate, apply themselves, and give give themselves almost unconsciously the ability to take on the more elements of pedagogy further down the line.
Molly
And it doesn't stop. Right, exactly, because we know we gave our practitioners that opportunity to play. You know, as part of our PD, you're also playing with different ideas about how to interact with children, how to facilitate learning, we're constantly playing with ideas about how to change curriculum, to see what works well, and that is play-based learning, it might have slightly more structure around it. But we all have as adults, the freedom to play and try things out for the first time. And you know, we should be giving that opportunity and that freedom to our children.
Shreena
It's not just about ideas, either. I mean, I'm genuinely quite addicted to playing with my three year olds train set. It's just a pretty good piece of kit.
Lee
What we were saying earlier is the long running debate, isn't it? And so in terms of teaching play, what should early education look like? And actually, you know, I wrote a report a long time ago now in terms of Ofsted history called ‘Teaching and play a balancing act’ to try and ensure that we did have the debate, and we did try and get somewhere along that journey. And I think interesting what you just said there, Shreena, I think, often we have a debate about well, what do we mean by teaching and teaching can be a bit of a dirty word, sometimes in in some kind of settings, because it brings connotations of desks, and pencils and paper, and you know, that can be teaching. But that isn't the only definition of teaching. And I think sometimes it's easier to think about teachers not being the only people that can teach, because I think already Molly and Helen have used lots of other words, practitioners, we could use educators, we could say parents, you know, it's anybody that that allows us to, or helps us to learn on our on our journey, whether we're children or adults. And I'd say obviously, parents are a child's first educator, are educators. And they teach every day they just don't realise they're doing it, or they haven't got a particular qualification. None of us do in terms of parenting, or teaching qualification. But essentially, I just boil it down to kind of interactions. And that's a very simplistic view, but it's whether, you know, is it an informal interaction? Is it a more formal interaction? Does it involve resources or not? Is it kind of incidental or is it is it planned? And ultimately, we always end up at the point of saying, it's what's needed in terms of, you know, what, what a child is interested in what it is that they need to learn next? And obviously, then finding the best way of that particular child or group of children learning whatever it is that we have have in mind for them? So I think, kind of essentially where where we all are with the debate, I don't think we ever have an argument about education is important or not, I think that is something that we're all kind of united on, we're not short of any research evidence to prove that point. But the interesting debate is, what are others see the purpose of early education being? I think that's where your question was going Shreena around, you know, so what is it the parents want? And actually it will be different depending on individual parents circumstances won’t it, and I think the more we can do is to unpick the importance of what happens in earlier education establishments, whether that's pre school, whether, that's nursery or reception classes in school, with parents, you know, it's not there's not something kind of hidden that they don't understand it is. It is what they're doing at home, it's just that in settings, we have more resources, we have people, people who are kind of framed in terms of the right kinds of interaction. But that doesn't mean that what parents are doing at home is, is wrong, or that or the wrong thing.
Molly
What I can say about the parents that we have in settings, and actually, every single parent that I've engaged with, is that they want the best for their children, and all parents that I have ever met, want their child to succeed. And if for them, that looks like more care than education, that's because they believe that that's what's right for their child. And I think that's just such a fantastic starting point, that you can work on parent engagement on parents support, and, you know, work alongside each unique family, because different families are coming into education at such different points. If you've had your own personal experiences with education, that have been negative, or very compliance based, and actually you find speaking to an educational professional to be quite intimidating, then we owe it to those families to give their children just as much access to high quality education, as families who are coming and going, ‘I know exactly what the developmental milestones are, I know what early learning goal is, I want my child to succeed and be really academic’. Right? So it's about having a really open door policy, I think, and being willing to meet people and conversations, making it really non judgmental, and, and asking, you know, what do you want for your child? What are your aspirations? How can we help you with that in a way that empowers parents to feel like the best parent that they can be, and that they can teach their child and that they can play an active part in that, rather than unnecessarily engaging them in a care versus education debate. They're not thinking about that. They're thinking about their child, and what they want for them.
Helen
I'm gonna challenge you on that a bit, though, Molly,
Molly
Go ahead!
Helen
They’re parents that are through your door.
Molly
And you know what, you're right. It's subconscious bias there, because those are the parents that I've engaged with. And they've chosen to send their child to a nursery. Yeah, yeah. You know, so there is always going to be that bias. And that is why I can only speak from my experience. Yeah.
Helen
Not just that – they sought out your really good provision, you're really, you know, top of the range provision, and that we have no sense. I used to be a parent governor at North Islington nursery school. And they did some fantastic work, we did some fantastic work around outreach and going out to communities that simply were not going anywhere near because that is perceived as a middle white middle class, baby yoga, etc, etc. And we did some brilliant work outreach we there was a lot, there was a kind of a time where we had lots of Somali refugees, and do some brilliant work with that community. But it didn't reach everybody by any means. But it was a really pro-active piece of work. And I just think we don't have a sense of those people that aren't, you know, the ones that are that see the value and want to engage in the value, whether it's care, whether it's pedagogy.
Mark
That's a really important point isn't I mean, I suppose it boils down childhood’s not a level playing field and different parents will have different approaches and continue to emphasise. And I think I think you see the government trying to do it emphasise the importance of getting children into into early education. But you're, you're right, Helen, how do we how do we reach out to people and demonstrate that it's for them, and there are going to be different circumstances? And of course, cost and other things come into it. And then of course, there's there's a decision to be made about, do they use a child minder, do they go for a nursery? And that's a different approach. And I don't know whether it's worth exploring that a little more. And you know, what sort of expectations we put in on childminders and on nurseries and how they differ, I mean, obviously, we can talk from an Ofsted point of view, but But more generally, Helen and Molly, what what you think about that.
Molly
Think in terms of the expectations that we have for our nurseries, it's about really working with our families, to help them understand what we are, what we do, how we can support their child, how we can support them as a family, while having I think realistic expectations about what different ratios mean, what different care looks like for different age groups, and the different things that we can reasonably expect of our practitioners and our workforce, knowing that they have a huge amount of responsibility, and then not necessarily being paid in line with teaching staff in schools. So really protecting our staff while prioritising the best things for our children. So you know, when we're thinking about workload, I know that many, many nurseries and many parents really enjoy constant regular photo observations of their children. But what we know is that that's really high workload. And actually, often that takes away from the lived experience of interactions in that room. So by setting those expectations really clearly from the forefront, about what we've prioritised to make sure our children have the best experience. Parents know what they're going to get coming through the door that they you know, they can buy into a vision, while also understanding that actually, they may not have this constant interaction, but that's for the best for their child.
Helen
In some ways. The more we try and make this tangible, the more we lose the value because I remember again this is personal experience, but I remember when we chose a childminder for my two daughters when they were little. I mean she she had a good Ofsted rating but that didn't really you know, as long as she was registered and good, it was fine. What she offered more was the chemistry when we went through that door. And the and the clear love she was able to give to the children she took care of. Didn't have the biggest house they had a two bedroom flat above a shop in where we lived. But we instantly knew and my daughters absolutely adored her. And she sort of became part of the family. And I think that's the that's the wider piece that we do in early years is that part of the family support. They're not just the children. Childminders, do offer, you know, they offer the education and the Ofsted rating means really is a value to them, and they really value it. But very often they do offer that kind of family support as well. Look, if Mum has financial difficulties looking for work, mental health, this really came to light during the pandemic. And that going the extra mile out of out of standard hours, overnight stays, respite care, particular help for children with development delay, post pandemic, which, you know, we know is is a huge issue, it's hard to quantify, it's hard to really kind of pin down the enormous value of colleagues in the sector.
Shreena
I was gonna ask something which is off on a slightly different track, which is partly inspired by my six year old who was very bitter when his free flow periods were reduced on year one, which is basically about the transition between early education and year one, education education, if you like, and what you think best practices around that, what you've seen works well?
Molly
It's up to schools to decide how they would like to deliver that national curriculum, right. And what we know, around pedagogy is that you can meet the same end points, but you can choose the how, you know how we support children to get there. And there are still many, many opportunities within that year when national curriculum to have more structured opportunities to play and investigate. Maps is a fantastic example. You know, when we're thinking about aerial maps, you can go on a treasure hunt, and create your own maps that replicate your school grounds. And you're able to do that in a really playful and joyful way, while still meeting those aerial map national curriculum statements. Another one is investigating with materials. I think, you know, it's very likely that Helen’s done the same as me, both Helen and I can remember very clearly sitting around that water tray and going oh, yeah, you're right. It's cardboard, so it has absorbed all the water and then sunk. Perhaps that's not the best material to make your you know, your boat out of, maybe we should try something different. And you're doing those same curriculum statements, but a little bit more depth than them. In the national curriculum in year one, there's every opportunity to build in those interactions, to find those playful moments, to support children with that transition, where they don't have that real kind of unreasonable, unjust feeling that those free flow opportunities have been taken away from them. That's not to say that play isn't a real skill. And I don't think that we can underestimate the difficulty of doing play well, all of the practitioners that run play based settings be that nurseries, reception classes in year one, you know, and in some schools where they choose to have more playful learning across Key Stage two, that takes a huge amount of skill. And it is not something that a school can choose to undertake, without a huge amount of professional development that goes alongside it to make sure that we're doing it in a really thoughtful way. But I think, you know, schools really can feel empowered to make those choices. As long as it's backed in the curriculum. It's considered around child development and they're making sure they're putting all of those steps in the way that we do in nurseries to make sure that our play is working through thoughtful thorough formative assessment.
Lee
I mean, all transition’s tricky, isn't it? Whatever age we’re talking about but particularly so because there is, and we've kind of acknowledged this over time, there is a disconnect between kind of the early years foundation stage framework, and then what the national curriculum says in year one. And strangely, they were never written at the same time, and they're never updated at the same time. So, one is always kind of ahead or behind the other in terms of, you know, the expectations. So there is, there is some overlap and repetition, particularly in particularly in year one. Our position is obviously, as I alluded to earlier, that as long as you are choosing the right things for children to learn, then actually it is the decision of the individual teacher or team in terms of how best you know, what pedagogical strategy or approach to use to ensure that children learn that in the best possible way so that they know, they remember it and that they enjoy their experience. Of course, we know there are some kinds of ’best bets’ aren't there. So depending on what it is you want children to learn, we all know that there are better ways of doing some things than than others. But actually, there are still choices. And ultimately, as an inspector, I'll be interested in the choices that the different schools and teachers and leaders have made, and having a conversation around why they've decided to do it that way versus another. That doesn't mean I'm coming with a notion in the back of my head of how it should be done, and that's what I'm holding you against. And I think that's often what people think we do do. Okay, I'm coming in knowing that, you know, x has to be taught in a particular way, when actually it is about a conversation. However, you know, I will be kind of remiss of me not to say, you know, there are some things that you do have to teach, and you have to teach in some form of a direct way. So, I'm talking about reading, particularly at this point in time, you will not learn to read through a play based approach, you can potentially practice your reading through a play based approach, but in terms of actually learning, you know, the letters and the sound correspondences that just has to be taught in in some way. And again, it's coming back to a comment I made earlier around the role of parents because I think none of us would expect children to kind of just pick up through play, you know, their colours, or their numbers, or shapes. But we actually teach that by kind of pointing things out on a on a walk through the park or wherever, when we're in the car, we say, oh, look with the sign, you know, the circle, the sign’s a circle, or it's a triangle. That’s teaching, that’s direct teaching, because we are seeing how have you noticed that that is a…? Insert the insert the right vocabulary. So I think it comes back to the debate about teaching versus play. And depending on where you are on the school, and a hierarchy, or certainly as we progress up through school, what balance you have between the two, but it is a tension. And it's one that we're hoping to get underneath a little bit more as an organisation over the autumn term, particularly that that transition from reception into year one.
Mark
Just wanted to come back a bit to something that Helen touched on around the work of the sector during the pandemic, which was obviously hugely challenging time and some great work was done. And at the time, we did some, some background work. We weren’t out inspecting, but we were doing some research work on what was going on in the sector. And certainly looking at early years. One of the big things that we were picking up on was the impact on on socialisation and the fact that obviously, children were were cooped up at home, and they weren't interacting with people, any people really other outside of their immediate family in the way that they might otherwise do. Obviously, we're a little bit down the road now. And I guess there are different new cohorts of children coming through who aren’t as, who weren't around, so weren’t affected in quite the same way. So I wonder if you’d talk a bit about where we are now in terms of that kind of COVID legacy, but also what you think the sector learnt from from from that time?
Helen
The whole pandemic for our members, about 15,000 members, majority of which are childminders, but practitioners across the sector. It was a dreadful time, not only personally for them, but for the children that they care about so much. It was a period of firefighting and survival. And I think we just we've not even begun to understand that post traumatic reaction to that. And I don't think that's an exaggeration. The other thing - I mean this is about the practitioners rather than the children but that's it really underlying the sense that they feel undervalued and under acknowledged so while you're clapping on doorsteps for you know health practitioners, etc, etc. They felt that they were always last to be considered whether it’s protection or financial support, etc, etc. That will have an effect on on the service they provide because they're exhausted I'm sure you can talk about it more directly. Scared, still getting on the bus every day to go to work, not able to wear protection in the workplace because obviously working with young children, yeah, and scared for their families at home. So, you know, really, really tough experience and a sense that it's not been acknowledged. And although we do have some initiatives within the stronger practice hubs, etc, not really been fully acknowledged the role that they played through the crisis and I hope it gets picked up in the inquiry, actually, I have raised this. And the children we know, this is anecdotal, we've not got kind of in depth data on this. But we know from our members that children are really … the ones that are born during the pandemic, only seeing, like you say, Mark, one or two adults, if that, in their own home, are now going into settings and starting that journey. And we're noticing huge differences in their, in their attachment issues, etc. Now, I'll hand over to Molly, because I'm sure she's got much more direct experience with that.
Molly
And I think I'll start with the children who, who were in settings during the pandemic, and talking about their journey. So as part of my role of Ark Start, I work with Ark schools, which has many, many schools in London, Birmingham, Portsmouth, and Hastings. And we are watching those cohorts going through school. And what's really standing out is that lack of time and support to develop those primaries of learning that are social communication. So we're not just talking about vocabulary, but we're talking about how you can use vocabulary to express yourself well and thoughtfully and kindly, empathy and prosocial behaviour, that regulatory skills around their executive functions, they still haven't been able to close those gaps. So those cohorts are going through and finding changes in routine, they're finding transitions, and they're finding, you know, the expectations put on them to be incredibly difficult. And I don't think we can undervalue how that stress, stress fills your body with cortisol. So when you're stressed, you actually learn less. So they are under stress with delays, and learning less making less progress because of that. So you can you can really see in those cohorts who had such a disjointed beginning of early education experience, how much that that has affected them going through the school. And really with those cohorts, the lessons learned is - don't rush through those primaries of learning. Because those specific areas of learning come when you are secure in those primes when you're secure in your well being. You know, you can use the Leuven scales to really track whether it's a child - and a grown up - is feeling happy, safe, secure, able to explore. And until we've got high levels of well being, high levels of involvement, and you know, that ability to live within either you know, your family home, your wider setting, in the park with friends, nursery, or you know, your reception class, sharing your space, sharing your resources, sharing your time, you know, you really aren’t able to build on that learning to become a fluent reader. And I think we've been able to use that learning in the nurseries and in the schools to really drive what we know, is important in our early education, so that by the time our children are in school, we know that they've got all of the knowledge and skills that they need to not just be ready, but to be ready to thrive.
Lee The beauty of an inspection framework that focuses on curriculum is that actually it gives permission to kind of slow down the progress to whatever it is that you have planned. So that, you know circumstances, such as a pandemic, and let's hope we don't go through another one anytime soon. It gives us the permission to practitioners to say well actually, this is why our curriculum used to look like but this is what it needs to look like now, or actually, it's the same curriculum, but we need to over emphasise these bits of it, or we need to slow down our progress through these elements of it. As Molly said, you know that the prime areas, it's it's trying to reassure people that we do not have a rigid set view of what the curriculum should be other than the educational programmes in the EYFS. But actually, it's an interest in why you're doing it that way. Why are you spending more time on this than that. And again, increasingly, given the context that we're working in, that's because we do know, children are you know, they have particular delays more so than in the past. So, again, as always, my job in terms of in terms of Ofsted is to reassure people that, you know, from from our perspective, don't feel that we're expecting anything in particular, other than the minimum expectations that are set out in the EYFS. There is still a long way to go for lots of children, you know, this isn't, this isn't something that can be fixed within what, a month, a year, two years plus, this is something that's gonna take a long time to work through, particularly when the very youngest children have missed out on some important developmental milestones. Because until you add those, it's impossible to you know, it's like building on sand isn't it? It’s impossible to kind of build something from that point until it's until those elements are secure. We've never had a strategic priority that is that is focused just on one particular age group. But we do now and obviously our strategy will last us from from kind of now up to 2027. And it's not just about I suppose curriculum, we are looking at everything that we think can contribute to that best start in life. So of course, we are interested in how our practitioners are trained in the first place. So I'm working with my further education and skills colleagues about what are the qualifications like in colleges so that we have the you know, the best possible trainees and the best possible future practitioners and managers and leaders of the future.
Shreena
Thanks very much to everyone for joining us for a really interesting podcast, thank you to Molly, thank you to Helen, our very own Mark and Lee, and see you another time.
One of the talks from our FES team at this year's Festival of Education which was held at Wellington College in July.
SPEAKERS
Becca Clare, Martin Ward, Mike Finn from the Further Education and Skills team at Ofsted.
High quality curriculum and teaching in Further Education and Skills.
I'm Becca Clare, and I have with me two colleagues, Martin Ward, and Mike Finn, and we all work within the FES part of the curriculum unit in Ofsted. We're going to tell you a little bit about our work within Ofsted, some of the work that we're doing looking at high quality curriculum and pedagogy. And we're starting to do work at the moment where we're researching what high quality curriculum looks like in Further Education and Skills providers in a range of subjects. We're currently focusing on a particular number of subjects that include business education, Martin, here is our curriculum lead for Business Education, Human Resources, Mike is our curriculum lead for human resources, but also Construction and Engineering employability programmes, ESOL, and software development and further education skills initial teacher education. So those are our initial wave of subjects. And when we're looking at how a curriculum is designed, we're looking at high quality teaching and wider processes and policies that support high quality education with a focus on those particular subjects. And we'd be really - this is a very genuine invitation - we'd be very delighted to hear from you, if you or your colleagues are working on curriculum design or pedagogy in those areas, in particular, and you'd like to share your ideas. So when we're out and about at events like this at conferences, we usually do get people who contact us afterwards and say, How can we be involved in this work. And we'd very much like to hear from you, if you think it's something that you'd be interested in doing. We may well go on and look at further subjects in due course as well.
So we're not we're not stopping there. So what we do is, essentially, what we're doing is we're drawing on the research and principles that underpin the education inspection framework. And looking at how the that research and those principles apply to a range of subjects in Further Education and Skills. We're drawing on that research, we're drawing on our expert working groups that we have around each of the subjects that we're looking at. And we'll be producing in the autumn, a series of publications in November, that look at those subjects in particular. And then in the last week of November, we're going to have a conference session in Birmingham on the 29th of November. Further details will be released soon. So I'm going to pass over to my colleague, Martin, who's going to talk about the content of the curriculum curriculum intent, in other words.
So what are we looking at in our work? A big focus for us is what constitutes a high quality curriculum in each subject to the further education context. And as you know, the education inspection framework, or EIF, focuses on the curriculum. And our view is that the curriculum is at the heart of good education. We don't specify what a given curriculum should look like. But our research underpinning the EEIF highlights a range of principles, which we in the curriculum unit are applying to a range of subjects and contexts in our work, you will know that the EIF focuses on curriculum intent, implementation, and impact. And intent is really two things, the content of the curriculum and the way it's sequenced or ordered. It's important that the curriculum content is ambitious, and providers need to have high expectations for learners and apprentices. And this doesn't necessarily mean a curriculum that's very broad, although it might be. But what it does mean is that the curriculum should focus on the most useful the most powerful knowledge and skills that experts agree are key in each context. In any subject, it's likely to be the principles and skills that really form the foundation of a subject. The things that our learner or apprentice needs to know if they are to develop expertise, rather than just operate within the confines of a narrow role. And it's crucial that the current current curriculum content is sequenced or ordered in a way that enables learners and apprentices to make good progress in understanding and skills from their starting points. So if the right foundations are laid, other knowledge and skills can be slotted in over time. So curriculum leaders need to give thought to the components of complex composite tasks, and plan a logical order in which to teach the components. And in the next two slides, we'll look at some examples of good quality curriculum content and sequencing within specific subjects. So here are a few examples within business education, we'll undoubtedly look at models and theories to explain the complex reality in which business operates. But in a high quality curriculum, not only will these models and theories be taught well, but through the curriculum learners will be taught about the nature of these models and their purpose, and that they are often an abstraction from reality, often holding some values constant, whilst trying to explain the impact of another value. Say, for example, in business, you might refer to the tendency for higher interest rates to reduce inflation, but also in a high quality curriculum realise that because of other impacts of costs of wages, or raw material costs, that this might not be immediately apparent in the real world. So getting an understanding of the value of models and theories across the business education curriculum. And in joinery and carpentry, this curriculum is often viewed from the perspective of practical competencies. There's nothing wrong in that at all. But the really powerful knowledge might also include an understanding of how wood grows, how this affects its qualities, and its strengths, its malleability. And therefore, although this is rarely taught, it is powerful knowledge, and certainly something that a master joiner would understand. And within employability programmes when developing professional behaviours, it's important to plan a wide selection of these behaviours and place important features like attendance and punctuality within a broader, ambitious context. And something that is something for all employees to embrace, and not just those at the start of their employment route. The same with careers advice and guidance, the curriculum should build to provide a big and extensive picture about the potential for a career for the potential for the learner over time, and not simply a narrow view of what employment might offer the learner at a single point in time at the beginning of their career. And within HR, within learning and development, an ambitious approach to teaching and the topic of training and development would be through teaching learners to understand Evidence Based Learning Theories before they consider how people learn at work, or start to develop training programmes in the workplace. Therefore, apprentices can draw upon evidence to understand what effective training and learning programmes look like. Apprentices should understand which theories are supported by research, as well as the limitations of those theories that lack credible evidence to support them. For example, learners who are taught about cognitive approaches to learning are more likely to consider effective pedagogy when developing training programmes. They can focus on strategies that are designed to improve an employee's ability to remember the content they're trained to understand, such as through repetition and retrieval practice over time, to embed topics in their long term memory. They may also think about designing training around what employees already know, so that employees are able to learn new material by linking this with what they have previously been taught. Whereas a less ambitious curriculum may focus on things like theories of learning styles, there isn't sufficient evidence to show the effectiveness of learning styles theory, and where learning styles are taught, inspectors should check that learners are aware of the criticisms of these theories and the potential lack of impact going forward. And within ITE or initial teacher training, the curriculum can be planned to demonstrate and explain the importance of subject specific pedagogy. For example, the teaching methods and types of resources that you should use in modern foreign language maybe be very different from those approaches in design technology. And it's also important particularly in apprenticeships, that where there is a highly practical curriculum that the underpinning knowledge and principles are taught so that learners and apprentices can apply their techniques better and understand how to adapt them to a range of different situations or customers. So as well as the curriculum content, we also need to make sure that the curriculum is sequenced in logical ways. And it may be different ways of sequencing in different subjects. So for example, in business education, it's really important that the constituent parts of a complex topic are taught in that particular order. So when teaching about the marketing mix, for instance, it's important that you look at the elements of pricing, product, place and promotion, before looking at the complex idea of marketing strategy. And also in ESOL, the sequencing of the curriculum and trying to get the right balance between the importance of particular settings, but also in making sure that learners understand the principles that underlie their long term learning of the language. And within the future of teacher education, it might be that the sequencing there rather than sequencing from topic to topic is actually a spiral curriculum where you have to address a range of different topics, and then go back again, and look at them in more depth over time, because in the teaching, teachers are already in the classroom. So they need to have a good understanding of a range of topics just to get started in the classroom. And then you can return to those topics in more depth to improve the quality over time.
There are also different types of knowledge, knowing that something, knowing how something works, and knowing when to use something. And it may well be that in some subjects, the sequencing of that knowledge over time is a valid and important approach. So for instance, in business, it's very important to know about stock control theories, to know how to use a stock control theory, and more importantly, knowing when to use it, to make sure that your business works efficiently. A particular challenge within further education is for apprenticeships, and sequencing off and on the job training. And what we find is that in high quality apprenticeships, the links with the employer mean that the off the job training is sequenced well and, and is taught before the apprentice goes on to the the factory floor, and actually uses that skill and knowledge in the place. And finally, in subjects like construction and hospitality and care. It's really important to teach about the primacy of health and safety. And that that is taught early in the course, but then also revisited over time to make sure that that learning is reinforced, as different contexts are met by the apprentice. So that's looking at the content and the sequencing. And Mike is now going to look at implementation.
Thank you. Yes, I'm going to be looking at curriculum implementation and what we mean by implementation is effective teaching, and effective assessment. Effective Teaching means focusing learners and or apprentices attention on the knowledge content, and helping them to remember it longer term. A key consideration is whether apprentices or learners are novices or experts. This distinction is actually more relevant than age. Research shows that novices need more instructional teaching about new content before they're able to use or apply this information to situations or case studies. However, for experts, teaching is more effective if experts get a chance to use the knowledge that they've already obtained and apply this to case studies, simulations, or situations. Now in Further Education and Skills, we naturally encounter a wide range of teaching approaches, from one to one sessions, through to university style lectures on the job demonstrations, classroom seminars, or sessions in a workshop. What's most important and essentially in all cases, the key question we will want to explore is, did the teaching methods used help learners to make progress through the curriculum? We've seen some good examples for instance of teachers using realistic hospital ward environments and medical dummies to teach nursing associate apprentices how to use the equipment they will need at work. In addition, we've seen effective practice in level two functional skills maths, where learners work through problems quietly with an expert teacher, consolidating their understanding of ratio, and proportion so that they can work out recipe quantities in their catering courses. Looking at assessment, we look to see whether assessment is being used in ways that help learners to make progress. Does assessment help teachers to spot gaps and misconceptions in learners knowledge? And where those gaps and misconceptions are identified? Do they use this information to take action to close gaps in knowledge or to correct misconceptions? Do teachers use assessment to adjust teaching or future teaching? For example, particular topics where reteaching might be required, or where particular learners may need further support and guidance? Do teachers assess what learners know and can do at the start of their courses? We know that learners can only learn new material if it's linked to what they already know. So looking at high quality teaching, teaching as a profession is evidence based, as for example is medicine. Evidence based approaches help learners to make progress. Cognitive Science is evidence based. It helps us to understand how to teach learners so they remember what they have been taught. Evidence based teaching is not about doing action research. It's about using what's already been credibly researched. Pedagogy and assessment should be driven by curriculum content. As Martin has pointed out, teachers should select high quality, ambitious content that will help learners to succeed on their course, and importantly beyond into their future career. As pointed out, this current curriculum content needs to be sequenced logically, so learners can build upon what they are learning. Our short term memories can become overloaded. Learners therefore need time to transfer what they are learning to their long term memory. This will then free up working memory to take in new information. So chunking information, and then using specific techniques that transfer information into long term memory is useful. So there's a range of particularly well researched, and evidence based teaching practices that I'm gonna go through with a couple of examples. Firstly, interleaving. This is where learners are learning multiple concepts or skills. This is different to blocking where you may, for example, teach one topic thoroughly, and ensure learners mastered this before moving on. So I'm gonna give you an example from mathematics, calculating volumes of different shapes alternating between these and revisiting. The calculations themselves differ. But all of those are similar enough to be interleaved. They're all types of calculating volumes. Another effective technique in terms of boosting memory is using spaced retrieval or spaced repetition. This focuses on teachers getting learners to retrieve what they have learned before, as that whole process of retrieving what you have learned helps to build your memory. Think about this though as pulling information out, rather than teachers cramming information in. So methods such as low stakes testing, quizzes, or setting questions from earlier lessons, or topics in the programme can be particularly effective here. So retrieval practice is most effective when you get learners to do something with the information rather than repeating the teaching. Another effective practice is dual coding. This is where you combine text and images or diagrams on resources. We know that visuals are powerful for communicating complex ideas in an efficient way. It takes a great many words to describe the simplest of images. less effective teaching may overly focus on strategies that are not backed by sufficient evidence. For example, selecting learning strategies to meet all learners learning styles. Teaching in essence, should focus on experts teaching content, it's important to note we learn what we pay attention to. Therefore, it is important that learning methods do not distract from learning. If, for example, there are too many social demands, attached to a task say for a group of novices, group work or presenting their ideas back, learners may focus on the social demands, rather than on the content they are learning. Effective in class assessment and questioning will ensure that if learners develop misconceptions or gaps in their knowledge, teachers will spot these and put them right or close any gaps in learning before they move on to something new. For apprentices, it's important for providers to ensure that on the job training is of a high quality on the job training should align well with what apprentices are being taught off the job. There should be access to useful and high quality opportunities for apprentices to put into practice, what they are learning about. Providers may want to consider who in the workplace is providing teaching or training support, and did they have the expertise they need to support apprentices. In 2022 Ofsted alongside HMIP undertook a joint review into reading education in prisons. And last week, a follow up report, reviewing the findings against last year's recommendations was published. This report has concluded while some progress has been made in meeting the recommendations set in 2022, improvements in key areas, such as screening, assessment, resourcing strategy development have been too slow. That's a really useful read if you're involved in prison education, reviewing the effectiveness of reading and the progress made in the last year. In terms of high expectations, this is demonstrated most forcibly by the study Pygmalion in the Classroom. And I'm not going to go through the full research with you now. But in essence, the research concludes that when teachers expect students to do well they do. And when teachers do not have such high expectations, performance and progress are not encouraged. So, really, teachers expectations influence performance. So what might effective practice look like in terms of high expectations? Well, teachers having high expectations about what all learners can achieve, not referring to groups as less able, more able, teachers setting ambitious goals for all learners, employers having high expectations and standards for trainees and apprentices. Teachers vary their support for learners but do not reduce the challenge for students. So for example, through avoiding differentiation by lower level outcomes. Teachers have high expectations for all including learners with special educational needs and or disabilities. There should be no limiting of the curriculum. In relation to continuing professional development, CPD, there are three particularly key areas to consider here. Firstly, that teachers remain up to date with industry practice. And this is vital for example, in engineering, understanding green developments in engineering. Training should also help teachers to maintain and update their subject knowledge. As I mentioned earlier, teaching is through expertise and therefore that's critical to effective teaching. So for example, expert teachers will provide clear explanations of content and they will ask useful questions. Third key element of effective CPD is effective training on pedagogy that considers evidence based approaches as I've discussed earlier. I'm now going to move on to look at the impact of the curriculum. First and foremost, what we're looking for when we're looking at impact is do learners make progress through the curriculum? Do they know more? And remember it? Can they do more than they could at the beginning of the programme? Do they improve their performance at work? So do apprentices gain promotions or increased responsibility? Do they achieve their qualifications? We always bear data in mind. But we will always use data to question and seek context. Where relevant do they progress to the next stage in their education successfully, including to higher education? And in some particular kinds of provisions such as high needs, we will want to know whether appropriate curricular goals such as increased independence or meeting ehcp outcomes have been met.
There are various ways you can get involved in our work, particularly if you're interested in the subjects that we've mentioned, through working groups through coming to our conferences, and through reading the publications that we're making, so do get in touch. If you think that you'd be interested in doing that.
We published an independent research report into our findings about the tutoring programme in October 22, and we will be publishing a follow-up in the autumn of 2023. Our podcast spoke to some of the teachers and the researcher involved.
Part 1 of the report can be read here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-schools-and-16-to-19-providers/independent-review-of-tutoring-in-schools-phase-1-findings
Shreena: So with us today we have two people from Bishop Thomas Grant school in Lambeth, Laura Waterman who's the assistant headteacher and Michael Todd who is deputy head. With us we also have Alan Passingham, one of Ofsted's senior research leads. So if we could start with Alan, could you tell us about overall, what you found out about the quality of tutoring?
Alan: The starting point should be to define the quality of tutoring, the purpose of the work we did needed an appropriate lens in which to kind of look at what school leaders and staff and shooters were actually doing to make sure of what is quality in that sense sort of thing. So our starting point was to go back to the literature and have a look at what that was saying you know, and from there, we've got a sense of and this is in DFE guidance as well, that there's a need for it to be bespoke, small group size is more effective. It needs to be frequent, consistent, delivered by somebody with expertise, something to lead on, because one of the things we were going to struggle with was one thing that is difficult to determine, is identifying the direct impacts of tutoring on pupils outcomes, you know, there's there's just far too much noise in schools. They will be doing lots of other interventions. There'll be routine class teaching, you know, they'll be having an effect there will be things happening outside of school that will probably be impacting on. So there's just far too much noise to identify whether a single intervention is having that kind of improvement desired. So by going back to the research, it gives us a lens to determine and give us some degree of assurance that the schools we were looking at whether they were whether they were aligned to what good quality tutoring or more effective, that there's a direct line of causation, essentially.
With that in mind, and having got that criteria together, what did we find? It was a variable picture, but one with some genuinely positive aspects, you know, so many of the schools were following the guidelines with tutoring. So it was bespoke. It was small scale one to one, or at least one to three, one to four pupils per session. It was being delivered frequently, and it was being delivered by the same tutor on a regular basis. It was fairly quick and punchy, and pupils were not on it for a very long duration.
You know, there was a good thinking around when to take pupils off, that other pupils would then get the opportunity to experience tutoring. It wasn't all positive. There were a minority of schools where it was a bit more haphazard and they weren't giving it the same level of consideration which so you did get some schools that would deliver it into a much larger group of pupils in a session so 10 to 15 pupils, which isn't bespoke, you lose that element of tutoring that I think is most important and the bespokeness of individual pupils, but also for tutors you know, they can see where a pupil may not be getting something right, almost immediately, and then can react to that and say, Okay, I can see where you're going wrong here. And do the level of scaffolding required to get the pupil back on track sort of thing. You know, so there's, there's immediacy to it. You've got a class with 10-15 pupils, it's much, much more difficult to do that, you know.
So there was there was a bit more some schools that just weren't it wasn't just quite clicking, but I don't think that was a result of them, not necessarily misunderstanding what tutoring is. The sense I got from a lot of school leaders is they wanted to make a difference for their pupils. And so their their rationale was, we need more pupils to be accessing tutoring, sort of without realising that in some ways, that dilutes the impact, because it is very specific to individual needs, small group that kind of practice you know, so, so there was a desire to make a difference there, which is which is credible, but wasn't quite working with this particular intervention.
What else did we find? Those schools that were stronger in this space had strong processes of pupil identification, so they identify pupils that had the biggest gaps in their learning, post pandemic, you know, getting those sorts they weren't necessarily just identifying a disadvantaged cohort, they were actually doing it a bit more rigorously than that to to really identify other pupils that, you know, had really suffered during the pandemic and needed that additional support. And the curriculum planing was strong, so there was good alignment between what was being delivered in in classes and what was also being delivered in tutoring so there was a moment there so when a pupil would completed their their tutoring sessions, they could then go back into the classroom and were studying the same kind of areas, you know, it wasn't they weren't going off and doing something completely different.
Teachers and their pedagogy, or tutors and their pedagogy was really important groups really considering who should be the tutors, making sure that they were getting the right people involved, and they can build strong decisions on that. Which kind of leads to the last point I think I'll make here which is a lot of leaders preferring that, do it yourself kind of model rather than going through the National tutoring programme, which which did have some barriers, you know, particularly around the workload burden of managing that and getting a specific tutor or academic mentor in post and then not always delivering on that ie the actual tutor actually arriving as expected didn't always happen. And then sometimes the quality of the tutors that they found through the national tutoring programme, were not good enough. So the decisions that a lot of leaders leaders made was, we can do this ourselves, we can find tutors to do this. Typically, it was also teachers within the school. But some schools were also looking further, such as good examples of retired teachers, you know, coming back and doing a couple of hours work a week. They've got the expertise, they've got the experience, looking at good staff that would normally be there to provide support and cover and bring in those individuals in again with qualified teachers, but not necessarily full time teachers at that point. So schools were thinking about this in various ways of how they can deliver.
Of course, the national tutoring programme features three routes, tutoring partners, active mentors, and the school-lead routes where national tutoring programme, and where schools have rebuffed elements of the national tutoring programme is largely been along the lines of the tutoring partners and academic mentors. There is very much a preference for the school-led route, managing the provision and tutors for themselves.
Shreena: Then moving on to Laura and Michael, a really simple question is how did it work in your school?
Michael: There are certainly negatives to the whole process, there are things that we find quite difficult to be able to work with and to make it work in our school but there are plenty of positives and interestingly, all the obstacles that we came through, we think have helped us form a really good package, so something positive came out of it. So when schools were closed back in 2020, we were actually approached by Talent-Ed, one of the providers and they were working to find schools, working with pupil premium students whilst they were away from school. And that funding was provided. So we did that. It was really quite difficult to do because students were already learning remotely, and to set this up and to get good attendance was really difficult. So nice idea difficult to execute. And then in November 2020 when the National tutoring programme was launched we did a trial under the sort of constraints as they were at that time, that it was tuition partners that were then leading on this.
So we did try a few groups of students with tutors who were working with us remotely. We had problems with that. It was difficult, and I think you know, a lot of these things were common to all schools who had a go to make it work because as Alan said, the need was there, the desire, the motivation, it just became quite a complicated process to make it work. We linked up with Connects Education. We had some students in small groups connecting with staff that we'd never met. So all sorts of safeguarding and quality assurance, issues with that. Students, if they've never met someone, they're not going to be as forthcoming with sharing their issues. That could work the other way as well, that somebody that they don't know they might they can connect with and may be a little more forthcoming with sharing where they're finding things difficult.
So we'd limited success with that. Interestingly at that point, we trialled our own what became school-led tutoring. We have some of our staff and were able to start working with students in small groups. And we can see well, I don't think it's a big reach to understand that concept that if you know who your tutor is, and they're working with you in the classroom that you usually work in, and there's already a connection and the expectations of how school works. So we had a lot of success with that.
When the tutoring programme changed, we could use our own staff, everything seemed to fall into place. Because we had the quality assurance, there was some training offered. We made good use of that with staff and Alan said, this was different. One of the first questions where we spoken to Alan before was how we define tuition. How is it different than a lesson? And Laura and I actually last night met with parents to launch a year 10 summer tuition programme again this year using the national tutoring programme funding and programme structure we went through the same thing with them. This idea that you've got staff here, free, they are willing, motivated, have been through the training. We understand the difference between tuition and teaching, we know the parents, know their expectations, parents are on board and that changed into a model that we did last summer, which we had huge success with. We've since done something different since September, with other yeargroups. And Laura, you probably want to here because certainly we've worked long and hard. You talked, Alan, again about the investment in schools in order to make it work. But that's so much more motivating and so much more palatable when you know you're doing this work.
Laura: We've talked as a school a lot about the buy-in from both the students, the parents, the staff, it's got to be seen as a sort of valuable time and sort of energy for all involved, really. So that's why as Michael alluded to, you know, we've met with parents, we get that buy-in from them. We've also trialled last summer which we'll be replicating with this forthcoming year 10 tutoring session, which will last for five weeks starting from from this Monday. In terms of selecting the students it's yeah, it's it's sort of it's difficult to know the right process. We've tried different things. I know last summer when we were working with the year 10s, then our current year elevens. And it was the first time that we were trialling different things. And one thing I'd say to sort of schools is is there isn't one right model and don't be afraid to sort of change. If it's not working. We've tried different things.
And we've realised quite quickly that that hasn't worked. That hasn't been the best way. But we wanted to get the scheme up and running quickly last year. So we based the selection of students on tracking data that at that point, wasn't the most up to date. We have new tracking data that was going to be out about two weeks or three weeks later, and we had a discussion whether to wait but we wanted to get this the tutoring programme up and running. So we based it on Spring Data, only to find that two or three weeks later, new data had come out and different students were then highlighted as being more in need, and the sort of timetables and the cards we give to our students with their timetable lessons on or tutoring sessions on all had to be reprinted and changed. But I mean, I suppose the basic rationale is the obvious one, we look at their performance on their on their tracking on assessments against their, you know, target grades, their end of year 10 Target grades, and that that does form a big basis of it and obviously, we look at students that are furthest away from their target grades, but I know Alan mentioned as well. We do have to factor in although it's not the the only thing but we do factor in what we call our students that have got sort of barriers to learning. I know it was mentioned sort of EAL, SEND, Pupil Premium. As a school every child has a profile and they are given a score. They get sort of certain points for different barriers to learning, potential barriers to learning. So we do sort of try and make sure that our tutoring programme also considers our sort of perhaps most vulnerable or the students that have these potential barriers to learning. And that can also you know, cover things such as sort of home factors, our school data on ethnicity and performance. That forms the premise, but alongside that is it's important to have confersations with the staff and the heads of department.
What I found with selecting the students for this summer programme that is about to start, those conversations were really important because there was some students who if we just purely based on tracking would have been selected, but upon having conversation with heads of department, they were saying useful things around what that data was based on and if it was based on an exam, that was just a particularly bad exam. I know for example, one teacher mentioned that there was one question that a few students just totally misread and therefore their tracking is kind of highlighting them as sort of below target actually, you know, we're not concerned about them and there are others who we will be more concerned on. My advice, I think, to sort of schools would be to definitely have those conversations. The teaching staff and the tutoring staff, the heads of department are obviously the specialists that know which students will be best and who will get the most out of the sessions as well.
Shreena: That's brilliant. So it's been really it's really interesting to hear the journey that your school has been on with this. I had a couple of questions...so one was about kind of how you handle that student communication, I guess, in particular, when you have to change who was getting the tutoring based on the new data? How did you kind of go about communicating that to students? And also, I guess, more generally, how did he make sure that students were kind of engaged and up for it and didn't see it as a sort of this is a punishment. This is extra school.
Laura: I think it's important that it is this sort of dynamic programme and actually students, it's is almost seen as a slight sort of sense of achievement. If they were involved in the tutoring programme and then three weeks down the line, you know, we can have a conversation with them and say, look, your data is showing that you've improved, that you don't need to attend to these sessions anymore. It's about keeping the conversation as a positive. I know, Michael, you'll agree. You know, we sort of say we had we have kids literally as we speak for the programme starting on Monday coming up to me today saying, Can I come to the English can I come to the maths tutoring session, and we've really sort of found the positive as a school where students do actually really want to get onto the programme. And I think that's because of how we, we present it to them and their parents that this is a sort of really great opportunity to fill those kinds of gaps and misconceptions they have now in year 10. And Michael sort of alluded to we do something else with your seven to nine as well.
But I think it's the way that we send that message to them and it is a rolling programme you know, once you if you're on it in the beginning, it's not that you're on it forever, it's on a need by need basis and there's a you know, a reward or a sense of achievement. If, after two or three weeks, they're told that they no longer need to attend.
Michael: I think and this maybe surprised us as well, because this came from the training, the National Tutoring Programme, were offering this idea of assessing often and giving feedback of throughout the tuition session. It was very low stakes, and students felt that they were being listened to and that they'd be given your time. So we felt very positive, from the very first 10 minutes of those tuition sessions that we started. And that carried through. We don't - Alan, you said measure the impact. It's very difficult to measure the impact in terms of data that might be generated from some assessment, but there was a clear qualitative feedback that we got immediately. And that was that the students really liked it. They liked the attention, they liked the positive messages that went home. It's time to in the year the school academic calendar that is coming straight after a big data collection for these students that are transitioning to becoming year 11s. So they're going through their data with teachers who went through the data with parents, they are trying to formulate new habits. They're making promises to themselves and making commitments and this is a really straightforward, easy, an immediate step that they can do and commit to. And we hold them to that commitment, you know, their ability to be in control of their self efficacy. To come forward for the promises. They find that to be really, really positive. I also think that the breakfast or the snack or that we offer also helped us to motivate some students to tell the rest and we shouldn't leave that out.
Yeah, when we when we sell it to them. We do give it a really hard sell. We really laid on thickly about the opportunity that they have. And that's deeply rooted in the fact that staff really care about their progress. I can see where we're struggling and as someone said there's another 25 to 30 students with you. Everybody knows how difficult that might be, the many barriers there are to students opening up as to why they are finding something difficult and for them to come back at the end of the day, although they do do that. They come back at lunchtimes. This is their opportunity and they jump for it. So we're hoping for the same thing this summer.
Laura: And I think it's worth also just in terms of I was just looking in terms of staff and I think this is also evidence that you know, sort of staff have also enjoyed running these sessions. So last year, there was 27 staff, I believe that that sort of put themselves forward to run a tutoring session. And this year we've got 29 staff that are going to be involved from Monday. You know, they're going to do it again. So, you know, I think that's testimony as well. But the staff actually really enjoyed the sessions too. They got a lot from it in terms of being able to work with smaller groups. And I know sort of when I went round and was sort of just popping my head into the tutoring sessions. It was a really nice atmosphere in the room. A lot of the time the staff sort of just slightly changed the layout of the classroom. So there was just sort of a, a couple of tables with the chairs all round or boardroom kind of style. Michael mentioned the snacks so they were there chomping away on a croissant, a pain au chocolat, and having a nice kind of conversation with the member of staff and you know, we choose the members of staff really carefully, although they do also put themselves forward and you know, our members of staff are the best placed people to run these sessions. They know the exam boards that we that we operate with. They already have relationships, albeit sometimes they might not teach the students in their tutoring sessions. They're aware of the students around the playground around the school, and those relationships are already there. But it was a really nice atmosphere when I when I went round, the sort of tutoring sessions to deliver the snacks and just see what was going on.
Shreena; Snacks sound like a really sound strategy for student engagement.
Alan; Can I add a couple of things. I think the first one was what Michael said about pupil confidence. And that is something that that came out through a number of schools that we went to where it had that that bespoke nature to it. There was that sense of Oh, this is for me. And they you know, there was that confidence because what we're getting from pupils were they found it tricky in classes. Yeah, that routine classes to put their hand up in the air. They didn't have the confidence to do that because they were afraid of getting the answer wrong. Whereas in a small group session such as this, there's a bit more security there, you know, and, and so, they were starting to find their voices and they were asking questions that they might not necessarily do so in those larger class settings. The benefit that was eventually when they went back into that class settings, they started to put their hand up and they were starting to contribute there as well. So I think that was a richness to some of the qualitative kind of responses we were getting from pupils about how they perceived that the impact and that generally it was it was positive for them and for their, learning for their confidence, for their resilience, you know, these are all valuable things.
So the tutors, the teachers that were delivering were saying exactly the same things that they could have seen growth in their pupils, you know, a couple of examples, examples that I can recall on some of the visits that I went to of, 'We weren't sure about this people we weren't, we weren't sure if this was for them. But actually, it was perfect, you know, the environment, we've seen them grow in a way that we wouldn't have seen beforehand. In some cases, it has been a case of in class a bit of a troublemaker. And that may be because they've got a bit of an audience that they can put a show on to, but in the tutoring session, they pivot and that's, that's the environment where you know, actually is really accessible for them and they benefit from that.
The other point I want to make is something that Laura mentioned about the process of adapting, and I think it was in the case of your assessment, your identification of pupils for this, but I think that the adaptation is a principle that is probably applied more generally across all aspects of school leaders coming to terms with 'what is tutoring, and how do we deliver this in our context.' So again, if we go back to the research, it's kind of it's it's small scale, but much smaller scale, research that's been completed on saying these are the things that are these are the areas where it is likely to have impact and be beneficial to people.
Current policy is being done at scale. I don't think that's ever been achieved before. So So I think part of that process and what we're learning from the research is, it's not going to necessarily look exactly like we would find in the research that already exists. This is this is new research that we're providing, where at scale and in different contexts, schools will work in different environments and have different pupils, and may need to make different decisions about how they implement it. And I think that part of that adaptation has been part of the journey that schools have been on the in the year that we've done the research you know, so you know, some are coming on board with it a little bit later than others. A lot of this has been trial be error - getting used to a new process and seeing where it lands. And that's the continuing journey. Essentially, it's kind of it's making some decisions reflecting on those and then going through a process of transformation to say, there's more that we can do here. Being adaptable, flexible in that and reflecting on your decisions within the tutoring space are actually really quite powerful and useful.
Shreena; Definitely, I was gonna ask Michael and Laura one more question about the process and things. How did it go with parents because I suppose I can see it going in two directions. Potentially, that there might be some parents who are disappointed that they feel like their child has been identified as needing extra support, and they're upset about that. And then there also might be parents who are upset because their child hasn't been identified as needing additional support and perceives it as some children are getting more than their child.
Michael: That's really interesting. Again, that's part of our process, part of our journey where we've, we're asking questions that we probably wouldn't have thought about before we run the programme, I would say we've taken great time to explain to the parents, the constraints that we have, the time that we have, and why we're doing it at this point in the academic year. We took time to explain why the numbers in classes had to be small. We took time to explain that we were using our own staff. Therefore the number of hours that we had before school and after school so we didn't upset the timetable as it is were limited, we talked about the fact that Friday afternoons weren't very popular with staff, or students, that Tuesday afternoons we have directed time, so it comes down to five days before school, and three days after school and with those constraints, when we ran it last year we tried lunchtime as well but it was too short. Students seemed to find it more of a punishment. So we've led parents through our process. I think in the first year, we would have more parents asking if can my son or my daughter also be in French, because it's great that they're in English, and maths, but there's also red on the tracker for French. And we also had, 'why have I only got history? I've got other subjects here that are also in red'. But last night we had far fewer of those requests. Every request that we get we do go back to the head of department and say is there a way we could work this out? And some staff have said, great, this is a highly motivated student, I will do another session or run some parallel groups'. But we haven't had anyone yet who has seen it as punishment.
Laura: The problem is capacity and parents and students wanting to get on to the the the tutoring sessions that they haven't got on to. And again that I think is because of the way it's kind of sold here at Bishop Thomas Grant. Got sort of English and maths but actually we want science as well. I've had a few emails today regarding can we get on to these sessions? It's got to be kept - for it to be having the impact that's that's desirable - is the group sizes have got to be kept, let's say six maximum, and that it does refer to just some difficult conversations but making it very clear to parents, where the rationale is and why. I've sort of created a little bit of a waiting list at the moment because I've had conversations today with parents in the sense of if there is a lack of engagement or a lack of attendance in let's say one of the English sessions, that their child would be first to be offered that place.
Alan; From a research perspective. What I've enjoyed very much about the project is how how schools have engaged with us on this, particularly in the beginning, autumn term 2021 when COVID was still fresh in the mind, and you know, there was still bubbles and the like going on. For schools to invite us in and are willing willing to participate in the research you know, has been has been lovely. Both Michael and Laura you know, very grateful that you did allow us to come in and and see what you were doing in the tutoring space but that goes for every single head teacher, their deputies, their staff, their pupils that have all contributed to this, we couldn't have done this piece of work without them, you know, and that goes for the second year with the work that we've been doing as well. You know, it's kind of hopefully we found some really interesting stuff out so that it can be helpful, but it can't be done without the commitment and the support of the schools, the leaders, the staff, the pupils that we spoke to, as part of the project, so incredibly grateful for that. Thank you.
Shreena: Michael and Laura, do you have any other pearls of wisdome for schools embarking on this?
Michael: Can I just share something that wasn't immediately obvious to us when we set out. It wasn't a surprise, but it's been a real benefit. Now we have 29 staff that are working within their subject areas, some are heads of department, some aren't. They are looking at what we're calling 'cornerstone knowledge' and skills in their subject, and looking across the whole key stage 4 with the summer school, and for the lower school, they're looking at key stage three. What are those cornerstone pieces of knowledge? That, if we get right, help students accellerate because they are important for so many elements of that subject. So to have 29 staff working and thinking in that way, has really helped us to develop confidence in our curriculum. It's filtered through to so much of the CPD and inset that we have here at school. We have a curriculum review process with staff, in order to critique approaches, subject choices in terms of sequencing and prioritising knowledge and skills, and staff have become so much more confident. It's such a powerful, impactful process. Through the summer term here to narrow down what you want to cover with year 10 students - the possibilities are endless!
And that's also really exciting for staff. Because before you become a teacher, I think, there's an element of that, the essence of sitting down with small groups of people, and talking through a subject that you love. And you've had the opportunity here to craft a little curriculum for those individuals that's reallty special. That can be really motivating for staff and we've seen that. It's not separate from curriculum thinking, it's so integrated. The legacy will be far beyond. We're going to be limited in the future, it's a lot to take on, and we welcome that. But if we had the funding, we could do it. Without that, we wouldn't be able to do it.
Shreena: We published the first report into tutoring in October last year and we're publishing the next on this autumn. Thank you very much to Alan Passingham, and to Laura and Michael from Bishop Thomas Grant school in London.
Ofsted has published a package of measures to improve how we work with schools. Hosts Anna Trethewey and Chris Jones discuss the changes.
Anna Trethewey Hello all and welcome to Ofsted's podcast. You've got me here, Anna Trethewey, deputy director for cross-remit education and...
Chris Jones Hi everyone, Chris Jones, director of strategy and engagement here at Ofsted.
Anna Trethewey We're going to do a run through of some of the different changes we've got to our practice here at Ofsted. So Chris, I'll hand over to you for that.
Chris Jones Thanks, Anna. Yeah, we're recording this on the 13th of June so we made those announcements yesterday on Monday and we thought it'd be helpful just to go through go through a few of those things and have a bit of a conversation about it, obviously, start by saying these announcements have been made in the wake of the death of Ruth Perry and the debate that has sparked around Ofsted's work following that. And Amanda Spielman said, really clearly that we want to reassure people we're listening to the things that have been said in that debate and thinking carefully about how we can revise our work but also not lose sight of the needs of children and parents in this as well.
So I'll just quickly run through the things that we've we've announced. So first of all on safeguarding there are a small number of schools every year, who are judged inadequate on the basis of ineffective safeguarding alone. So they have ineffective safeguarding, but all other judgments are good or better and in those small number of cases, we're going to return more quickly to those schools to re inspect them within three months of inspection report being published and we will say in the original report to parents that that is our intention, and that means that if the school has resolved those safeguarding concerns, it's likely to see the overall grades improve in a short space of time. We also just want to give a bit more clarity in our handbook update from September around the threshold for effective versus ineffective safeguarding. So everyone's super clear on on that. The second big piece of this jigsaw is around the complaint system and yesterday we launched a formal consultation on changes to our complaint system. We want to resolve complaints more quickly. We want to improve dialogue between ourselves and the providers who are unhappy about their inspection and wants to make a complaint. We want to reduce the burden on those making a complaint in terms of the admin and increase that transparency and if you go to our website, you can see those consultation proposals in much more detail. And you can have your say. I'm told that just 24 hours after we launched that consultation, we've already had 100 responses. So people obviously keen to have their say on that which is absolutely fantastic. And we've given a bit more information for schools about the broad timing of their next inspection. So the COVID Pause and outstanding exemption has made it harder I think for some schools to predict when their inspection might be and therefore upped the anxiety in some quarters. So we've published a blog and again, you can find that on our website to get a bit more information about when your school might be inspected. And we'll still be inspecting schools with a day's notice because we think that's really important, as well. And then finally, a couple of small changes to report that we're making. We're going to be really clear that when we send a draft report to a head teacher, they are able to share that with colleagues or others share their inspection, outcome with whoever they think appropriate, albeit being aware that those judgments are provisional until the report is finalised. And then from September inspection reports when discussing areas of weakness in a school, they will refer to the school by default rather than individuals in that school and their contextual information at the end of their reports will also be amended to list all those routes with responsibility for the school. We know that it takes a whole group of people to run a school or any other provider and this is not about passing judgement on on individuals. So that's a quick run through of all the changes we've announced.
Anna Trethewey Thank you. Very helpful and good to see it in the round. Quick question. I'm going to go right back to the start of that announcement and just talk a little bit about safeguarding. I mean, I've been a DSL before, designated safeguarding lead, I'm always gonna think about how important it is but Shall we just talk a little bit about part of the reason that we do have such a strong emphasis on safeguarding? It feels important.
Chris Jones Yeah, of course, it is hugely important. From your experience, how, how important it is, and this is in no way kind of watering down our standards on safeguarding. Inspectors inspect against the DFEs guidance 'Keeping children safe in education'. That's the large document, very detailed, lots of requirements for schools in there and of course, that's therefore what inspectors will be looking to see that schools understand and are enacting properly and our standards on that are not are not wavering. I think what we're we're recognising is that safeguarding is one of those areas perhaps unlike other area's inspection frameworks where if there are deficiencies, those can potentially be rectified quite quite quickly. And so in the small number of cases, as I say where that is the only area of of weakness we will be we will be returning to those schools sooner. I think it's also worth saying that inspectors don't give ineffective safeguarding judgments lightly. It's not just a matter of kind of missing a couple of words out off a list or not completing paperwork properly, where ineffective safeguarding is given as a judgement that is taken very seriously. And there's lots of quality assurance kind of around that in the Ofsted process.
Anna Trethewey I think it's important to note, isn't it that we always looked at updating into our practice, and this is one area where just clarifying in our handbooks, and this happening across the room is actually the way the reminder improvements that needs to be made. And absolutely like you say it might be a bit of a gap in the single central record or it might be small things that don't add up to a concerning picture, as long as we can see that they're easily rectifiable. Ideally, by the end of inspection, then actually that school can still be effective in terms of safeguarding it's not going to be looking to catch people out. It's much more about where there's ineffective safeguarding. It generally indicates there's a much more systemic cultural problem widespread or serious failures and, and thinking about OK, where can we go back and people are able to do what they need to give them essentially given another chance to get that right. That feels like the right place to land. We've always been able to do that in terms of monitoring inspections, but just just bringing them slightly closer feels right. It's probably helpful to note that we're going to do a bit more sector engagement on this one. So we've got, for example, webinars that are coming up and a blog that be coming out in September, but we'll make sure that any updates to handbooks happen before the summer break so that people have time to look at that. So just in terms of parents, we often talk about their role in the system and it's right that there are our primary audience really alongside government and how they use our work for intervention. Is it worth just emphasising that point there Chris?
Chris Jones I think it's worth saying that. A lot of people would have preferred Ofsted to go further in the announcements that we've we've made just yesterday, and one of the areas in which people would like us to go further is the what's been described as the one word grading system. So I think it's worth just talking a bit about that and reflecting on some of the some of the challenges there and the pros and cons. I think, first of all, we do engage with parents and we do survey parents and it's clear that parents do find that the grading system useful it's by no means the only thing that they use to make up their mind about either which school to send their children to or about the quality of the school that they're currently sending their children to, clearly they also use exam results, they also use word of mouth and other parents opinions and of course people visit schools and decide for themselves and that's and that's only right. But parents do find that the grade that Ofsted gives their school to be a useful source of source of information and it's it's clear and simple. You mentioned government that is the other audience for our work of course and it's an integral part of the system that the government uses to regulate the school system is having these clear simple grades. People often think understandably because it's complicated, but often misunderstand the role of Ofsted and the Department for Education . The DFE is the schools regulator. So they decide which schools need support, which schools need intervention whether that's in the form of becoming an academy or re brokering to another Academy trust or various other aspects. Also deciding which schools can become teaching schools and so on. And all of that rests on the Ofsted grade that schools have. DFE have it written into their principles of how they regulate that they will only take action on the basis of an Ofsted grade because that gives us a rounded view of of how a school is performing. So, that is that is baked into the system of how the government regulates schools and therefore, any changes to the grading system are not something that Ofsted can just decide to do. It would have to be a a more well thought through, a more considered considered properly with government. And it's worth saying that lots of other inspectorates use the system as well. The health inspectorate, the prison inspectorate and so on. They use a similar if not exactly the same grading system. It is a complicated thing to consider. And there are lots of pros and cons and lots of audiences that inspection and the grades serve and I think Amanda has been really clear that any any reconsideration of the grading structure would have to take all those things into account.
Anna Trethewey Thank you, Chris. And I think the last thing we want to do is rush to a solution that might have unintended consequences around it itself. That wouldn't necessarily be great at a system level and considering the amount of change it would bring. Just something I know that causes anxiety in the system is the sense that you get caught out for safeguarding and then that's that you're pushed to become an academy or rebrokered. I'm right in thinking aren't I that Department for Education are whilst they would still issue an academy order where a school has been found inadequate for schools where there's it's only on safeguarding and we're going to do monitoring visit within three months of that inspection report being published, they will pause on the kind of moving forward with that until we've done on our visit.
Chris Jones Yeah, that's right. So the Department for Education have said that in the instances that we're talking about where it is safeguarding that is the issue, and we reinspect, the school has has sorted those issues and it is now it's now good school the Secretary of State can decide to revoke any Academy order applying to the school or withdraw any warning notice issued to an academy and they will not in the meantime take any decision about about whether to intervene in that in that school or not. So I think that's that's welcome clarification from from the government that they will they wouldn't, they will not take any action in those small number of cases every year. Until that that second inspection has happened.
Anna Trethewey And it is emphasising, they really are very small numbers. We've talked mostly about schools and in this podcast as is right, because that's where most of the focus and attention has been. It's just worth giving a nod to some of our other remits, you know further education and skills early years where we've considered they're not going to line up in exactly the same way and not all of these apply, but certainly for things around the complaints procedure, welcoming people from across our sectors that we inspect in education to come forward and bring their ideas and thoughts about that process. As lovely as it's been to get the gang back together for you and I to have this podcast, you're actually off soon. Am I right thinking so we have to say bye-bye soon?
Chris Jones Having been at Ofsted five years I leave with a very heavy heart and have met lots of inspirational people, including yourself Anna!
Anna Trethewey Ahhh and Chris, thanks again for all your time and hard work at Ofsted massively invaluable. Thanks ever so much, Chris. Let's leave that there for now. There'll be more on this and the range of other work that we do Ofsted to follow after this podcast. Thanks.
We were lucky enough to be able to welcome guests from the world of art education to the Victoria and Albert museum to launch our Art and Design Research Review. Here are some of the discussions and questions and answers about the review.
Tristram Hunt: Morning. Good morning everyone. My name is Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and it's such a pleasure to welcome you all today for the launch of the art and design research review. The V&A is very proud to support Ofsted’s important work not only because of Amanda is a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but we're committed to encouraging and renewing creative practice in our classroom.
We wholeheartedly support the education inspection framework which commits to a full and engaging curriculum. I would just like to introduce you very briefly to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's greatest museum of art, design, and performance. For over 170 years the V&A has stressed the importance of the creative impulse in all of us. At the foundation of our mission is Henry Cole, our first director, was to be an impressive schoolroom for everyone, like a book whose pages were always open. He also called us a refuge for destitute collections. Behind the Victoria and Albert Museum was the Mechanics Institute movement of the 1830s and the system of design schools that emerged in the mid-19th century.
The South Kensington museum as we were initially was the hub of this design school movement, training teachers, reforming curriculums and lending the collections across the country. So a bel in the democracy of knowledge, and the belief in the teaching of design and sharing our collections for design teaching has always been an essential part of our mission.
One of the interesting histories of the V&A is that whether it was the gaslighting we had in the gallery, so working people could come here after work, whether it was a cafe and restaurant so it was an enjoyable place to come, whether it was labels next to the objects so you didn't have to buy a catalogue. All of this belief in the democratising of knowledge was absolutely essential to the mission of the V&A. Today museum learning is embedded across our sites, activating the V&A’s collection as a source but we love this idea of us being this, this treasury of art and science to encourage creativity and innovation today. 40% of our visitors describe themselves as from the creative industries, but we also know that our mission has to extend beyond South Kensington.
We're very concerned, as I know Ofsted is, about the fall in the number of young people taking design and technology. So we've created two programmes focused on key stage three and Key Stage Four to encourage the take up of art and design and design and technology, ‘Design lab nation’ our secondary schools programme focuses on key stage four saw 441 students and 87 teachers taking part from 21 schools across six regions in the UK. And what we do there is we share our collections. We work with local museums, we work with local schools, and then we have a programme called VNA innovate, which is our national Schools Challenge, where we offer free and accessible online resources to every state funded secondary school in England and that's becoming a really important part of our connection with design and technology teachers across the country. So my message is very simple this morning, that the V&A is here as your partner at Ofsted, and we're here to help in whatever capacity we can. Thank you for being here at the V&A. Amanda.
Amanda Spielman: Good morning. And it is hard to imagine a better place in the V&A to be talking about art and design education and a big thank you to Tristram for allowing us to be here.
And since all of you have chosen to be here, I'm quite sure that you already share my belief in the extraordinary enriching power of this strand of education. You don't need me to rehearse all the excellent reasons why children should study art. I suspect most of you could talk about it quite happily all day and beyond. More than 40 years on, I can still remember three paintings that did the most to open my eyes and mind in my childhood. The first was some by Salvador Dali, Christ of St. John of the Cross viewed from above. That's in the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, which is where I grew up. The second was Fellini, the Venetian Doge, Leonardo Loretta in the National Gallery.
And the third was a riverside seen by Corot with his astonishing skill in conveying light. Each of these has influenced what I've learned since. A teacher blogger who publishes as Solomon Kingsnorth illustrates the enriching power of knowledge of art as well as practical skills rather well. Forgive me for quoting him at length. Person A and person B are standing outside Rouen cathedral, looking up at the spire. A series of thoughts and impressions pop up in each one's respective consciousness, like paints on a canvas.
Person A: big church. Nice. Looks like some others I've seen. Not paying to go in. What time's lunch? Person B: looks Gothic, different to the baroque cathedrals I’ve seen. I can see and feel what moved Monet to paint it so many times. My mind's conjuring up impressions of those images now which seem to be intermingling with the cathedral itself. The ground beneath my feet has an ancient significance. There was a church on this site before the cathedral was built. It perished in the Viking raids, and apparently some of the windows are still decorated with stained glass from the 13th century. Famous for a special cobalt blue colour - is that it there?
We are metres away from a tomb containing the heart of Richard the Lionheart. My own heart is racing. I'm going in!
As Kingsnorth puts it, if you’re person B, you have a private tour guide to the universe living in your brain, ready to seconds notice to give you a plethora of information which will enrich your experience of everyday life. And yet, it's so easy for art to be seen as something of an afterthought. But of course, it rightly has its place in the national curriculum for all children up to age 14, and for many beyond that, and that is as it should be.
As the national curriculum document says, Art Craft and Design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. High quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge equipping people with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of people's progress. They should be able to think critically and develop a more rigorous understanding of Art and Design. And they should also know how art and design both reflect and shape our history and contribute to the culture the creativity and wealth of our nation.
These aims are ambitious, especially in the context of the increasingly limited amount of time that most schools are allocating to art, but they are important nonetheless. And the specified subject content is tantalisingly brief, less than half a page for each of key stages one, two and three.
Viewed one way, this leaves a satisfying amount of freedom for schools to shape their curriculum and teaching. But it can also make life harder, especially for primary schools, which most mostly won't have a specialist art teacher.
In my time as Chief Inspector, I've placed great importance on curriculum. This reflects an understanding of the true value of breadth of curriculum and also a recognition that the content and processes of education are valuable in themselves, not just a means to a graded outcome.
In this context, a series of research reviews is serving two purposes. They provide a clear and grounded platform for our conception of quality. We use this for the inspection judgments that we must make. But the reviews also help schools by laying out the factors that can contribute to high quality and authentic education.
The reviews are rigorous but clear. They've proved to be extremely popular with schools in that they've been downloaded hundreds of 1000s of times. In the context of Art and Design, this review explores the practical knowledge such as how to draw paint or sculpt and it also discusses the theoretical knowledge such as the history of art and it includes the disciplinary knowledge, the big questions - what is art? How do we judge and value it? Setting art alongside other subjects in this series shows how we are recognising its value and makes it clear that art doesn't sit beneath or apart from the rest of the curriculum. And it has other benefits too. We've heard from schools, how the coherence of the series is helping with wider curriculum thinking and planning, illuminating the parallels and linkages between subjects as well as the fundamental differences.
Of course, there are practical constraints. We know how hard-pressed schools are, and that there's less taught time for art and design. But I do take heart from the fact that exam entries have held more or less steady through all the changes of the past 20 years, showing that young people's willingness and interest is not eroding. They want to grow and flex their creativity. They want to need the richness and excitement and satisfaction that art and design bring.
The subject is also fortunate in having the wonderful work that comes from the wealth of subject associations and artistic institutions who do so much working with young people directly and also working with teachers to help them strengthen curriculum and teaching.
And I'll finish by reminding people what I've said in the past about the purposes of education. Of course, education must prepare young people for work, but it must also broaden their minds and their horizons. It should help them to enjoy our culture and to use their creativity to add to it. It should help them hold a conversation, not just a job. And ultimately, it should help them to contribute to the advancement of civilization, not just economic development.
Thank you and now I'm going to hand over to Heather Fern who is senior His Majesty's inspector who is our curriculum unit.
Heather Fearn: We have a proud tradition of publishing thematic reports in Ofsted and one thing that our chief inspector has done since her arrival and with the implementation of our new education inspection framework, is that emphasis on the breadth of curriculum across subjects and prioritising thematic work, which explores the breadth of that curriculum, because of course we have a great range of insights that we gain from the work that we do, and that we can share. We want to ensure that our inspectors when they go into schools, that what they understand by high quality art education is shared between inspectors so that each school gets the same experience and the school is understood the same way whichever inspector it is that visits.
It's also really important that what it is that inspectors are thinking about a high-quality education across subjects, and in this case, in art, but that's the best possible conception of what is a quality education. And that brings us to our research review series. And the purpose of that research review series is to reflect on what is a high-quality art education. And we can do that by thinking about what's really important to us about art. And publishing and having a launch for it, is that we want to be very clear about the importance of the range of subjects and Amanda has made that point already in talking about the breadth. It could be that we could have a very narrow way of thinking about a quality education across Maths, English - gaining qualifications in core subjects, but actually an education should be so much more. Whenever we learn something new, we can only make sense of it using what we already know. And that has a really important curriculum implication at a granular level, because that means every time you want pupils to learn something new, they need to have what they need prior to make sense of that.
So the curriculum is vitally important, because we need pupils that are going to gradually make progression towards the kind of expertise that we would like for them. In the case of art appreciation that we talked about, but also the capacity to create in a range of artistic forms. And so that now takes us to the point where I can hand it over to Adam, who is our art subject lead, is going to talk a little bit more about the report.
Adam Vincent: Art is a rich and varied set of practices central to human civilization. Its purposes, materials and methods are always evolving. It's closely related to design and craft and graphics, typography, textiles and ceramics and the boundaries between these have changed over time. But just as Art Craft and Design are wide ranging so too are the ideas, perspectives and approaches to art education.
The education inspection framework, states that a high-quality education includes an ambitious curriculum that gives pupils the not the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
It has been reported that there's been a decline in both the quality and quantity of art in primary schools. This may be due to a decline in funding schools focusing more on core subjects and primary teachers lack of skills, training and experience to teach high quality art curriculum. Teachers need the tools to be able to do this important job.
Despite these challenges, at key stages four and five pupils have the opportunity to study art and experimenting. The creative industries in the UK make a significant contribution of 115.9 billion pounds in 2019 alone, and many roles in industries require qualification and a subject related to art and design. And often art is the only subject of its type studied in school. By studying art, we give pupils the skills that can be developed to become not only artists but also designers and engineers, creators and to develop their imaginations to express themselves in a variety of visual forms.
Art education allows pupils to understand, appreciate and contribute to human innovation, imagination and thoughts. That high-quality art education can help pupils to appreciate and interpret art, communicate their thoughts and feelings or create artworks themselves. High quality art directors will give pupils examples of diversity in art in from different areas of making, including Art Craft and Design but produced around the world.
I am reminded of a quote from William Morris. ‘I do not want art for a few any more than I want education for a few or freedom for a few’.
Chris Jones: Good morning everyone. My name is Chris Jones. I'm Ofsted’s Director of Strategy and engagement. Thank you all for coming onto our panel. We have Amanda Spielman, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Dr. Richard Kueh, Richard is Ofsted’s Deputy Director for Research and Evaluation. And you've just heard from Adam Vincent who is also one of His Majesty's inspectors. And finally Heather Fearn is a senior His Majesty's inspector, she leads Ofsted’s curriculum unit as you've just been hearing. Great panel.
Why does Ofsted continue to have a focus on the breadth of curriculum, particularly when we know post pandemic post lockdown? There is there is such an emphasis in schools on getting children back up to speed on English and maths on the core, the core job, what do you think is so important about the breadth depth curriculum, including art and design?
Amanda Spielman: Everything that we know about children's pandemic experience has shown us how much they've lost, not just in terms of progress in the sort of core academic subjects of English and maths, but also in their social development, in development of language, forms of communication, and the loss of all the richness that comes from the wider curriculum, from extracurricular activities, from all the other activities that many children take part in outside school. That sort of loss for many of the wider cultural activities, things that enable them to practice develop creative skills of all kinds. Yes, a few children are wonderfully self-motivated and use the opportunity but for many, that wasn't possible, re-establishing that and all the satisfaction that comes from it's, is actually a way of reinforcing the job schools have in the English, maths, maths, science, those other parts of the curriculum. I think everything we know suggests that they are in fact, mutually reinforcing. The challenge post pandemic for schools has been to how to how to use that more limited time that many children are having in education, how to how to maximise the value they get from it, not just try to skate across the top of everything that they would otherwise have done, but to say, what are the right choices? What are the trade offs? What are the things that we absolutely must protect? What are the things that if we have to choose the less important than the simplistic choice of dump everything on the creative side would be such a bad one for children?
Richard Kueh: What I think this review helps with is how to make the tough choices that I think many people have been faced with over the last couple of years and are continuing to be faced with.
Richard Kueh: f we think about pupils at the earliest stages of reading, for example, they need broad background knowledge to be able to inform the words that they read, once able to decode they need that broad background knowledge, concepts that are furnished in their minds from history concepts like Empire, or civilization, or from art, tone - to give meaning to the words that they're reading. And that's not just at the earliest stages of some of these core subjects. But if we think about a focus on GCSE English literature, for example, my own background subject is religious education. And if we think about some of the texts that pupils study, Macbeth, or Jekyll and Hyde. Some of the rich imagery that we see in those in those texts can only really be explained if you've got broad background knowledge of concepts of Sin, redemption, atonement. Many of these come from other subjects in the curriculum as well.
Chris Jones: Adam, you said you were a primary school teacher, you recognise the challenges that there are in primary schools and in teaching art also other subjects without a subject specialism. Tell us a bit more about how the schools you've worked in have handled that pressure?
Adam Vincent: Primary schools in particular, are rarely subject specialist particularly for subjects like art. They do need to be very creative. They need to think about how to work with organisations such as the National Association of Art Education, they need to think about how to work with other groups such as Access Art, who I believe her here as well, but also tapping into that wealth of knowledge that is available to them from places like the V&A and the Tate, but also from local galleries and museums that will be close to them and will offer something that reflects their local community. It's really important that time is given, often, particularly for younger children. The adults take time to think about what it is that is being taught that it's not just piecemeal, that it's not a scattergun approach that adults have considered what the curriculum is and how it can be broken down.
Hi, I'm Sarah Bull, I'm Senior Content Editor at The Key. What is a school leader is meant to do with this report? How can they implement your findings practically quickly, efficiently? Really, what could be somebody's first port of call, first next step?
Amanda Spielman: Leaders need to give time to the subjects. And I think every subject’s review has said time needs to be given consideration that within their staff team, and that sufficient training and support for those members of staff so that they have those tools to be able to teach that subject well. And that the subject is thought of as though what are those endpoints? How are they going to be broken down for those pupils so that they learn sufficient skills and knowledge.
I will add to that, what our research can do, it's actually school we give schools an immense amount of freedom to choose that that art and design national curriculum, that has a tremendous amount of space, and a lot of choices that must be made. The reviews help to simplify those choices.
Adam Vincent: Very careful not to say ‘this is a curriculum’ that ‘this is what you must do in order to reach an Ofsted judgement’. But these are some examples of where we've seen good practice. These are some examples of what we might expect to be seeing.
Michelle Gregson from the National Society for Education in Art and Design. It was really great to hear Adam recognise that there's so much debate in the community and a multiplicity of approaches. And also great to hear Amanda recognise the strength, the tenacity of the subject that appeals to young people. We have concerns about however, a kind of creeping orthodoxy that teachers tell us is driven by fear of risk and a desire to achieve results in high stakes assessment by just using tried and tested formulas. We think that's quite a big risk to a creative subject. How does the review give support and guidance for anyone who wants to avoid orthodoxy?
Richard Kueh: The assessment tail shouldn't wag the curriculum dog. The substance of what people study in the subject should be authentic in an assessment context as well. We also talk within the review that two key terms, which we hope that if theorisation around this might actually be a useful shared language for art subject leaders, art practitioners, where we talk about the importance of convergent and divergent end goals of aspects of the art curriculum, that at some points of the curriculum, it's entirely appropriate that pupils work towards a similar shared goal, where they're practising particular techniques or forms of expression, for example, where they're learning the nuts and bolts, but also that there are determined points within the curriculum where the end goals are necessarily divergent, that we would expect pupils as part of that subject to be able to produce or understand or discuss art in in very rich and diverse ways. So I think those two aspects I hope will chime in with your sense of what you're saying.
Adam you’ve spoken already about how schools can access museums, what can museums do to help?
Adam Vincent: I think museums do need to think about what are the biggest levers they can pull? So if they are working with one small group of children, yes, that's wonderful and important. But actually, they work with the adults who work with those children, they can have so much more of an impact so much more of an effect. And by supporting and giving those teachers those skills and knowledge then they can have that impact on supporting pupils to improve their artistic knowledge and ability.
One small reflection as well, which is that in as much as we hope that school leaders and school practitioners might wish to engage with our research review, it will be wonderful as well if those in the museum area would also be interested about it to learn what might constitute high quality curriculums in schools and therefore, they can see their place within that for that bigger picture, thinking through the forms of knowledge that Adam was talking about before - practical, theoretical and disciplinary where they have using art, who don't know about it, who've got a maths degree and a physics degree, find the connections, find the ways to, to use that.
I think we're really passionate about how teaching and teachers and hooking into that and giving confidence can really help deliver then whether it's oracy, whether it's resilience, whether it's all the life skills, rather than content that you're looking for in outstanding schools.
I'm the Head of Education here at the V&A museum. And I also just wanted to echo a lot of the things that are saying about the rules of museums when we do this. One of the things that we've also been really pushing hard is leveraging our work with the creative industries to show real world examples of what one can do with creative education and not necessarily just careers in Art Design, Design and Technology, which are incredibly important, but also recognising how creativity is used across the field in all industries and it's all necessary. For example, last year, we had a live webinar with the physics team at CERN and I will always love this quote, of one of the lead physicists said ‘I have the most creative job in the world. I'm a physicist’. And they said, you know, this person was saying that she works in theoretical applications of this, she needs to be able to think creatively and she spoke very highly about how her art education is so important for her role in physics. And I think that's one of the roles that we need to take in museums and also in other kinds of creative applications of this, of how can we best leverage that link and show real world examples, not just to the students so they can you know, you can't be what you can't see, but also recognising to educators of why creativity is important.
Chris Jones: I will wrap up and say thank you very much to our panel. Just by way of closing we've been talking today about the art and design research review. We've also mentioned the first of our subject reports that has been published recently, in science. We will be publishing more subject reports over the next year and more. They will focus on the evidence gathered by inspectors about the quality of subjects education in schools as it stands today and we hope that this work continues to help subject leaders to provide high quality subjects education. I'll just run through some of the examples that we're going to be publishing over the next academic year so following this research review there'll be a subject report on art and design we will be talking about computing, English, geography, history, languages, maths, music, PE, RE and science and personal development including citizenship.
Thank you.
Chris Jones Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of Ofsted Talks the Ofsted podcast. My name's Chris Jones. I'm Ofsted's Director of Strategy and engagement and I've got with me, Shreena Kotecha, Ofsted's Head of Strategy. Hi, Shreena. We've got some great guests today to talk about education in prisons. This is something that Ofsted have had a focus on over the last year or so, you might have heard a previous podcast we've done on on this subject and we've also written various reports on the state of education in prisons, and it's a subject we keep coming back to because of how important it is. We've got some great guests as I say, I'll get them to introduce themselves. We've got first of all, Charlie Taylor, Charlie give us a bit about you.
Charlie Taylor Hi, I'm Charlie Taylor. I am Chief Inspector of Prisons been in place since November 2020.
Chris Jones Excellent. Thank you, Charlie. And from Ofsted Paul Joyce.
Paul Joyce Thanks, Chris Paul Joyce Ofsted, Deputy Director for further education skills where we inspect prisons as part of our remit.
Chris Jones Thank you, Paul. Welcome. We've got Femi Laryea-Adekimi from the prison reform trust.
Femi Laryea-AdekimiAnd I work on the prisoner engagement team.
Chris Jones Tracy from KeyRing.
Tracy Hammond Hello. Yes, I'm Tracy Hammond from key ring. I'm Research and Innovation director. And as part of my work, I support people with lived experience of the criminal justice system and neuro divergence.
Chris Jones Excellent. Thank you. So I think to get us started, Charlie, if you don't mind if we could say the wide view of the prison system at the moment, what what are the challenges facing the prison system? Where is it as a whole? And what's the what's the current kind of place of education in that if you don't mind?
Charlie TaylorWe've been on a number of inspections recently where our biggest concern has been the amount of time that prisoners are spending out of their cells. And as a result of that, the amount of time that they're actually getting to educational training workshops. And what we're finding particularly is it's as if COVID is still going on in many of our prisons, whereby for whatever reason, whether it's to do with difficulties with staffing, whether it's to do with the inexperience of staffing, relationships with trade unions, or I think the ambition of governors, but nevertheless, we are still finding prisoners a lot behind their door for far longer than we found. Before the pandemic, and that's affecting their progress in terms of the skills they need to be successful when they come out. So that's really our biggest concern. Actually, things like safety and prisons and some of the levels of violence that we've seen, particularly in the sort of 2015 to 2019, really dark days when the spice epidemic was happening. Actually, things have got a little bit better, drugs are being kept out of prisons more effectively than they were. And as a result of that, we're seeing that there's less prisoners getting into debt, and there are less of those sorts of issues and related violence. So prisons a little bit safer than they've been in the past are very concerned about what prisoners are actually doing with their time.
Chris Jones So how long are prisoners typically spending in their cells, then, how does that compare to what what should be the case?
Charlie TaylorWell, I'll give you a case in point of a prison that I inspected yesterday. Where prisoners were getting out of their cells for just one and a half hours a day. That was in a local prison where before when we inspected it, I think they were getting out for around seven hours a day on average. That was a reception prison. But we also see this in Category C prisoners where prisoners can often be spending substantial periods of their lives there, 2,3,4,5 years. And in those jails, where we would see workshops full of prisoners, going out from their wings going off to work or to education. We're seeing that much more restricted. Sometimes it's a regime that means they're only unlocked to go off the wing in the mornings or the afternoons. They call that a split regime. Sometimes it's people not getting off the wings at all in some places.
Chris Jones And you said this is a bit of a kind of a COVID Hangover,
Charlie Taylor that drive towards getting the prisoners back to where they were just simply hasn't happened in lots of places. But just one example of the progress that can be made. I was in a jail last week where a really ambitious governor has decided he's going to open up his category C prison. There were 600 prisoners moving safely around the jail. The prison's levels of violence hadn't gone up in any significant way, and it was still a safer jail than most in that category. And this was a prison that actually suffered from some severe staffing shortages as well. So it just shows with the right level of ambition from leaders and a real determination to get things going. Even in prisons that are struggling with staffing numbers, they can produce a much more effective regime,
Chris Jones A really important example that thanks and we'll come on to education. So Charlie, what's your what's your take on why education in prisons is so important? Why have you taken such an interest in it?
Charlie TaylorWell, I was a former special school teacher. So this has always been an area of particular interest for me. And the way I see prisoners is to some extent, the way we used to see pupil's at my school, which was that they were like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, with parts missing and the parts that were missing were the bits that were stopping them from making progress in a way that we might expect. So the parts missing might be difficulties with mental health. They might be difficulties with reading, it might be neuro divergence, and the responsibility of both my school but also a prison is to find those pieces and to fit them into the jigsaw. So that when someone leaves custody, they're more likely to be successful when they come out. That means if someone can't read when they come in, they need support with reading. If they want to go on and do a degree they need support with doing a degree. If they want to do a level two qualification they want to get some GCSE, yes, they should get support with that. But if those building blocks aren't in place, then the danger is people leave prison. They don't have any of the skills that they need in order to get jobs to rejoin society successfully, and they lapse back into reoffending. Again, the bottom line is, is that criminal gangs, criminal fraternities don't require you to have qualifications in order to join them, but for work that is required. So we need people who are more capable, more competent, and more confident, in able in order to be able to take their place in society when they come out.
Chris Jones I'm seeing lots of nods from from the rest of our guests. I'm sure we'll pick up some of those themes in in a few minutes. Paul, I've come to you for Ofsted's view Charlie's really eloquently explained why education in prisons is so important. So you'd hope wouldn't you that education in prisons was being done brilliantly. That's something Ofsted inspectors tell us what we find.
Paul Joyce You certainly hope that was the case Chris and I was certainly nodding along with Charlie there. We inspect alongside HMIP colleagues. I recognise fully you know all of what Charlie said there sadly Chris. What we find many classrooms many workshops are empty, when they should be full because of the regime issues. There are not enough prisoners that attend education or meaningful work for long enough. And Chris, I think the key point for me and Charlie's just mentioned it, it's the it's the parts of the jigsaw. Often, with not identifying the right parts of the jigsaw or offering the right parts of the jigsaw, or indeed delivering the right parts of the jigsaw to make that journey for prisoners complete to rehabilitate or prepare them for release. Prisons do not equip prisoners that can't read or can't read well. They don't do enough to improve that. And as Charlie said, it's a building block. And it's an essential building block that that needs to be in place that sadly Chris just isn't there.
Charlie Taylor But I think there are there are some sort of common themes that we see with with prisoners. These are often people who have who have spent quite long periods of time out of education for whatever reason, we know there are high levels of exclusion from school, but also, often prisoners have had very disruptive childhoods as well. So they may have been moved between different family members. They may many have been have experienced the care system as well. So often, often what we find is that they simply haven't spent the days the hours in education in the past or they've had a very, a very patchy education career. So that often means that there are gaps that just hadn't been filled, because there are also some incredibly able and competent people who find themselves in prison as well. And what we have to make sure is that there isn't a one size fits all education provision, but actually, there is provision in place for people who really want to go on and make progress.
And I'll just give one example if I may, I came across a young guy, really ambitious, young guy who ended up in prison was caught up in some gang activity. And he took a GCSE when he was in a young offenders institution and he got an A grade in maths GCSE and he was pretty pleased about that. So he turned around to the to the education provider and said, Could I now go on and do maths a level please? And they said, Well, we I'm not going to teach you that but you can do the GCSE again if you'd like.
What we we find sadly, is the curriculum offer in individual prisons is often not tailored sufficiently well for the population that prison serves. And I think that's the key. I remember we were in the presence of their colleagues came back and they said, well, it's all very well they're offering all these courses, but the courses are one year long courses and the average prisoners spent six weeks in this jail. So the completion rate of courses is always zero. That's not untypical from from what we hear from our state colleagues when we when we go into inspections.
Chris Jones It's a really good example there and some really good lessons to learn. Tracy, I think we were hoping that you had the answers. Tell us what you think we should do.
Tracy Hammond I can offer some suggestions. I think, from our point of view, we're still seeing people leaving prison without things like functional literacy. So the comprehension even if they can. And also about life skills and social skills that they need to succeed in the community. So I think for me, when I look at people we support in particular, what do they need to succeed and therefore what does need to be taught? I suspect it's things like what it's like to really manage a tenancy, how to budget, running a home with all that entails things like looking after yourself cooking, food, hygiene, reading and understanding and responding to letters, things like social skills. I think also something that's really noteworthy is that a lot of people we speak to, particularly if they've come through special educational route, tend not to have had good access to a clear sex education and things like you know what a good relationship looks like. So I think for me, it's something that's really person centred, quite holistic, really well communicated, but also something that gives people a vision. A lot of people who come into our support often come in without much idea of what their life could be. And therefore, if you can't see the future, I think you're much more likely to reoffend if you can see a really good future for yourself and you can map how to get there. I think you're much more likely not to reoffend.
Chris Jones Brilliant. Thank you, Tracy. And Femi, do you have anything you'd like to add on on that general topic of how we can be better?
Femi Laryea-AdekimiThere does need to be much more concerted focus on prison education and the delivery of it. For people who are in prison, I've been in prison. Not really knowing what's available to be undertaking in education is an immediate obstacle to getting into education. inductions need to be far better. And what's offered on the inductions also needs to be encouraged
Chris JonesTell me, could you tell me a bit about what prison reform trust does to it doesn't necessarily in particular,
Femi Laryea-Adekimium, yeah, so in general, the prison reform trust as a policy and reform organisation, we lobby, those in power, those who've got decision making powers to improve conditions within the prison within prisons across the country. We often do this in the form of reports, research, consultations, and that includes with prisoners themselves, as well as experts in different areas. So we're constantly working to improve their prison system, because we working to influence ministers and the prison service to improve conditions of entrances. And that does include in there of education.
Chris Jones Tracy, can you tell us a bit about KeyRing and what the organisation does in the round and specifically what the education focus is,
Tracy Hamomond
Key Ring supports round about 1500 people each year to live independently in the community. So we recognised round about 2006 that people who had been through the criminal justice system tended to do quite well in our services. So we started to think about why that might be. And we concluded that it was mainly due to our outwards looking Community Connections approach. So a lot of the things that we do when we're supporting people are not only about maintaining tenancy and making a bit of a step change to their ability to live independently, but also about connecting with the community. And for us, that's part of that jigsaw part of that social skills, part of enabling people to think about their gifts and talents and how they might share those. So in terms of education, we would take a really broad approach. We're not an organisation that provides education, but what we do is we support people to find their own solutions.
Chris Jones Great. So what some one of the one of the issues we heard from Charlie in particular was was simply about the amount of time available for for education. You know, it's pretty obvious point, isn't it? That if the, if the time is not available for education doesn't matter how brilliant the offer is it simply can't be can't be achieved. For me from the prison reform trust point of view, you know, what, what are we collectively doing to try and increase the amount of time that's available for people outside of their cells and to do education?
Femi Laryea-Adekimi We definitely believe that time out of the cell is vitally important to the ends of rehabilitation. We have actually carried out some research on this we will get this in conjunction with Ministry of Justice and atpps talking to prisoners directly about the future regime, regime after Coronavirus and lockdown. And we had amazing feedback from prisoners, where they they spoke about some of the skills that have been mentioned already things like being able to prepare food for themselves, being able to interact with each other like a community, something that replicates what happens in the community. They also spoke about the difficulties of being in their cells for such extended periods of time, how it affected them, how it affected them mentally affected this interpersonal skills, and in an adverse all of this in an adverse way. And of course, they just couldn't get out to go through education. And if you can't get to an education course, how can it benefit you? They were being given in cell packs. But these were often too simple or not as engaging as being in a classroom. And so the prisoners themselves just said, you know, eventually, even if I was interested in the course, I just wasn't involved in these packs. I wasn't doing them I wasn't performing them.
Chris Jones Charlie, I'll come back to you then you've said we need more time ourselves and more time spent on education is clear that the prisoners one more time spent on education. It's clear what the benefits are, what what's holding us back?
Charlie Taylor There are a couple of issues. I think in some parts of the country. There are some really dire staffing situation. So particularly in the South East of England, so for example, prisons like Swaleside on the isle of Sheppey, Woodhill on the M1 corridor, there are some prisons that are really struggling with their staffing numbers and we recognise that and also with retention as well where, where the employment market still remains fairly buoyant. But what this really comes down to is a real ambition and a real drive from prison leaders and the prison service itself to say, look, we got to do more for prisoners. We have a responsibility, not only to keep prisoners safe, we also have a public protection and responsibility and if we want to fulfil that public perception responsibility, then we have to give people the support they need, so that when they come out from prison, they're more likely to be able to get a job, take care of their families.
I was really struck by a point that that Tracy made which, this isn't just about learning to read. Of course, that's incredibly important for doing GCSEs. It's also about learning the habits of work as well. The habits of of existing outside, getting up in the morning going to work every day, staying at work for the whole day, rather than what we often see within prisons where there are a lot for a couple of hours in the morning, and maybe they get to work for a couple of hours in the afternoon as well. No one works a four hour day. And so we need to replicate as closely as possible for conditions that we see on the outside in order that prisons, prisoners really get into that habit. And that sense of experience of what it's like to be involved in work. Because when people come out from prison, that critical few weeks, when potentially things can go can go wrong, where they can come out with lots of good intention and can slip up for whatever reason to have something in the tank when they come out to have a job ready for them when they're able to when they come out so that they can hit the ground running is just critically important. Because if you lose prisoners in those first few weeks, then unfortunately all too often you find them back on the wing in in in prison again. Just just to add one other thing. I think this staffing situation is also affecting education providers as well. So they're struggling to find really good staff. And there is a bit of a vicious cycle here happening too because if you're if you're a fizzy artistic teacher, and you're going to get a job in a prison, and then you never know which prisoners are going to turn up you never know if the ratio is going to get cancelled. If there's going to be a lockdown that week or or for whatever reason, you don't get the people you're expecting. Well, it's incredibly demoralising. And I think one of the issues is that the job satisfaction for people who are working in education simply isn't there.
Chris Jones Thanks, Charlie. Lots to unpack there. I'll start with that that point about people working in education. Paul, what do our inspectors see when they go in and they talk to those teachers in prisons who are who are trying their best to deliver education in what sounds like difficult circumstances.
Paul Joyce Chris as Charlie has said it's a very mixed economy that we find so it is very demoralising. When we see some teachers in prisons, sitting in an empty classroom or workshop, waiting for prisoners to arrive. And in honestly in some cases, they never do. And there certainly isn't that continuity of student attendance. So I think the staff morale is an issue. I think it takes a a particular type of teacher to adapt to the prison regime. To the the working of a prison, but where it is managed crests where it's you know, where it's managed well, where the regime is managed well and is prioritised and importantly, where the curriculum doesn't meet the needs so as Tracy has talked about those wider skills, it's it can be incredibly powerful for a prisoner just to be out of their cell and in a classroom, and not necessarily for the subject content that they're attending. But for those wider skills, those interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, communication skills, and it just tremendous good for the individual, and actually for the prison regime, but sadly need to improve. We all see that in our report.
Chris Jones Paul Joyce to come to you. You see people, once they leave prisoners, support them to get their life back on track. What will be your message to prison leadership? particularly about the importance of education for that?
Paul Joyce I think it's incredibly important. We kind of have a bit of a saying in here that every day's a school day. And whilst that doesn't sound terribly kind of monumental. What it does do is it shows a culture of learning. And I think if prisons are able to embed an expectation of ongoing learning, lifelong learning, if you like, within people who are about to leave prison, I think that would be incredibly helpful. So the whole attitude if I don't know something, I can go and learn it. If I can't do something, I can find out how to do it, rather than sort of feeling a need to throw the towel in. And that's a cultural thing. It's a modelling thing. It's a real clear leadership thing. So I think that needs to come from the top. I think it needs to be embedded, and people need to be prepared. To take that attitude out with them. So that even if they're not fully prepared to the outside world, they can see where their gaps are, and be as prepared as quickly as possible.
Chris Jones And let's, let's talk about some success stories if we can then. So Tracy you must have worked with people who have who have had a good and genuinely life changing experience through through being in prison and through having that opportunity to be educated. Tell us something about how that how that then translates into the world outside.
Tracy HammondOkay, there was one gentleman that comes to mind and I'll tell you this story because it's a little bit kind of left field too. He got such brilliant education that he went out and immediately got a job, but the education in a roundabout way really did change his life. So, so gentleman I know and work with quite closely. He did 22 years, maybe 23 years in prison on quite a revolving door, kind of kind of model if you like, but during that time, he learns some cheffing skills. And when he first left prison for the last time, he was in insecure housing, I believe and had an unrecognised learning disability. But because he had learnt those cheffing skills, he was highly valued in the local soup kitchen. Whilst he was at the local soup kitchen, he met people who would go on realise that he has a learning disability, support him to get formal recognition of that support him to get the social support that he needed. And since that time, that was 15 years ago, actually, and he has not really offended but it really was it all stems from firstly the skills that he learnt through the cheffing skills, but secondly, the amount of confidence that actually knowing about something and being able to give something back. The confidence that gave him was really life changing.
Chris Jones That's great to hear and hear we spent a lot of this conversation talking about talking about some of the problems and the issues, but the reason we're doing that is because it can, it can be genuinely life changing to have these experiences in prison. Femi tell us a bit about how we can do more of that.
Femi Laryea-AdekimiWhen I was in prison. I was in a B cat local for the duration of my short sentence, just five and a half months. Because of the quality and the enthusiasm the educators have heard about already. I was able to engage in a massive variety of different subjects of different activities through education that I would never have considered previously in my professional life or even in my private hobbies. I was able to to try my hands on design, painting with with different materials, I was able to again get involved with improvised Shakespeare acting, which again I would never have thought about, trying philosophy courses, debating courses, creative writing, starting novels. Poetry, and also, quite importantly, I think I was able to engage with higher education which I'd never done. On the outside even though I've done professional qualifications. I've never done higher education. And I was able to do a module of a criminology degree with the University of Westminster even though I haven't necessarily gone on to start painting or attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. What that did do in those experiences did it was enrich me as a person while I was in prison, broaden my horizons to think oh, well, if I can do those things in prison, what can I achieve once I'm out?
Like give me that confidence, that belief, self belief that I can achieve things on the outside and within less than a year, I was working for prison reform Trust, which I didn't think I would be doing. And within a year and a half I was giving evidence before the education select committee. And this is all because of the educators and the availability that they they made things ready and available to readily available to us. A simple way of promoting education is to value it the same as they value prison jobs. If you can earn more as as a cleaner, a window cleaner, then you will if you go into education, what is the prisoner going to choose in that situation? You're going to go through what offers you the most money. So if if prison governance, which came out in the education, select committees report that prison governors have the power to set wages for education, and work, if they take that lead and say well, yeah, if you choose to do an education report, you'll get the same as the wing cleaner, every worker that will at least encourage people to consider them on the same level. And for me, it's just a simple way of valuing education within the prison system.
Chris Jones Thank you, thank you for sharing your story. It reminds us doesn't it that education is not just about learning specific things. It's not just about passing exams, but it can genuinely changes as as people and can change our outlook on on life as well and can set set the direction for us. I want to pick up on Fermi's point, Charlie about payment for educational activities versus versus jobs. Is that have you seen examples of this being done? Well?
Charlie Taylor Yeah, we had in some some governors. Where some prisoners were going to the governor's because prioritise that and it's actually making sure that the prisoners who go to education, earning at least the same amount as people doing other jobs, but of course it is essential that prison jobs get done. We want prisons to be clean. We want things like waste management to happen and you know, potentially, prisoners can get into some good habits from those sorts of things do working in the laundry, working in the kitchens working in the servitor and salaries, these are all those are all good things. But what we want is education to be similar. But you know, there's a lot of prisoners who've got very little money at all. You've got care leavers who end up in prison and they've got family sending cash in for them and therefore every pound every penny counts for those people. So of course, they're going to take a job that pays better, even if in the long term, they're going to get further from from from education than they will do from learning to clean the wing. But in the short term they're going to do what's what's in their interests.
Tracy HammondYeah, I think perhaps, we may need to get a little braver almost about what we value because I think some of the things that are softer and more difficult to measure as important as things which are quite easy to measure. I'm thinking about soft skills such as competence, social skills, distance travel, that kind of thing. And I think that could really help people if we value those soft skills, as much as we value the really easy or the easy to measure things.
Charlie Taylor Where I think we're hearing is the value of the curriculum. And it's, you know, if the curriculum do the right things, even if that doesn't end up in a qualification. I also think there's there's an issue here but with accountability and responsibility, and I think they don't sit in the same place. And that concerns me, so that governors are held to account for the quality of education in their jail, but they're not responsible for it. Responsibility for that is done through giant centrally commissioned contracts. And I think it's a fantasy to believe that we're really going to be able to ultimately improve education in prison by turning the dials on a big Whitehall contract. And I think allowing governors to have more responsibility for education that goes on in their prisons, and I understand their potential pitfalls there as well. So I'm not suggesting this is a panacea, but making sure that there's real accountability and responsibility sitting closely together, I think is the way that we can raise standards.
And what I find often is governors have got an education provider who isn't coming up to scratch for whatever reason, and they're incredibly frustrated because they want to get their prisoners to education. They want to make progress, but they're not able to do that. But similarly, I think for education providers, they get frustrated by the fact that, as I said before, they don't know who's going to show up and when, and therefore that's demotivating for them. So I think bringing together accountability and responsibility for outcomes in education would seem to me your way of making progress. I mean, as a former Head Teacher, that that feels to me an area where where potentially we can make real progress. Absolutely, yeah. No one wants to be held to account for something that's outside of their control, do they and similarly as you said, no one wants to be aiming to deliver really good quality service but not having the engagement from the people on the receiving end. So certainly feels like some sort of join up and some structural change could certainly help in that regard.
Shreena Kotecha I was interested in the point around the softer skills actually being the most important and I guess the thing that's quite tricky with that is how do you measure that? Because like, by definition, they are softer, softer skills. So I was interested in thoughts from Tracy earlier maybe Paul on how the inspection framework can do that effectively.
Tracy Hammond I agree that it's quite difficult. However, we also have the double whammy really, of the fact that people aren't always that self aware. So what they see in themselves may not be a true reflection of what other people say. So I think there is there's a lot of work to do about thinking around distance travelled and I suspect it's always going to be distance travelled rather than you've reached grade one empathy. It's going to be about observed and also people's own view of their own distance travelled.
Paul Joyce Yeah, Tracy, just to commit to that I would agree with with that. I think measuring measuring the distance travelled and measuring soft skill acquisition, you know, is is inherently difficult in any setting. I think Shreena to answer your question about the the inspection framework, I think our our framework prioritises those soft skills and that distance travelled. And the mission that we use, you know, very much is around inspectors professional judgement, based on that interaction with prisoners or with staff and you know, looking at what the provision is, you know, so I think there's, there's a good measure there.
Paul Joyce A little anecdote. So we we do, perhaps encouraging the not so much now, but historically we have been into prisons where the KPIs or education around the number of certificates awarded, has been quite good. But actually, when you look at the qualifications, when you look at what those prisoners are actually doing in terms of their own development, they're either fairly meaningless, fairly pointless. Or too easy. So the KPIs have been achieved. And despite and he picks up on Charlie's point, despite the the governor perhaps not being very pleased with the education providers performance, the education provider in terms of contract management is doing pretty well. I assure you, they don't come out that well in inspection terms because we do raise those personal skills. So it is difficult measuring and contract management. But I absolutely echo Charlie's point about you know this is about systemic change and massive Whitehall contract is not the way to allow individual governors to manage provision in their own establishments. We've talked a bit about functional skills, and those can obviously be gained in different ways than sort of sitting in a classroom. We've already talked a bit about work in prisons. And I guess I was interested in how how those two linked together in practice in a prison So to what extent working in a prison, gives you some educational value and how those how those things are linked together by prison governors. And overall, where that's done well in a prison. So where the, the offer of education of workshops of regime is well suited is well considered. It can be really, really powerful. So you will get some key things as Charlie has touched on in prisons that need to happen when cleaning kitchen or servery. Well, you can actually build an education curriculum around there. So you know courses around food hygiene food preparation, and they can be a prerequisite, before prisoners can get jobs in the kitchen and in the servery. And where it's thought about that curriculum design, it can be very powerful, and in my view, can actually help the good order and good running of the prison and the prison regime.
Unknown Speaker What we also see which I think is excellent is governor's, looking at a wall and saying what skills are lacking in the local community? And then thinking about with the education provider thinking about what are the qualifications that the prisoners will need, in order that they will be attracted to those employers when they come out? And prisoners buy into it then because they feel like there's a genuine sense that they're making progress, just giving them a qualification for the sake of it. It's nice to have a certificate but they know that's not going to get them anywhere they want something that's concrete that's going to move them on.
Chris JonesThank you to all our guests. Thank you to Charlie Taylor Paul Joyce Tracy Hammond and Femi Laryea-Adekimi
I asked Amanda Spielman, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, what her thoughts were about the current state of education in prisons.
Amanda SpielmanPrison Education isn't in a good place at the moment. Our inspection findings say that at the moment, it's the worst it's been since we started looking at it. And when I talk about education here I'm talking not just about numeracy and literacy in classrooms, I'm talking about the whole range of education skills, training and work experience in in both prisons and Youth Offending institutions. It really does need to improve during the pandemic. Almost all prisoners were locked up for unacceptable amounts of time every day. And of course, as a result of this, prisoners had little or no access to education classes and vocational training, the regime of activities shrank and shrank. There were there was a bit of in-cell education with resource packs, but it was really a shadow of what it should have been. But what's particularly disappointing is that now almost three years since that first lockdown, prisons have still not got back, even to what was normal before the pandemic, when it comes to education. The action to recover has been very slow overall. And that slow pace has been made worse by the very large number of vacancies both among prison officers and among teaching staff in prisons.
And it's important to understand here that the most most of this is provided by one of the big MOJ subcontractors, but nevertheless, the people running prisons, the governor's people managing education need to understand what a good curriculum isn't how to make sure that that's what they're getting from their subcontractors. Otherwise, they can't be effective in helping make sure it improves. But at the moment, too many prisons are just not providing enough activity spaces for their prisoners.
An example of this slowness that I'm talking about relates to the the excellent report on teaching reading in prisons that we published jointly with the prisons Inspectorate last year, crucial issues, like the need to assess prisoners and identify their their reading level what they needed to learn rapidly. These are only now being tackled 10 months after we published that review. It really is very slow progress with addressing those recommendations. Prison and governors do need to move faster.
And my bottom line in the coming out of all our work, it really is important that all of us carry on emphasising the importance, everyone who works in prisons to understand the true value of education in improving prisoners. lives, and in maximising their chances of rehabilitation.
A summary of the key points of this important report, from Amanda Spielman, Alex Jones, Lee Owston, Yvette Stanley and Chris Jones. Listen to what Ofsted inspections found from all the remits we inspect; early years, schools, further education and skills and social care.
Transcript:
Chris JonesThis is a special edition, we're going to be focusing on our Annual Report for 21/22 which was published on the 13th of December. We've got a stellar lineup to talk you through what is in our annual report. We've got Amanda Spielman, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, we've got Alex Jones, who's our Director of Insights and Research, Yvette Stanley, who's our National Director for Regulation and Social Care and Lee Owston, our acting National Director for Education. Welcome, everybody. I'm going to start by turning to Amanda, Amanda, give us your initial reflections on the year that has just gone.
Amanda SpielmanA genuinely extraordinary year. On the one hand, we've been very lucky, we managed to keep children in school through the year. And yet it was such a tough year for everybody from early years, schools, further education, social care - across the board. It's been a tremendous challenge, I think, on the one hand dealing with all the catch up work, not just the academic demands, but also the socialisation and behaviour challenges, also having to do so much more than usual, because so many other services weren't available and of course, because staff themselves are short handed, partly because of recruitment and retention difficulties, but also because of higher than usual levels of staff sickness. So this is a triple whammy there of having to deal with backlogs and the normal work and with other services, that it's still not fully back up to speed with a slightly reduced workforce. It's been so hard and I think I want to start by acknowledging that and saying that what's been achieved I think, is in many contexts, nothing short of astonishing.
Chris JonesThanks, Amanda. We'll definitely come back to some of those themes that you've picked up on as we go through this podcast. So I'm gonna turn to Alex next. Alex, you lead the production of this year's Annual Report. You've been fully immersed in its contents for the last few months. But can you give us give us some of the headlines of what Ofsted inspectors and researchers have found over the last year or so?
Alex JonesThree sort of themes that I would draw out, that really helped to illustrate some of the challenges that the sectors have faced during this year as as Amanda mentioned, the first I think is around the ongoing impact of the pandemic and you know, in early years, we've seen children starting their early years education with speech and language having been affected by the pandemic and the fact that that many of those children have actually lived the majority of their lives in the pandemic. And in older children as well, we've seen the ongoing impacts of the pandemic manifest themselves through some ongoing mental health concerns. And also, attendance rates are still lower than they were pre pandemic. And in FES (further education and skills), we've also seen learners struggling to access work placements.
That's just to sort of illustrate a few of the few of the challenges that are that the pandemic continues to throw up. And of course, some of that's been some of those challenges are further exacerbated by, especially towards the end of the year, pressures on the workforce across the sectors that we inspect and regulate. So in early years, childminders, numbers are falling, nurseries are closing, and lots of those settings are increasingly reliant on apprentices. In social care. We've seen vacancies for registered managers increase. They're now running at about 14%. And local authorities are increasingly reliant on agency social workers, which can really impact on the provision that children receive and it's especially important in something like that which is so sort of heavily reliant on the relationship that social workers can can have with children.
And I mean, just to sort of illustrate what this means in education, what do these workforce pressures mean? Well, it can mean fewer staff in schools and colleges and that can mean larger classes, have more mixed abilities and fewer opportunities. For enrichment programmes and, and catch up opportunities deferred, and then the sort of third thing I would I would highlight is the impact that can have on some of the children with with the highest needs and those that are sometimes out of the line of sight of Ofsted and other agencies.
In the report, we highlight that the numbers of children in care are continuing to rise. Local authorities often struggle to find placements for those children and they can end up accommodated in homes that are hundreds of miles away in some cases, and we've really highlight concerns around the pressure that this place is on the system but in social care, and also in education where the system can struggle to make appropriate provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities in some cases.
Chris JonesThanks, Alex. So you've highlighted some of the challenges that everyone working in education and social care, well, I think recognise and would have worked so hard to tackle over the last year that we've reported on, but looking at own inspection outcomes, that they're largely moving in very positive direction. So I'm going to turn to Yvette and then to Lee to tell us a bit about our inspection outcomes. Firstly in social care, and then in an education, and Yvette, just tell us about how some of the providers we work with are really successfully rising to the challenges that that Alex spelt out.
Yvette StanleyOkay, I'm going to start with the inspections of local authority, Children's Services and this framework we put in place in January 2018. And up from a very low base, we've had some solid improvements. So we've gone from 2% of local authorities being outstanding to 16%. That's from three to 24 local authorities and at the other end 11% were inadequate, and we've halved, we've halved that. So a really good story, as I said from from a place where we wanted to see significant improvements, and local authorities have done that, despite the challenges of COVID and where we see that working well. It really is solid leadership, a really child-centred ambitious agenda for change and getting the basics in place so that social workers can do a really good job. Children's homes have continued to be at a very similar level of good and outstanding across all the judgments that we have seen since COVID. The newly registered children's homes, not having quite the same profile only marginally. But absolutely, that really seems to relate to an absence of managers, as Alex said earlier, and real challenges in getting enough aid enough staff to run the homes on a regular basis.
Chris JonesThanks for that. That's really interesting. I'll return to some of these things. I think, Lee, over to you. Tell us a bit about what's been happening across our education remits.
Lee OwstonYes, certainly, just giving you give you a flavour of some of the different remits in in education. I think, given all those challenges that Alex was outlining, at the beginning there, I think, actually terms or inspection judgments, we see across all the sectors either maintaining the proportion of good and outstanding providers that we have in previous years or or improving upon it, which I think is is a great achievement. Just to give you some specifics are at a percentage of state funded schools and are good and outstanding, which is a 2% increase on the previous year. I think particularly, we need to kind of praise those those weaker schools that have certainly improved over the last year. When you look at the proportion 70% of schools judged previously as requiring improvement, that kind of having have improved to good or better and indeed inadequate schools have improved to to good, if not to requires improvements.
I think, despite those challenges, leaders certainly in the school space are really taking the opportunity to think carefully about their curriculum. I think what the pandemic has enabled all leaders to do is kind of look at their what they want children to learn with fresh eyes and really prioritise what it is that they need at this point in time, always with that long term view about how they want to get back to the curriculum that they were establishing pre pandemic. We've seen 82% of further education and skills providers maintaining their good and outstanding grade and particularly in the in the college space. We've seen a significant increase they're actually in in good and outstanding with with 11% increase on previous years, I would say where we've seen some differences on previous outcomes.
We obviously have a have a rationale there in terms of early years where there has been a slight dip in good and outstanding provision overall. That's simply because we prioritise those providers that have gone the longest without inspection. So inevitably, a bit like we have with the removal of the outstanding exemption, you know, we've taken the opportunity to go back to those that have been out of the line of sight into an inspection for the longest time, and inevitably more of those have have dropped one two or more grades, but certainly overall because we inspect all education remains under the education inspection framework than actually that focus on curriculum. What is it that children need to learn has given the sector and inspectors the flexibility to really look at what's happening now for the children in front of them? And the story is, there's a lot of great work that's going on out there despite the challenges that everybody's facing.
Chris JonesAmanda, Yvette and Lee have described the efforts to which people are going to maintain and even improve standards in the across the sectors that we work with despite some of the challenges that we've outlined, particularly in terms of workforce. And I think we talked before about the pressure that especially leaders have been under since the start of the pandemic, and we know that many are continuing to feel that pressure and to interfere with the challenge that we've outlined. It's to their credit isn't it that they are still improving outcomes for children. But do you worry that this situation could could get worse, given where we aren't getting where we've got to go?
Amanda SpielmanWell, it's very easy to see that there could be problems with sustaining the current level of effort, the pressures of the last three years first, the sort of full blown COVID and restrictions and then the last year of recovery. Now these cost of living pressures. A lot of nurseries, schools, colleges are really, really uncertain how they will make ends next meet next year. So what choices they're going to have to make and that makes it really hard to plan solidly carefully, and make really good choices that will in fact, help children sort of complete this job of recovery and do as well as they can.
So I think it's a tremendously difficult time to be leading in our in our sectors. We know from the first year of COVID, quite how difficult it is for leaders when there are some great uncertainties ahead of them. When every day it feels like you're doing something that you never learned about when you're preparing for the job that none of your peers has ever done before either. So you're all having to do things for the first time. And I think working in the context of a sudden, very, very heavy cost of living crisis really is putting us in a different way. That kind of pressure on leaders again.
Chris JonesThanks, Amanda. I'll come back to you. You know, we talked about the challenges facing some of our most vulnerable children expand a little bit on that what what are we seeing post pandemic, in terms of the impact on those children that either Ofsted and other authorities can't see? Or where we're not having the same levels of services we've seen in the past,
Yvette StanleyChildren with special educational needs and disabilities saw their services and support quite disrupted during COVID Particularly those therapeutics of speech and language therapists and for some period, both in ILACS and LA SEND inspections, we've been talking about the challenges in access accessing children's adult adolescent mental health services. And I think those things are continuing and still quite concerning. And if you can imagine the pressure that puts on schools in trying to navigate the absence of those services for for those children with high and completely high leads of complexity. It's the same issue for families. And so we see in our SEND inspections, families who had their respite disrupted or a feeling that they're getting into quite an adversarial position in trying to access the services they need.
So we're still seeing a bit of that we are seeing schools and local authorities stepping in to provide some of those services. But absolutely, and as Amanda says, schools and local authorities have their own budget pressures and so there's issues around the funding of those services, but also, schools and local authorities don't have necessarily the clinical governance to provide or commission some of those services. So it really does need some joined up thinking, but you could imagine the loss of that respite could put families under considerable pressure and we know that there just aren't enough places, whether it's for children with special educational needs, or looked after children who need residential care. There just aren't enough of the right places close to where children live, to make those placements. And we're particularly seeing that acutely on the on in the secure estate where children in welfare support and we've seen a very sharp increase in children before the High Court needing a secure place and a compensatory decrease in the number of inpatient beds. Now, absolutely. We don't want children hospitalised but we do need safe provision for them in the community.
Chris JonesAnd that has a huge knock on effect on parents and families doesn't it has this what we've been talking about around the the numbers of child Minders and nursery places reducing tell us a bit more about that.
Yvette StanleyWe have to put this in a little bit of context. So I think there's been a population decline. Alex will correct me if I'm wrong. There's a little bit of a population decline. But if we're also parents are making different choices about their childcare and wanting much more flexible support when they're perhaps working from home two days a week that in turns puts tremendous pressure on providers who may or may not have the right mix of children in terms of getting enough income in to support their safe and efficient running of their nursery. So we are seeing some impact. And despite childminder numbers going down, which they haven't for a while, the overall places haven't gone down in the same way. But we will probably see some balancing out over the coming months and years as people you know, resettle into workforce patterns and make the demands that they need on their childcare.
Alex JonesI was going to say yes, that's absolutely right that the population of lots of four year olds in the country is also declining. So that does that is an important context to when we're thinking about child minder and nursery numbers and places. Of course, it's also true that in some of the areas of the country where child minder in nursery places are declining, the population isn't declining in line with the National level - every scenario pockets of different experience depending on where you are across England.
Chris JonesLee, I'll come back to you because there's been discussion recently about the numbers of previously outstanding schools that have lost their outstanding grade now that they've been reintroduced into routine inspection in the last year. Just give us your take on on that. Why is that happening?
Lee OwstonObviously removing the exemption which was a one way valve so that allowed the proportion of schools and colleges that would change that to increase because once you are kind of over that threshold, and you had that inspection judgement, and obviously you weren't you weren't going to drop from that position. I think we have seen some decline inevitably because obviously that exemption has lasted for a long, long time. And we have schools that were returning to you know, some hadn't had inspection for as long as 15 years. And I think there'll be a number of reasons for decline. In those instances, there will have been numerous head teachers, senior leaders, members of staff, over those 15 years, there will have been different frameworks. You know, there's a whole host of reasons reasons that we are very open about in terms of the reports for those schools about we know that any potential decline having happened at any point between the most current inspection and whenever the previous one might have been.
But I also want to stress to people because I think, you know, we hear most about outstanding schools that have declined, but actually the removal of the exemption has has allowed movement. You know, it hasn't just led to a valve going in reverse. And not everybody declining, actually there are there are schools that are equally improving and becoming outstanding for the first time or indeed throughout ungraded inspections, retaining their outstanding grades, and I think where we see schools maintaining that standard is because they truly have something that you know, others others can come along and learn from you know, they are they are exemplary in that there is aspects of their practice that they should be should share with others because they are they are that strong.
And I think that often comes down to the way in which their approach their curriculum, the way in which then allow all children have access to know the breadth and depth and ambition of of the subject of the national curriculum and beyond. And I think it is right to have that because there is something about aspiring to be the absolute best, but what I would want to reassure people about is that actually it does not mean perfection. There's no such thing, there's no such thing as standing still in education and actually what characterises the the outstanding leaders and schools out there is actually they understand that and they are constantly trying to improve and evolve upon while they already do, even though there is a very high standard already. So, you know, yes, there has been decline. We would expect that from a system that hasn't allowed us to inspect outstanding schools for a while. But equally let's remember there's also a lot of schools that are improving to that grade as well and rightly so.
Chris JonesOkay, let's spend our last couple of minutes is looking forward to next year and as I said at the start the annual report is based on what our inspectors have found during the year, but also some of the research and evaluation insight that we've done over the course of of that year. So Alex, I'll come back to you looking forward what's on Ofsted research agenda for this year.
Alex JonesThanks, Chris. I'll highlight a couple of things just building on these points there. We are going to be undertaking and publishing some research on what our inspectors found when they inspected the previously exempt outstanding schools. So really looking underneath the headline figures that what are the experiences of those schools over that period of time and when we've gone back into inspects them now. We're also undertaking an evaluation of our Education Inspection Framework. And we'll be publishing on that in the new year, on what that will entail and the different strands to that. So how will the experiences have been for schools and providers being inspected under the education inspection framework? We have a piece of research looking at early years which is linked to our strategic priority for Ofsted on the best start in life. And we will also be publishing a series of subject reports for providers.
Chris JonesExcellent. Thanks, Alex. And finally, Amanda, you'll be sitting in the same chair this time next year talking about Ofsted's annual report for 2023. What do you hope to be saying at that point?
Amanda SpielmanWell, I hope first of all, first and foremost to be saying it really does look as though the great bulk of dealing with COVID recovery is behind us. Of course, still some children needing extra help but for the most part the job is done. Secondly, I hope we're seeing a stable and supportive context for everybody working in the sector because that's the context in which the very best work can be done in both education and social care. Thirdly, I'm really looking forward I know we've got strands of work next year that are going to help us get to a whole different level of insight. Over the last few years, we've really been able to get to greater depth in social care and I'm very much looking forward to being able to do the same in education, really drawing on the enormous reservoirs of expertise that we've got within Ofsted, but also linking in to how we make ourselves a force for improvement, how we really feedback as much as we can that is genuinely helpful in all the sectors in which we operate.
We talk to Ofsted's curriculum unit, teachers who've been involved in curriculum planning and a Head and subject lead who've recently been inspected about the deep dives they experienced.
Chris Jones Hi everybody and welcome to the latest episode of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. Today's subject is the curriculum. I'd like to introduce my new co-host Shreena Kotecha. Hi Shreena.
Shreena Kotecha: Hi Chris.
Chris Jones: Very nice to have you with us. I've also got some fantastic guests today. I've got Heather Fearn and Jonathan Keay from Ofsted's curriculum unit. Do you want to say hi, hello. Hi both. And I also have fantastic school leaders to help us talk about the thorny subject of the curriculum. I'm gonna let them introduce themselves. I've got Ruth Ashbee, Ruth...
Ruth Ashbee Hi, Chris. Hi, everyone. I'm Ruth Ashbee. I'm a senior deputy head at Holly Lodge High School in Smethwick in the West Midlands and also vice chair of governors at Millbrae school where I live in Shrewsbury.
Chris Jones Excellent thank you, Ruth, and we also have Steve Mastin. Hi, Steve.
Steve Mastin Hi, everyone. My name is Steve Mastin. I was a secondary school head of history for last 17 years.
Chris Jones Excellent. Welcome, Steve. Welcome, Ruth. And thanks very much to Jonathan and Heather for joining us as well.
Shreena Kotecha: Jonathan and Heather, do you want to start just by kind of telling us in a nutshell, what is the curriculum and why should we care?
Heather Fearn: Focus on curriculum is the focus on what it is that pupils learn what chiefest spectacles the substance of education? So I think for quite a long time in schools there's been a focus when thinking about what was quality teaching on what perhaps what teaching methods were used, whether there were particular ways of teaching different sorts of activities, which would be considered more or less effective than others. And that had meant there wasn't as much emphasis on what it was that pupils were learning and whether they were learning what they needed for success in the education and then in their lives. We all have really ambitious aims for children, and what they might learn for their education. But one thing we do know and we know this, both through sort of logic and common sense, but also from research is that if children are less successful than we would like, in an aspect of their education, for example, GCSE, but they did not have the knowledge they needed to have the success in that area. And curriculum is a... curriculum means focusing on what it is that children need to learn step by step over time to have success in those ambitious curriculum aims or educational goals that we've got for them.
Chris Jones: And so why do we have a curriculum unit in Ofsted, what does it do?
Heather Fearn: Yeah, so we've we've really expanded the roles of our subject leads, so everything that has described there this emphasis on curriculum over a number of years now and of course, the introduction of the Education Inspection Framework, meant there's a there's a necessary opportunity to look at subjects too, and just consider what it means to get better at those subjects. So our subject leads have been appointed for every area of the curriculum and at the moment, they're working on two main things. So they're focused entirely on supporting our workforce, training them kind of day to day at conferences. And secondly, externally, just that work towards a subject report, a State of the Nation report, in each area of the curriculum, and we're, we're looking forward to sharing those next year.
Shreena Kotecha: I'm interested in how does this interact with the national curriculum that all schools automatically follow?
Heather Fearn: 3:42It's a really good question. It was one I was asked a lot actually when EIF was first launched. And if we think about the national curriculum, it has a set of quite high level goals that are outlined, it is quite a short document. That's one of the things that's most striking about it - very brief, and it's got a set of kind of what could be described as high level goals in each subject, a bit more detail for English and maths and not and really not very detailed across the other subjects. And that means that there's an awful lot of thinking that has to be done about what it is that children need to learn to get to the point where they are going to be successful in those high level goals.
We know that children have, that everyone makes sense of new things that they learn based on what they already know. And that basic insight about how we learn means that through children's education step by step, there should be a curriculum which leads them towards learning what they will need over time, and those steps are identified by schools, but those can be towards the high level goals of the national curriculum. And in Ofsted, our own framework criteria would expect schools even if they don't need to follow the national curriculum and the high level goals outlined there, to be thinking, designing an educational plan, which is at least as ambitious.
Chris Jones I'm sure there's lots more that John and Heather can can say but I want to turn to Ruth and Steve now, Ruth, you've you've led curriculum working in schools and trusts - what what is it? What does it mean to you and have you what what's changed over the last few years if anything for you?
Ruth Ashbee: I think one of the first sort of impacts that I personally felt was that I was able to be focusing on the things that I wanted to focus on, having read extensively around kind of, you know, how students learn and the importance of the subject specialisms, and that sort of thing. And, you know, I wasn't kind of compelled to be looking at some of the distractions that perhaps we felt under previous frameworks, or at least I did, and I think that that being able leaders and teachers to focus on the substance of what is taught in the high level goals and the components that can lead students to reach those high level goals is just such a wonderful thing for us to be focusing on as a profession because, you know, as I said, it allows those students to make those progress and all that those students and it helps us to reduce the the issue where students kind of come with less knowledge and they're less able to make progress and we have that kind of widening of the gap, but it's better for staff as well.
You know, it's just so wonderful to be able to engage with subject specialism and all these wonderful ways of looking at the world. I think that it's a really inspiring aspect of the profession now and I think we are so lucky to have that. The other thing as well that I think is important to say is we used to have this kind of mad dash towards year 11 At the end of the year, and having curriculum reflected in the inspection framework in terms of the judgement has allowed us to, you know, schools who have legacy issue around outcomes to be able to focus on implementing actions that you know, with our lowest year so in secondary school, beginning with your seventh, not just putting all your struggle teachers on your 11 for example, but doing work that's really important and valuable, but that doesn't show visibly in outcomes. So I think it's allowed us to do some of those things that perhaps take longer, but have more benefits over the longer term.
Chris Jones Thanks. Steve, what do you think, what are your reflections on on the curriculum?
Steve Mastin: I fully concur with what Ruth said and if I if I take it back even further to primary schools, I mean, I'm an historian and classicist by background and we know the Latin derivation of curriculum being a course or like a running track and there's a starting point to that and the way that you're in the middle of the race is different from the way the the very beginning of the race.
And I think what a curriculum is, is a set of promises that teachers at the beginning of the curriculum are making to teach us further into the curriculum. And if we just see the curriculum as a pile of stuff, like even if it's really good stuff that children are learning, but that stuff is not organised in any sort of coherent, sequenced way, then it would be like doing the Romans before you did the Greeks. It's very common in some primary schools, because if we see them as just bits and pieces, topics stuff that children learn, but there's no wrestling with, so why would you do the Greeks before the Romans? What will learning the Greeks first, enable children to access in a more sophisticated way when they study the Romans? And I would say the same thing in secondary. So I was a head of history for a number of years. And before I started working in primary schools, I've worked in hundreds of primary schools now across the country, I would say as a secondary school teacher in the sixth or the seventh Ofsted inspections that, can I use the word endured, in the six or seven inspections that I was subjected to, at no point before the 2019 framework, did the inspector ever ask to see my curriculum?
I was never really having a discussion about where this lesson fitted into the wider scheme - how the lesson before had enabled children to access the learning in this lesson. And so I think, I mean, it's revolutionary, is that too strong a word. I have heard so much positive feedback from schools about the deep dives, because if you are proud of your curriculum, if you've wrestled with not just the stuff that's in it, but the sequencing enabling children to access future learning, then a deep dive is such an exciting revolution.
Chris Jones That's really good stuff. Thank you. And we're going to hear a bit later on from some colleagues who have recently been subjected to or have enjoyed, as you say, a deep dive and have got some things to tell us about how that felt and how that and how that went. I just need to say this difference between primary schools and secondary schools because we are we do here? The Ofsted framework is only designed for secondary schools if they're only working in primary schools because you know, it doesn't reflect how primary schools are organised. What do you say to that, Steve?
Steve Mastin: I couldn't disagree more. I couldn't disagree more. I think the big difference, of course, is that in secondary schools, the person who is designing the curriculum via geography or history is a subject specialist, you would hope that they're a subject specialist, and so they wrestle with that curriculum over years and years, refining and reflecting on etc. And of course, primary school teachers have to be Leonardo da Vinci's, they have to be experts in every subject, and with the best will in the world. Primary School teachers want to be seen as experts when they're standing up in front of their children. But you can't be an expert in everything. And so when you have a history, lead or geography, lead or humanities lead in a primary school, that's a huge undertaking, if you don't feel that you're a subject specialist, and so, you draw upon the expertise of, of, let's say, your subject Association, the Historical Association or the other associations and you think, sir, how do I organise a curriculum because if I get the point, that it's more than just a pile of stuff, and the sequencing is the sequencing is crucial, then where do I go to draw upon advice? Where's my locus of authority for thinking about the curriculum? So I think the benefits to primary schools are, are even greater, in many ways, because after all, Key Stage two is the biggest key stage of a child's education.
Chris Jones:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And from a secondary lens. Ruth, you mentioned some of the some of the changes that the focus on curriculum has allowed you to make, but as it has not yet fed through into impacts on on learning, children are getting a different experience because of that.
Ruth Ashbee: Knowledge is at the heart of it, isn't it? And I think that you need to have all that detailed knowledge and that awareness of sort of debates in the subject and the confidence to talk about it with adults can only you know, you can't fake it, can you so it's just a wonderful thing to say.
Chris Jones:Though, there can be a sense whenever Ofsted changes its expectations. That's a that's an issue for schools but I know that we have been keen to to help school leaders and curriculum leaders navigate their way through this, this, this new landscape.
Heather Fearn: 12:04And so over the last few years, we've been publishing a set, we've published a series of research reviews, we've only got two left to go. And they're available on gov.uk. And the purpose of these research reviews, when we go into schools, we want to make sure that we're thinking about what could be a quality of education in each subject. And the way we're thinking about that is the best it could be that we've got the best possible conception or way of thinking about quality. And that meant we wanted to have a look at what research there was. And what it suggested about what is a quality subject education.
Jonathan Keay: We've thought carefully about how we can make these documents accessible to so it's worth knowing with those research reviews, that they're pretty accessible. Whether your primary or secondary there's a nice summary at the start. There are takeaways, it's nice and easy to read. You know the listeners might might want to know as well. We've got some YouTube videos out there as well. So they're really short. They summarise the research reviews and our subject just quickly and in kind of little as 15 minutes, give you the big big kind of ticket items about their subject. And there are more videos on the way soon as well.
Chris Jones:I want to make sure that we don't give people the impression that this is all very easy and straightforward. Because, you know, curriculum planning and sequencing and getting a right thinking deeply about your subject is is is something that takes time and a great deal of effort, isn't it? And I'm sure Steve and Ruth you've both put in that effort yourselves and also you helped other people with that. We talked about some of the challenges of getting it right. When it comes to curriculum. Steve, I'll come to you first if you don't mind.
Steve Mastin: Well, let me think of a school that I was in just recently and they were teaching a lesson about Alexander the Great. And Alexander's empire, how Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire. And for years the Persian Empire had been trying to take the Greek city states into their empire. Well, just that that that sentence that I just said there, the amount of sophisticated knowledge that it takes just to understand that sentence - and these teachers in Enfield they weren't giving children a definition of the word Empire as if you learn the word Empire by memorising a definition of it. It's thinking where is the first time that children in year three encounter the concept of empire? And how do we teach that because we know that in two units time when they've done the Persian Empire, and they've done the Greek city states and the Persian Greek wars, when they get to Alexander, that word Empire is going to take on another meaning so that when they get to year four, and they're looking at the Roman Empire, we don't have to teach the Roman Empire we don't have to teach the word empire. We're simply layering with further knowledge and - look at well, isn't this interesting for this empire has someone called an Emperor now that takes planning doesn't it - you don't accidentally meander your way into into or look at what we're able to do now because of what we did in year three. When it comes to thinking long term about the curriculum. It's not something I would want a school to rush as if suddenly you import these documents and suddenly you've got a fantastically well sequenced curriculum - doesn't always work that way.
Chris Jones:It's fascinating, isn't it? And here, I can see how curriculum experts such as yourself, who spent hours poring over the details of how this all of ours will fits together. And Ruth, I imagine it's, it's a messy, rewarding, as well as challenging to be thinking and this depth about the curriculum as you are.
Ruth Ashbee: Yeah, definitely. I think in terms of the challenges that schools face, I think the first challenge that many many schools face is just - behaviour. And you know, if you don't have high, high functioning systems for behaviour, so the teachers are able to have high expectations then you can have the best curriculum in the world, but it won't have the impact that you want it to do and also what you have is teachers sort of feeling under pressure to distort the curriculum or distort how they're going to teach the children because you know, all this will engage them. It's best to have a practical on Friday last period by because otherwise they won't listen and that's really damaging. The headline from what you've just said, Steve, is that curriculum is just massive, isn't it? Like it's such a huge job, just just to think about the sequencing is a huge job and to get staff to a place where they where they have all the tools to begin to think about that huge job.
You're often in a massive sort of chicken and egg scenario where you want people to kind of be learning a lot about cognition, the role of memory and long term memory and short term memory and so on, but you want people to be engaging with the subject networks, but you don't want to overwhelm people and you've got parents evening just tonight and you know, all the kind of realities of, of day to day life in a school. But I do think you know, that if we're not careful, we tend to sort of admit that knowledge building for teachers and we sort of rushed towards a click for that this template or like, what's your curriculum map, do retrieval practice or how you can make sure that you're providing for people to attend and, and actually, you know, people will fill out those things dutifully, because they're conscientious, but if we're not feeding that knowledge by as Steve says, you know, engagement with the subject networks and so on the real sort of the benefits of focusing on curriculum.
Steve Mastin: yeah, I think you also have pressures on senior leaders in schools. If you're a head of department, and your line manager is a very good line manager but he or she is not a subject specialist in your subject. How can senior leaders support curriculum leaders in secondary schools? And I would say one of the most obvious things that a line manager can do is to use some of that language of so can you talk me through - why do you teach this in the autumn term of year eight? What does it build on? And where is it going to be useful in freeing up working memory later on for children to be able to access something more sophisticated? Can you talk me through that? Now, you don't have to be a subject specialist to ask that question, whether it's in music or science or whatever. But if a subject leader can't answer that question, then I would say you're a good line manager by starting them in the direction well, that's how the curriculum works, doesn't it? It's not a pile of stuff. It builds on what we've done before and it enables children to access future learning.
Shreena Kotecha:I'm interested in how you came about sort of tweaking and refining the curriculum once you've developed it. So how do you spot when something isn't going well and could go better? And how do you build a culture where teachers feel kind of empowered to to fess up when something isn't doing so? Well?
Ruth Ashbee: Yeah, I mean, culture is an enormous art of making it work. And I think that's something that we can't wave a magic wand, but that's just something that we build, like with our day to day interactions, but also with sort of systems and structures that we have in the school things like do we have high stakes lesson observations? For example? Do we have unwieldy evidence for performance management because all of those things contribute to a sort of sense that if this isn't working, then I'm going to look bad? So I'm just gonna keep quiet. And you know, we need to think about that kind of that big picture.
And I think the more time that teachers can spend together talking evaluating just in that normal, you know, that kind of staff room sort of - there was a blog a while ago by Michael Fordham about a brown sofa in the history department office. And it was just so evocative that just the sort of the conversations that they would just have as part as a team sort of every day, actually, as leaders, we can create the time for those conversations by just freeing up department time.
Steve Mastin: I think if senior leaders are creating a culture in their schools, which encourages departments to have conversations around the curriculum, I think of heads of department that I know in schools where they have the freedom to be able to say we're not going to do admin if we can help with in department meetings. What I'm going to do as a head of department, is I'm going to send out an article for the people in my department to read. I'm not going to expect them to do it before the meeting because they've got lots of other things going on. We're going to spend the first 15 minutes of my department meeting reading the same article about curriculum or perhaps a particular area of the curriculum. So maybe something that a historian has recently written or listening to a podcast for 15 minutes together, and then have a discussion about so how would this influence our curriculum? What does that make us reflect on? Are we teaching this with the latest scholarship bearing down on us? How do we reflect on the way in which that particular aspect of year nine relates to this in year seven because of what we've just read, and senior leaders are making time for that culture to be celebrated rather than being seen as a luxury or an indulgence? Decadent to do something like that? If people are listening to what I just said, and thinking, gosh, that's a bit decadent, well, then we're thinking about the wrong things when it comes to curriculum.
Chris Jones:It strikes me from what you both said that, clearly the the evolution of a curriculum is likely to happen over time. It's likely to involve your discussion and thought, practice and assessment and, and so on. And, Heather, I want to come back to the Ofsted angle on this so and talk a bit about what what are our expectations for what we'll see on an inspection you know, how do we are we expecting perfection here? Or in fact to do it? Are we able to recognise that as I've said, these things do do take a bit of time to get to where people might want them to get to?
Heather Fearn: The really most crucial thing in education is that pupils are learning what they need to so that they can achieve the ambitious goals that we've got for them from their education. On inspection, when we're not looking for any particular paperwork or complicated planning system or codes or endless sorts of different files with different things in different things. What we want to look at is, are these pupils learning what they need to step by step that means that they are going to be successful? And so that means just just looking at your curriculum plans and seeing and talking through them with you. We don't have any special view of what plans might look like or any expectation with that regard, but talking to you about what your planning is, and whether that plan has identified what pupils need to learn step by step towards those ambitious goals that you have for your pupils.
Chris Jones: And we just know it's a particular challenge for primary schools and small programmes in particular, just to reassure you, you know, as a Jonathan said, do keep it simple. both Steve and Ruth have said some things that are just really useful to hang your conversations on. And it's all about coherence. Can you describe the journey that your pupils go on in terms of how they get better at those different subjects? And those are the questions kind of why this why now and how is what they're learning preparing for what's going to come in the future and how is what they have learned, prepared them for where they are now?
Heather Fearn: When we go and listen on visits, we're not judging the teachers and we're not judging lessons, but we are thinking about whether those pupils learning what they're learning now have been set up and prepared for that lesson now by what's gone before and yeah, are they actually learning it now? Has it been learned? Have they remembered the things they need to for the lesson they're in now?
Chris Jones: Every time we have these conversations about curriculum, which has been quite a lot over the last few few years, I'm always taken back to my time at school, and the sharp contrast between those lessons in which I felt confident and those lessons in which I felt all at sea and you know, thinking about it, now it's quite clear where I felt confident and I felt motivated and I felt like I'd achieved is because of the things that we're talking about. I could remember what happened in the previous lesson or set of lessons and I was presented with something to build that upon and to take it on to the next level and those where, I felt all at sea, demoralised and, frankly a bit upset, was when I was given a task with no background information, no explanation, nothing to build it on and just told to get to get on with it. And I think that's the that that is the impact of a good curriculum versus a weaker curriculum on the children, the class of children.
Jonathan keay: That's the most simple, most important curriculum planning. I want to be here by the end of this sequence of lessons. What do I want my pupils to have learned? And then next question, what activities are most likely to ensure they would learn that and that granularity and detail you haven't got to start from scratch? Now think back to my time as a teacher and a head teacher, you know, we adopted schemes we made use of what other local schools were doing, and just made it work in our context. So don't feel you've got to start from scratch. There's plenty of stuff out there.
Steve Mastin: It's very popular now in schools to use what's commonly called retrieval practice. But yet retrieval practice is misunderstood in some schools, with some people thinking that if we do retrieval practice, which amounts in some schools to not much more than just some random quizzing at the start of a lesson, that that's what the Ofsted inspector wants to see. But of course, what is it that you're retrieving? And why is a more important question than do you do retrieval practice? So getting back to what Heather was saying that we're not wanting to see in lessons, all singing, all dancing, wizzy, kids up all over the place, having a really fun time. You know, the throwing the kitchen sink at a lesson because you know, it's being inspected? It's the opposite. It's isn't obvious when you're doing retrieval practice, that these are the things you want children to remember. And these are the reasons why to remember those things because those things that you're retrieving are going to be useful in this lesson and in future lessons, rather than just quizzing for the sake of quizzing.
Chris Jones:Very helpful. Thank you. I want to take a minute for the hard-pressed classroom teacher in a primary school, they might be it might have been given a subject or more than one subject to lead. They're largely trying to trying to survive day to day in some cases, with planning and delivering lessons and marketing books and so on. What can we say to people about why this is a really important investment of of time and what can we say to school leaders about your why, why this this type of planning should be should be prioritised above some of those other activities.
Jonathan Keay: How simple can we make this? I guess? Pupils deserve to have things to think with and that's, that's what makes it possible to do all of the hard stuff in life. And actually, if they're not given those opportunities to learn that knowledge, then then far less likely to be able to do some of the complex tasks, perhaps in relation to exams, but nevermind that just the things day to day, their opportunity to take part in conversations that they might not normally be able to.
Chris Jones Ruth, what do you think?
Ruth Ashbee: Well, I'd just like to push back slightly on the first part of your question there, Chris, because, you know, if teachers are struggling to survive, then I think that our job as leaders must be to first of all ask, why is it that they're struggling to survive and what can we take away or what can we do differently so that they're so that they have capacity to focus on something as important as curriculum? I don't feel we should be going unnoticed, that isn't what you meant, but it's not a case of, you know, dig deep because this is really, really valuable. It's like, actually, do we need to be marking books or can we be using whole class feedback or responsive teaching? How many hours does it actually take to do this? You know, it's only CPD, we can sort of speed things up or streamline things or, you know, what can we do as a school that is the climate that teachers need in order to be able to, you know, fully engage with curriculum thinking and then once you get that, you know, it does become very addictive as well. You know, I'm not saying, you won't get teachers who are kind of go to conferences on the weekend and reading around that subject in their spare time as well. And that's wonderful. And, you know, we're very lucky that there are lots of people who do end up wanting to do that in our profession, but like, that can't be the expectation, teachers have got to be able to do a really good job of engaging in curriculum. Just as part of the normal working week.
Shreena Kotecha: So can we talk a bit about how different subjects are dealt with differently? So how, for example, a science curriculum which enables if you have more expertise, and the humanities curriculum, which I see we have more expertise on, might be developed differently, but can we also talk a little bit about to what extent there should be or can be overlap between tea?
Heather Fearn: Yeah, I think there's there's quite a few things that it's important to understand about science curriculum. Firstly, obviously, we've got three sciences physics, chemistry and biology. The way that it's examined is very yes, no, right or wrong answers, but that impacts a lot on the type of practice that we ought to be getting students to do. There's, you know, it's a hugely broad and wide discipline and students have to remember an awful lot. I think you still get sort of some residual thinking about kind of you know, maybe Bloom's taxonomy or sort of literacy activities and you get sort of spurious, debates introduced or evaluations introduced, sometimes that sort of go against the nature of the subject, you know, that there are certain elements of it where it overlaps with kind of ethics or broken society and so on. But by and large, it's about factual claims, explaining the natural world and making predictions about what will happen in the natural world. So it's important to recognise that when we are defining the sorts of quality practice that we'd expect students to be doing in sesson to learn that material.
Chris Jones:And Steve, what how does that differ? Or does it differ in history and humanities?
Steve Mastin: It's foundational to any curriculum to think of that, not just in terms of the substantive knowledge, the what that children are learning and the order in which they're learning it? But but also that disciplinary knowledge, and that's where line managers in secondary schools can allow their subject specialist head of whatever to think about the discipline, how it works. So for example, in geography, geographers think about the sense of place in a very specific way and when they talk about place, they don't mean location, location is where you can see where somewhere is, by its coordinates, but a sense of place is all to do with so how do the people who live in that place understand that place and how do they talk about their sense of place? And I as a geography teacher, let's say teaching about the Amazon, I'm going to represent the Amazon to children, but that's not necessarily how the Amazon is. So it gets quite complex. But of course, that's why you need geography specialists to be able to understand how you teach children to describe a sense of place. Likewise, in history, we ask questions about causes and consequences and change and continuity and similarity and difference, but you wouldn't want to see let's say in a in a primary history lesson, children's saying, 'So do you like this period of history? What do you think of the Vikings? Would you rather live at the time of the Vikings all the time of the Romans?' So we've suddenly stepped outside the discipline of history, and we're now asking children to, you know, give their opinions and there's nothing wrong with asking open ended questions, but they must be within the discipline, whether it's history or geography, not just engaging, fun questions, because as soon as we step outside, that discipline, then that curricular thinking thinking like historians or like geographers, is not being modelled and it's not being taught.
Jonathan Keay:
It's really useful to hear Ruth and Steve, using much of the language as well that you'll you'll find in our research reviews if you read them and that's really helpful to hear how these kind of things are washing up in the education community as well. Of course, colleagues use these terms all the time, but hopefully, the way they've described both of their subjects, there is another gateway into some of our work in the curriculum unit as well.
Steve Mastin:
It's great to just give one example, I think Shreena was talking about it, where you have connections between subjects, but not because you've shoehorned them in as if cross curricular clarity is the big goal, but where they naturally occur. So going back to that school in Enfield that I was visiting, I was sitting next to one of the schools ministers over the last year. And up on the board in this year for history lesson was a sentence that said 'Judea was a province in the east of the Roman Empire'. And the teacher wasn't teaching that, the teacher was then building new knowledge on that. And I turned to the school's minister and I said, how much sophisticated knowledge in history and geography is required just to understand that sentence? And do you notice the teacher didn't teach any of it? Because the children are coming to this lesson with that secure geographical knowledge so they know where to look on the map to find East. That's a simple example. But where geography and history naturally overlap. Then, of course, those connections should be made clear to pupils, but I think shoehorning them in ends up doing a disservice to both subjects.
Heather Fearn:
A separate but distinct point about subject differences, I think really was highlighted during the pandemic. And with the kind of urgency of catch up because it's very easy to have sort of homeschool messages about what catch up should be identify gaps. Intervene might be a kind of set of standard instructions when thinking about catch up, and that might work for maths. For example, or it might work for phonics, where the subject knowledge is kind of relatively hierarchical, you build on the next thing and then you find out for some children, you've got some gaps and you fill them in. Whereas for subjects like history and geography in subjects where Steve does more work, it might be that during the pandemic pupils simply didn't do the Vikings at all the instruction identify gaps Well, they didn't do the Vikings that's the gap assess the gaps or dentist because you know, they didn't do the Vikings. And another instruction might be make curriculum alterations, and actually that flips things because you don't want to make curriculum alterations in math, so you decide to skip fractions or in phonics you described you decide to skip the letter sound 'Mmm', because it's non negotiable, it's got to be covered and it's got to be learned. Whereas in history and geography and and subjects of that sort it might be possible to make curriculum alterations to sort of emphasise what might be most crucial to be able to keep going.
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Chris Jones:
We spoke to Felicity Haresign, maths lead, and Kenneth Davis, the head teacher of Cliddesden Primary School in Basingstoke about their deep dive with Dan Lambert, Ofsted HMI, schools, and Kathryn Moles from the Education Policy Team here at Ofsted.
Dan Lambert:
Thanks very much, Chris. My name is Dan Lambert. I'm one of His Majesty's inspectors, and I'm really pleased to be joined today by Kathryn Moles, who is a specialist advisor in Ofsted's policy quality and training and more importantly, we're really pleased to be joined by Ken and Felicity. Ken is the head teacher at Cliddesden primary school and Felicity is their maths lead. And Felicity it was great pleasure of mine to inspect your school in November 2021. In terms of the deep dives, how did they feel and what did they involve?
Kenneth Davies:
Well, we knew from our phone call with you the day before Dan which was very useful, which subjects were going to be the focus for the inspection, obviously reading, which is what's happening in all schools, and we looked at mathematics as well and then we discussed the subjects that we felt was our strength, but I also got the chance to talk to you Dan, about the curriculum in general. And Felicity is our maths lead. I'm going to hand over to her to talk about her experience with the data.
Felicity Haresign:
When you have the Ofsted call, you are nervous, and I don't think you can change that feeling. But after the day, it was an intense day and it was full on but I came out with a positive feeling, everyone was really friendly. From the beginning Dan you joked about someone's laptop, not working on the day and my laptop works every single day, but that morning had decided not to. But that made me feel a bit more relaxed and it was it was both friendly and it wasn't threatening at all. I had to have a meeting and a chat about math as my subject, we talked about how maths is throughout the school, what the assessment is, like, how I planned it, where the progression is, and due to joining the maths hub several years ago we are working alongside it. So I'm quite confident and I was quite confident with how we set out our curriculum. So in terms of preparing for that, there wasn't so much to prepare for as we had done quite a lot of work over the past few years.
Kathryn Moles:
Nice good question, Felicity. And Ken, you both talked about feeling well prepared for the inspection and the subject deep dive and you've talked about the work you've done with your staff around that. Just explain to me what it's about preparing to understand what a deep dive looked like or - was it about preparing in terms of just being really clear about your subject and the kind of the way your subject was set up and what you were trying to achieve from it or a bit of both?
Kenneth Davies:
I think mainly it was about our curriculum really, being prepared. I mean, we I remember pre pandemic going to a conference and Ofsted conference at St. Mary's in Southampton, about what a curriculum should look like. Well, the quality of the curriculum is in terms of children should be acquiring knowledge. So it wasn't just about you know, Ofsted mean it's about getting the best for the children and making sure we are doing what we should be doing. So I think that that's what we mean in terms of preparation. It took time to evolve is still evolving a year after our inspection. I think in terms of being ready for the inspection as well. Obviously we wanted to showcase what we've done. So we didn't want inspectors coming in and teachers and subject leaders not really being able to talk about their subjects or or finding gaps in things, we wanted them to be prepared to to showcase what they've done and to be confident. And the same with the children as well, because we knew inspectors were going to talk to children's but after deep dives, and so you know, checking with children we're familiar with what they learn in be able to be able to talk about their learning in a confident way.
Felicity Haresign:
So preparing for me was more preparing to be able to talk about my subject. I know I'm an expert in my subject. I've worked really hard on it, but being able to articulate to somebody else what I've done and how it works in this school has been freshly built from early years to year six, which we thought carefully about, how we set out our assessments that teachers can really see where the children are, where their gaps are, and it was being able to talk about that confidently. We discussed deep dives in staff meetings which really helped us to be clear on what we wanted to share with the inspector.
Dan Lambert:
Thanks Felicity, it sounds like you're really well prepared and from memory, you absolutely were. I've got a question - in that initial discussion with inspectors, did you feel that you were able to really describe and give inspectors a really clear picture of your subject and what they should expect to see during the day?
Felicity Haresign:
During my subject leave chat with the inspector, she asked most of the questions that I was expecting, most of the things that we have been through during the staff meeting. And over the last year, I had a teacher assessment sheet that worked alongside our maths curriculum. So I was quite proud of that to show the inspector and she was willing to look at the assessment.
Dan Lambert:
Thanks so much Felicity, that was really interesting and great to hear. After those initial discussions with inspectors, you will have started to complete some lesson visits. Talking to pupils inspectors would have also looked at people's work as well. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Kenneth Davies:
So I was lucky enough to join the inspector on visiting classrooms to look at mathematics across the school ranging from year six down to the early years. I also was able to join my English lead in our discussion with the inspector about phonics and reading. And then I know the inspectors have the opportunity to talk to the children about their subjects, hear children read and also talk to them about other aspects of their learning school
Kathryn Moles:
And you are a small school as well and having two inspectors on site for one day working with with colleagues in the school can be a challenge. How did you manage that?
Kenneth Davies:
It was a challenge ensuring that my subject leads felt confident that they could speak to inspectors on their own or whether they wanted a senior leader and again, senior management in small schools is very small. Well, I I kind of look at everyone as being a leader in my school to be honest, but whether they wanted someone to join them, and we made sure that there was an opportunity to do that with our our very, very efficient, capable LSAS covering if needed to when when they were speaking to inspectors.
Dan Lambert:
So Ken, it's interesting hearing you talking about your involvement in the deep dives because often in some schools you can find that head teachers feel quite removed from the deep dive process because it's all being carried out in conjunction with their subject leaders or those people responsible for subjects. So it sounds like that wasn't the case for you. It sounds like you were quite involved in what was going on.
Kenneth Davies:
Yes, I did. I did. I think the initial phone call the day before also help because it gave me the opportunity to discuss things with with them like to say because we're a small school I did join join for the English discussion. And also I got the opportunity in the afternoon to speak to Dan about the other subjects that we hadn't deep dived into, we looked at a bit about geography and design and technology as I recall and some of the children's work, in particular how we were moving forward in working out how we can assess these subjects or what they're more importantly, what we're assessing in those subjects areas. I was just as busy as everybody else and didn't feel disconnected at all. But also I think part of the role of the head teacher is to make sure the well being of all your staff and to make sure everyone's feeling good and relaxed and willing to participate the best they can.
Dan Lambert:
Good to hear. That's exactly how we want it. This is a bit of a rare privilege for me because I never get to see the same people twice when I've inspected them so I'm gonna seize the opportunity if I might. Obviously we talked about areas for improvement what was working really well in the school and you can build on further and a few areas that need to address. It's a good year on now. So how is the school changed?
Kenneth Davies:
One of the areas that was identified was making sure that there was consistency in subjects all the way from foundation stage to year six. We revisited in particularly our geography curriculum, well the largest gap was to ensure that there was progression, things weren't repeated unnecessarily. We've also worked on on our assessment techniques, we are very much in the position that with the foundation subjects and wider curriculum that we don't want to be producing some check sheets, it's more about the teacher assessment and getting the children to be able to, you know, be able to talk about what they've learned and maybe you know, a few little quizzes involved things like that, but also that they are acquiring that knowledge and but also acquiring the skills needed. That you need to be a good historian and a good geographer, a good technician, and those things are constantly constantly evolving. We have not sat back on our laurels.
Dan Lambert:
Fantastic to hear it sounds like it's been an incredibly busy year for you. It's been really, really great talking to everyone. Thanks Kathryn for joining us, and in particular thanks Ken and Felicity for spending your time today telling us about your experience of inspection. We wish we wish you all the best of luck for the year ahead.
Ends.
Ofsted's Kirsty Godfrey HMI, Phil Minns HMI and Ivana Vidakovic, from Ofsted's research and evaluation team, gave a talk and Q&A at the Wellington Festival of Education held in summer 2022. It covered phonics, the importance of encouraging a love of reading, and helping struggling secondary aged readers.
Hannah Martin 0:07 We recently took part in the Wellington Festival of Education. Here's the session we recorded at the event on reading. Hope you enjoy it.
Kirsty Godfrey 0:20 Well, it's a pleasure to be with you today. My name is Kirsty Godfrey. I am an inspector and special advisor working for Ofsted and I'm joined by two colleagues on the panel today.
Phil Minns 0:32 Morning everyone. My name is Phil Minns I'm also one of the her Majesty's inspectors and I'm a specialist advisor for early years and primary. And my colleague...
Ivana Vidakovic: Good morning, I'm Ivana Vidakovic, I'm not an inspector, I'm a senior reasearch lead at Ofsted.
Kirsty Godfrey 0:46 Thank you. Let's get into our session which is all about reading in schools and I'm going to begin by just talking about reading. So why is reading so important? Well, unless pupils can read, they can't access learning to the full. When pupils learn to read accurately and with automaticity so that they're fluent with their reading, they can learn more, simply because they can read and gain the knowledge for themselves. And of course, reading is the gateway to learning across the whole curriculum. And we know that reading opens doors in terms of opportunity and enjoyment and lifelong success and academic success. Researchers found that being able to read accurately by age six has a strong correlation with future academic success. That's why it's so important that schools and Ofsted are placing our attention on making sure that all pupils learn to read as soon as they should. Focusing on getting early reading right is going to give them pupils the best possible chances in their lives. At the same time, of course, though, we do know that there will be some children who have not hit that important milestone, of being able to crack that alphabetic code by the time they are six. For them and for pupils of any age who are still in those early stages of learning to read, that learning to read must be a really essential priority for them. And it's high quality phonics teaching that secures those crucial skills of word reading that once mastered enable children to decode automatically and accurately. And that is what frees up their working memory to be able to focus on the meaning of the text that they read. So until the pupils are reading both accurately and automatically, their working memory is going to be very taken up with the decoding process. And they'll find it difficult to focus on the meaning of what they read, even if they understand all the words and that is why it's so important that pupils quickly become fluent readers. Because when pupils aren't able to decode well, it also limits the language that they're exposed to. Because they're not able to read independently and gain that new language knowledge for themselves. And and it's also worth mentioning that these two different dimensions of reading, need different teaching in the early stages. And as an example of that phonics teaching and storytime. They're both about reading and really clearly different learning intention. So what we're going to do now is we're going to take each of those two different aspects of Reading, Word reading and language comprehension and look at them in turn, and I'm going to start with word reading which begins with phonics. And when we think about word reading, I think it's really important that we remind ourselves that writing is a code. The letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken language. And the English alphabetic code is a particularly complex one. In other languages where they have a more transparent code, you might have each sound being represented by one letter, whereas the English alphabetic code, we've got around 44 different phonemes and we've got over 150 ways to represent those phonemes as graphemes using the 26 letters of the alphabet, and that's why it takes children who are learning to read in English around two to three years to be able to really learn that that code. But effective systematic synthetic phonics teaching, make sure that pupils do learn to understand these letter to sound correspondences and that of course, is what will give them independence in terms of being able to read and also spell. And that's why understanding the alphabetic code really underpins successful reading. Without it then children can't go on to comprehend what they read even if they do have the understanding of those words. And I want to just take us back to time has gone by briefly now because in the past, learning to read might have involved teaching children using a range of different strategies. But of course we know that they're not efficient. You know, research has shown that that's not going to be a helpful way of being able to know the alphabetic code. So for example, memorising whole words by sight, or guessing words, either using the pictures or the first letter of the word, and not helpful. The research is really clear about that. We know for example that memorising enough words by sight is just impossible and it also relies on an adult telling the child each word, so actually doesn't give them a strategy that they can use independently whenever they come across an unfamiliar word in the future. And of course, things like guessing strategies are only going to work in books that are designed to help children guess using the pictures. And that becomes less useful to them when the text gets more complex. And the books contain no pictures. And that's why the national curriculum requires pupils to be taught phonics as the one and only method for reading unfamiliar words. It is a strategy that they'll be able to use independently and forever. Whenever they come across an unfamiliar word. Now, we do know that there are some people who manage to be able to work out that code for themselves eventually. But also there are too many who do not particularly those disadvantaged pupils. And of course, the impact that that has on their life is so great that it's a real issue for us. So by teaching phonics from the start of reception, that's the way that we can make sure that all pupils including those disadvantaged ones learn to decode and therefore have the best possible life choices ahead of them. Because they're able to access a full curriculum and benefit academically. Now phonics teaching enables pupils to become fluent readers and also spellers. That's because the alphabetic code is a reversible process. It teaches pupils to decode words to read them, but also encode words to spell them. And the very positive news about phonics is that it works for all and it harms none. It makes sure that all pupils learn the code it gives those pupils at a disadvantage that opportunity to succeed in life. And actually phonics doesn't hold children back either. So if you have children that can already read when they begin learning phonics, the research actually shows that helps them because of it developing their spelling too. And actually, we shouldn't worry too much about those children because if they can read independently themselves, they've got the benefit of being able to learn lots of new knowledge from reading books themselves. It also of course works for all people with special educational needs. And that same curriculum applies because of the fact that the writing is a code for the sounds in spoken language, that that's a fact that we can't get away from. It's that same body of knowledge that those children with special educational needs will need to read just as their peers will. Any pupils that are not at the point of being able to read words accurately, are going to need to be taught phonics. And broadly speaking, it will only be those that have got severe cognitive difficulties that are not able to be taught phonics code. And interestingly, I think, is to is to think about that they are still on that same curriculum journey, but they're at a much earlier stage. So for example, in their expressive and receptive language. What could change though for those pupils that do have special educational needs is is when we think about the pedagogy so the curriculum is the same, the pedagogy you might need thinking about differently. So it may be that teachers need to think about the choice of activities and resources to teach that same grapheme phoneme correspondence knowledge. So it's likely that those pupils might need to be taught in smaller groups and free from distractions. There's undoubtedly going to need to be a lot more repetition and over learning to develop that fluency and it could be the resources needed adapting so that the more age appropriate or linked to a child's interests to really engage them. But the important thing is a curriculum doesn't change the pedagogy might.
Phil Minns 9:05 We've talked about phonics already. And then of course, we've got to consider comprehension. And sometimes comprehension is thought of as a key stage two reading activity. But of course, comprehension starts right from the very, very very beginning as soon as children start to learn words, and we know that that ability to understand what they're hearing and then learn what those words mean and say them and use them is a significant advantage for our children to be able to use that. So even before they're they're meeting the phonic code. They're developing that significant piece of information. They need to understand what words mean when we think about the advantage or we think about disadvantaged children, and I'm going to talk about that a little bit. But the advantaged children come in when they arrive at practically reception possible ready, enjoying books. There's all sorts of research into the differences in the number of words that children are experienced by the time they reach the age of four or five is huge. Millions of words one child will have heard millions of words more than another child so two children stood in front of you on their first day of reception class, one might have heard 4, 5 million words more than the other child. Now the way they heard those words is because they've been in an environment where people talk to them, they talk to him about stuff, they hear things that are going on. They've had lots and lots of opportunities to absorb that information. And people have engaged with them and listened to them as well. And the other child hasn't had those advantages. That child, he's heard all of those things because of the number of words and things that's going on. They've had to develop faster processing speed, so they can assimilate that information more quickly as well. So you've got a child, those two children stood in front of you, on that first day in reception, one understands more words and can understand them more quickly. And the other child can't. That child who is can do more isn't more intelligent. The other child hasn't got special needs, that child's just lucky. That's an advantage. And we need to identify that and if those children come into us without that advantage, we need to do something to help them. And I think sometimes it's really worth remembering what the advantages does only help us to perhaps be motivated more to look at those children, because of course a child who can talk, it has all that confidence talks. They are the one that actually we are more likely to talk to, because we're much more likely to talk somebody who's chatty than somebody who isn't so we actually have to identified that so we go out of our way to support them. Now the reason we need to do that is because of the huge impact of vocabulary on children's well being at school and that life, a child with a lower vocabulary at the age of five or six times less likely to do well in their SATS, and they're twice as likely to be unemployed by the time they're 34. Really really significant for the strongest information or research that we've got in education is that link between vocabulary at that early age, and how well they'll do as they carry through. And when we think about comprehension, we really need to remember that it's not simply a reading skill. If we got children in key stage two who are struggling with comprehension of reading? And we've got to question what are they understanding in all of the all of the instructions that they're being given, all of the explanations in the stories and if we don't consider their comprehension of the spoken language comprehension from a very, very early stage, making sure that children understand the words that they're using, and really understanding those concepts that we tend to link. And the last thing that I was gonna talk to you about as far as comprehension is concerned, is just really the importance and the impact, particularly of the fiction the books and the nonfiction that children come across, right from their very earliest time, whether that's at home with their families, or whether that's in a setting or in school. Stanovich said that 90% of language that we learn is coming from those books, particularly for more complex texts. Up until about the age of eight, we'll learn new words by hearing them after that we learn by reading them. And that's because on the whole generally we use language around the level of an eight year old, we don't tend to get into that level of complexity. So if a child isn't able to read by the time they're eight, they're going to lose some of that access to that early vocabulary that they otherwise would have. And it's also why we need really need to choose the books and the songs and the stories and the rhymes that we share with children from an early age. Because one of the things that we want them to get is an understanding of what complex vocabulary more complex language structures, and that's what quality books will give them. So we share those books with them that are beyond their own ability to read even if you have not yet read it yet, but we're also stretching their ability to understand and they will continue to extract information out of it is why you get those young children who will want the same book over and over and over again. If I read the latest Ann Cleave's Vera I'll read it once and I'll put it down because I've got everything else that I need. I know who was the murderer, really in it while I'm reading it, but once I finished it, it's gone from me, because I've got it and if I start reading it again, I'll remember it I'll remember who did it. Unfortunately! The teachers, pre-school providers, all of those people choices they make around the books that you'll get access to are really really important.
Hannah Martin 14:11 As part of the session, our speakers challenge the audience to pronounce some tricky words.
Ivana Vidakovic 14:16 Can you give it a go? Can you try reading them out? So being able to read words accurately, automaticity to read them with enough speed and prosody to read with meaning is why fluency is so important because it's a link it's a bridge between reading and comprehension. And research has shown that higher levels of reading fluency are linked with best comprehension is usually expected to children in other primary school age. Most of them build fluency quite early on, but it is a fact that some pupils walk into secondary education without being fluent readers. They still struggle and this needs more research really on fluency that we're seeing the secondary education phase. The fluency is very important because it really frees up our working memory to focus on some other reading processes. It allows us then to more securely draw out background knowledge of reading to enrich our understanding. It allows us to process and understand larger chunks of text. To understand the nuance the details if you focus all the time on trying to decode words, word or letter by letter, then you're not going to have enough capacity to to do all of those higher level processes that feed into comprehension. So how do we ensure progress in reading? Through practice? Yes, reading lots, but that's not the end of the story. We also have to think about the types of knowledge that we need to become more proficient readers. So for example, vocabulary working on increasing the vocabulary range, syntactical knowledge as well the range of sentential structures that she can encounter in a variety of texts, narrative structures and things familiarity with it is also important, and I'll kind of go back to it a little bit later. Context as well as the background knowledge - if you think about reading subject specific texts, right. So all of this can really help increase pupils readiness for reading ambitious literature, which is the point of the national curriculum. Where is the place of reading comprehension strategies in all of this? So we spoke about the different types of knowledge that we should nurture and develop in pupils. And what about those? So reading comprehension strategies such as summarising clarification, prediction, you know, read the heading or the facts and then predict what's going to come next. Or kind of what do you do to check your own understanding of the text, how you relate sentences to try their height and then go back and monitor your own understanding. These are all interesting and useful, but they can't be an end to themselves. Research has shown that they can be taught reasonably quickly, and pupils can benefit very early on from them. But as long as they can decode words accurately and as long as they're fluent readers research has also shown there are no benefits in continuous teaching of reading strategies. What about an effective reading curriculum? As you see there are three main elements to it. An effective reading curriculum would provide pupils with the knowledge they need for comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, subject specific concepts and so on. What makes one text more challenging than another one? It's not a single factor. Obviously, it's a lot of factors to take into account. So one of them's the linguistic complexity, again, vocabulary, syntax and vocabulary that could be archaic, or sophisticated, or academic that brings up this kind of complexity, again, different syntactic structures, which can also really vary in terms of complexity, narrative structures. For example, some of them are linear in the development of action or concepts. Some of them are - not messed up. But for example, think of the Sound and the Fury, the stream of consciousness and those temporal lines moving back and forth between the past and present, so this really also increases the complexity, the number of characters, the genre is a description, narration, argumentation, and so on and so forth. So these are all the factors, or some of the factors that we should take into account when selecting the text and when trying to vary and increase the challenge. What happens when we have struggling secondary readers? We've known for a while that there were and there have always been some pupils who hit that secondary school age, but they still struggle with reading. The problem is they as a result can't access the curriculum, which is why reading is a priority. COVID has aggravated things further. And our education recovery report has shown that teachers are doing a lot of work on that front for the pupils to be able to access their secondary curriculum. They should be reading accurately and fluently. A range of fiction and nonfiction texts as well. How do we go about it? Well, assessment is crucial. And we know that lots of teachers use screening tests and screening tests are helpful in that they allow you to identify the strong readers, versus the weak readers, they don't tell you what the struggling readers really struggle with. So anything that's screening should be followed up with a diagnostic assessment to identify where the problem lies. Is it about accurate decoding of words? Is it about increasing fluency or something else all together? Ideally, that any extra reading support should be effective enough to rectify reading issues reasonably quickly, but we do know that this requires some arrangements as we know that there are timetabling constraints. What is important to bear in mind though, it's there are multiple ways to do it. Like for example, when people needs to be miss some class time in making sure they didn't miss the same lesson every time. We're doing it during breakfast, break times and during registration time right after school or you know there are different options, but this is important not to neglect.
Hannah Martin 20:53 We have time for some questions from the audience at the end.
Kirsty Godfrey 20:56 These are the questions that we ask our inspectors to consider on inspection to determine how well leaders are prioritising reading so that pupils in secondary can access that full curriculum offer. So our inspectors will focus on how effectively assessment is identifying those pupils that are struggling and precisely what is it they're struggling with. So that appropriate support can be put in place that's targeting their needs, and is helping them to really quickly catch up and get on track. So they're accessing our core curriculum. And of course, that's going to be very much down to the leadership and how well that's been prioritised and whether those leaders have got the expertise to be able to really choose the right programme, support staff in using it and monitor its effectiveness. And also just wanted to highlight that we have got our blog. So if you do want to find more about secondary and struggling readers, then we've recently published a blog on our website and do have a look out for that.
Q: In secondary school too. We've got a huge number of students who have reading ages below where they should be. What is Ofsted's expectation in terms of secondary teachers phonics knowledge?
Kirsty Godfrey 22:09 More and more now secondary schools finding themselves in a position where they haven't necessarily got knowledge because that expertise because it wouldn't be expected you know, you would expect that children would come to you already having fluent reading skills, and given the impact of pupils being able to read on them being able to access the full curriculum. And of course, the impact on later life, then there is that expectation that it will be prioritised and that, you know, we do have one of our evaluation criteria in the education inspection framework, which is around evaluating how well leaders prioritise reading so that pupils can access the full curriculum. It's very much time for people to think about if they haven't got that phonics expertise on staff then then it may well be needed because it's the only way out for these pupils to succeed.
Q: If you're in a school that already has developed it's own scheme, you've got books that you you've got three schemes of books, but you've ordered them in the same level as the children are accessing their systematic synthetic phonics. You will find this results are incredibly high your reading results are high. The teacher subject knowledge is high, but they draw upon different schemes - would Ofsted frown upon that?
Kirsty Godfrey 23:19 No, is the quick answer! There's no requirement for schools to use a validated programme. We know that there are many schools that are using programmes not on that list and they've developed them themselves over time. They're working really effectively. What we will do as inspectors is evaluate how well that programme has been implemented and ultimately the impact that it's having on all pupils being able to learn to read well.
Q: just following up on the question about secondary readers because students come to us not fluently reading, what is the research some of you've carried out as to whether phonics is actually the most effective way of achieving that outcome fluency?
Kirsty Godfrey 23:59 As I sort of mentioned earlier, we can't get away from the fact that, you know, writing is a code for the sounds in spoken language and therefore, that has to be fundamental. It underpins word reading, and therefore, phonics isn't an option. It's not a pedagogy. It's a body of knowledge that children need. Your your question, though, around why children have gone through primary and perhaps not received that is because actually, similar to you were saying in secondary schools, that staff wouldn't necessarily have that phonics expertise. We know that in the past, key stage two teachers wouldn't have had that expertise either. And actually, you know, there's a there's an expectation that children will go into year three with that knowledge. And that's not always the case. So they may well not have had the quality and the quantity of the practice that they need to embed that alphabetic code knowledge. That's the issue really, it's not that it's the wrong approach. It's that it hasn't been effective.
Q: What are the best strategies at secondary for those who aren't enjoying reading?
Phil Minns 24:56 I was just gonna go back to what I've said already, really, which is that we teach children to love reading really early. And so we you know, we're dealing with children in the secondary school or pupils in secondary school...it's a really tough call, it's a really tough thing to actually get them to that level of love. That will carry them over learning it whereas that's why we've got to focus on it when they're very young. If we've you know, our children in reception Key Stage One we really need to be getting these key things in because it carries them through the next stage. It's a protective factor that prevents the likelihood or reduces the lucky that they're having those troubles lecture.
Q: So just as a follow up on that one, if if the most crucial factor then in developing and maintaining fluency and reading is to get that love of reading, would you say that for those secondary pupils who have come through who are struggling, who've got no belief in themselves, taking some time out to focus on developing a love of stories and books is something that you would encourage even though that would perhaps, delay the start of the progress.
Phil Minns 26:02 One of the things you got to remember with those, those young people in the secondary school who are feeling unsuccessful, is to teach them to read is going to drive up their feelings of self esteem. Because we teach them to do something they can't do. Now. They need to go back to some of the basics. Sometimes you might want to do that out of the way of others, but teaching them to do that will generate a feeling of positivity towards that and also helps them to learn that if they can do that, they can do other things.
Chris Jones 0:04 Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Ofsted Talks. Today, we're talking all about apprenticeships, and I've got a stellar lineup of guests with me to talk about what is an incredibly important topic. So get them to introduce themselves. First of all, we've got Ian Bamford in tell us about who you are and what you do.
Ian Bamford 0:25 Thanks, Chris. Hi, I'm Ian Bamford, I'm the Chief Operating Officer for Paragon skills. We're a national training provider, predominantly focusing on health care, childcare, education, but also some service sectors such as Business Admin, customer service and management. And yet we predominantly work in apprenticeship sector levels to right the way through to level five we don't work in higher apprenticeships. And the I've been at Paragon skills for about seven years now.
Chris Jones 0:55 Thank you, Ian. And I'll go to Jess next.
Jess 0:58 Hello, my name is Jess I'm a manager at Way Ahead Leisure Pursuits limited. This is a day service with people with learning disabilities. We have three services and a respite unit.
Chris Jones 1:12 Excellent. Okay. And Alex
Alex Grant 1:17 I'm Alex, I'm one of the directors at Way Ahead Leisure Pursuits limited. We have a range of cohorts going through on training programmes. I'm a social worker by background but I've also done lots of training in the past and that's been quite useful to try and help staff grow and develop. And obviously we are quite lucky in that we have a dedicated training provider which makes it quite easy for us to try and help progress people. Some of them have may not have had a very positive learning experience previously.
Chris Jones 1:46 Great and we have Ofsted's own Paul Joyce. Paul.
Paul Joyce 1:49 Hi, Chris, hi colleagues. So I'm Paul Joyce, and I'm Deputy Director for further education and skills at Ofsted.
Chris Jones:
Now, I'm going to start with with the big picture if you like because you have to those of us who aren't steeped in further education and skills and training on a day to day basis like you all are here. There is a there's a wide range of kind of routes for people to go down isn't there and apprenticeships is just one of them. And I invite Paul perhaps just to say a few words about all the different training providers that Ofsted inspects and where apprenticeships fits into that landscape, if you wouldn't mind, Paul?
Paul Joyce 2:28 Sure, Chris. Thank you. So we've got about 2000 providers in FE and skills that we inspect. The vast majority of those providers do offer apprenticeship provision. Many of them offer other types of provision as well. But apprenticeship is by far the largest provider type we inspect. And since the introduction of the apprenticeship Levy, we've seen about 1500 brand new providers into the market primarily for apprenticeship training. And that's most of the work that we do now. As Chris says provider monitoring visits to new providers and inspection of apprenticeship provision.
Chris Jones 3:09 Thank you very much. Ian presumably you've been on the end of an Ofsted inspection?
Ian Bamford 3:14 I'm actually an Ofsted inspector myself a part time inspector. I've been on both sides, actually. So yeah, I've been a nominee probably five times now on the in a number of providers. But also I've carried out over 100 inspections as well, since I've been with Ofsted on a part time basis.
Chris Jones 3:31 Right so in terms of bit more about your work on apprenticeships specifically.
Ian Bamford 3:37 So in terms of apprenticeships, we work with mainly adult care, childcare, education, leadership and management and the service sector we work with a number of large levy organisations so when you say larger levy organisations, they are paying a contribution towards the apprenticeship Levy. We also work with SMEs small and medium enterprises. And again, that can be a combination of small independent nurseries, it can be small, independent care homes, and we've really sort of shifted that focus since the introduction of the levy in 2017. Because spreading your cohort across a number of different sectors meant that you weren't able to specialise in the particular areas and actually weren't able to give the relevant training towards the knowledge skills and behaviours within apprenticeship standard.
Chris Jones 4:30 Right. Okay, so you're in a good position to tell us about how that's changed over time. What's the kind of what's the latest state of play in the apprenticeship sector and what's been the kind of COVID impact on that?
Ian Bamford 4:44 The biggest impact of COVID obviously, has been the way that we've worked with learners and employers is very much switched to remote delivery. We were in a very fortunate position because actually pre COVID We were working towards changing our delivery models. So we did do more remote delivery, which was good for us because we were able to switch literally overnight to start delivering remote delivery through our learning management platform through teams. And that enabled us to really work with learners. I think on a more regular basis, when it was face to face, we were perhaps seeing learners probably once every six weeks, now we're able to interact, teach, train, and engage with our learners probably every one or two weeks. And I think what we have also seen, as we've seen, learners actually respond really well to the change of delivery delivery method. And in particular, within the adult care sector, there have been some real challenges as part of COVID. And I'm sure it'd be the same within way ahead. Leisure has been some real challenges in terms of the COVID implications, the number of staff that are within care homes or within nurseries that actually were off with COVID, it meant that we actually be very flexible in terms of working with our learners working with our employers, sometimes a very short notice, an apprentice would have to be pulled off of a training session, and actually go there and do the day to day running, if you like of aspects within the care home. So it's been a real challenge in terms of working with our learners. However, we're going through the other side of that now, COVID is still there, we're still having the same sorts of issues around staff absences, and staff issues. However, the remote delivery enables us to really be flexible in terms of meeting at particular times, rather than having to travel 50-60 miles to go and see somebody face to face, it's really helped around that.
Chris Jones 6:40 Yeah, that's all sounds, all sounds good. And lots of practical challenges, but also some opportunities. As as a result, as, as in so many sectors, just tell us a bit about how the pandemic has impacted you.
Jess 6:56 Because I'm doing a level five at the moment, but it did impact me was getting my work done, because we had staff off so much with sickness, I've had to go on the floor and support the clients and have to cancel meetings, as well as I still keep in contact with the learners that you've got here as well that are doing levels. And it was quite hard at first like everything's done remotely when they would come in and shadow, watch the staff and everything. But now everything's done by feedback and appraisals. But it's worked really well. And they're all the all the all the tutors are very good at keeping in contact with you setting up meetings and get to know them through teams.
Chris Jones 7:42 Yeah. So just so you you are you both doing an apprenticeship and looking after trainees? Yes, yeah. Okay, so that puts you in an interesting position, isn't it? Yeah. So
Jess 7:52 I see both sides. Yeah.
Chris Jones 7:54 Why did you decide to do an apprenticeship,
Jess 7:56 Because I've already done and NVQ, three, and ILM to an NVQ. Five. And now I'm doing an ILM five.
Chris Jones 8:05 So it's just a natural kind of progression for you. Is it?
Jess 8:08 Yes it just gives me gives me more knowledge of my job. And you can never not learn. Can you?
Chris Jones 8:14 Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. All right. Alex, I'll come to you kind of what's the what's the current landscape? From your perspective? What are the current challenges and opportunities?
Alex Grant 8:25 Well, I mean, Ian and Jess have covered some of them. You know, it's been a really tough couple of years, you know, and it's right when they said, Well, everybody's I remember the first day, the pandemic, and they said, Everybody's got to stay at home. And I drove across Southampton, and I saw two other cars, because we had to keep going, because we support individuals whose mums were nurses. So if we didn't provide the care, they couldn't go in and work in the hospital. So we had to keep going. And so the first few months were quite sort of stressful. But actually, what we found is there's some been some real benefits from COVID. And, as Ian said, you know, we've moved to more sort of remote learning, and one of the things I think that's really good is, is that through using teams, the cohorts of learners have been able to have more group sessions. And I think that's been really useful because actually, whereas before, they might have a one on one with their with their tutor. Now, actually, you can have three people on the same course you might be in three different bases, whereas logistically, we couldn't, you know, get them all in one place to have a meeting before they can now have a group meeting group session, and they learn not, you know, they learn not just from their tutor, but they learn from their peers as well and they can share worries and concerns and I think that's been a real positive I think there's a much more sort of ethos of having a cohort of learners all progressing together and supporting each other and the support from Paragon is excellent. Jess's support of the of the staff is fantastic, but actually what's really nice is when you see them supporting each other saying Why didn't I understand this question or how that relates to help out that bit that I do at work and someone else will intervene. So they have like a what they might have a whatsapp communication, and someone else will put, you know, another learner who's perhaps had a really negative experience of learner will then sort of say, well, actually, I thought it could be this and this is why and It's really nice to see them learning together, people come into social care quite often, they may not have had a chance to go to university, they might have a very sort of poor education experience. They're very hesitant to learn. And then you know, you actually, so it's like, it's great to see like Jess, she's gone from the three to the fourth. I've got people doing that, too. So we've got one learner, I think, who's 71 is doing doing their level two? And it's great. You know, that's what should be always when you heard the term apprenticeship, I used to think, oh, you know, 18 year 16 to 18 year old, actually, modern apprenticeships, is everyone learning. At Paragon, as Ian said they've worked to have specialisms who rather do a lot of different types of qualifications or areas of qualification. They've specialised, and what's really good is that are linked with Paragon, they understand the business, and they understand the role, and they understand the demands on the staff. And so I think that's been, I don't know if that's unique, but it's certainly been really useful for us. Because when when staff raise something with their tutor, the tutor knows what the role involves, and knows what the challenges are. And I think that's been really beneficial as well.
Chris Jones 11:05 That's great to hear. Thanks, Alex. Now, Paul, come back to you for a second. So Ian, and Jess and Alex have spoken about some of the challenges and opportunities of of the pandemic and also, more broadly in the sector at the moment. offsets obviously done plenty of work in the last couple of years on on apprenticeships, and how does that stack up with what we're finding more broadly.
Paul Joyce 11:26 And, Chris, I think you're right, we've just heard a good example there of some of the challenges and opportunities that exist. And we've certainly seen that through the monitoring that we've done, sort of through the pandemic. And indeed, some of the inspection work we do now. I mean, it's in apprenticeships are great, we've heard a really good example there, where providers work really closely with employers who work really closely with their staff. And that three way relationship, when it works, it works really well. And it provides a really valuable learning programme. So it's really nice to hear that you've got providers, employers and apprentices speaking so highly of the programme.
Alex Grant 12:09 And actually, I have to say the other thing, there's a fourth sort of person involved as well. So we've worked really well with the apprenticeship hub, the southern apprenticeship hub, because they've been really helpful in using the apprenticeship levy so that I can get the funding in to get more learners on the programme. So although it's a three way process, actually, there's a fourth partnership, that really helps as well. So just think it's worth a mention that making sure that we could plug it into some of the courses are really expensive. And we as a small business couldn't afford that. But the apprenticeship Levy, is fantastic.
Paul Joyce 12:40 That's good to hear collaborations working well. Alex, we, we do see that on a lot of the activity we carry out. But sadly, that's not yet universal. You know, we we do need to improve apprenticeship practice. So we share best practice. And you know, it's it's a good experience everywhere, we've worked really hard on the levy transfer, which basically enables small, small employers that have reached either their cap of 10 learners or unable to contribute the 5%. We're actually we use the large levy organisations to support that. And they use their levy money to support those small and medium organisations. So we've worked quite hard on that, because we realised that there was a real gap in terms of that information and sharing a practice. So it's good to hear that. That's working really well.
Chris Jones 13:29 Jess, I want to come back to you because I'm interested in your experience of actually being an apprentice because it must be difficult balancing the demands of the of the course itself with the day job.
Jess 13:42 Yeah, so it can be difficult, I do tend to do a lot of my learning from home, in the evenings or something. But it was really good, as I've seen the different the changes from pm coming out to visit you and doing and having your meetings with your assessor in the service to going to remotely. And I think, to be honest, I find it a lot better doing it remotely. Because it can be done in your time. If you're running 10 minutes late, you can just email your assessor and just say, I'm really sorry, I've been stuck at work. I'll be 10 minutes.
Chris Jones 14:21 Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And is it how straightforward is it to kind of take what you learn back into your into your work? Can you do that straight away?
Jess 14:30 Yes, because I've got very good assessor, and he's very good at explaining things to me and how and how my my ILM can relate to my job and everything is related to my job what I'm doing now.
Chris Jones 14:44 Yeah, that's good, isn't it? And so, what what do you think you'll do after you finished your apprenticeship without how will that help you?
Jess 14:52 It just gives me more understanding about managing my team and different conflicts that can happen in between the team and how Different. All my staff like to learn or when I speak to them how different I need to speak to one member of staff to a different another member of staff.
Chris Jones 15:10 Yeah. Oh, that sounds great. I'm sure my my team at work would say I benefit from a bit of that, a bit of that training that you're getting just that sounds really good. Do you think do you think you'll carry on learning and developing after you've done this apprenticeship?
Jess 15:24 I've said no to after after every four of them, so I can never say no.
Chris Jones 15:29 Okay, so as a chance, Paul, you mentioned that the example of of good practice that we're hearing about here is, is not universal? I think it's fair to say that we see that through through our inspections, isn't it? We've we've expressed some some concerns about the the apprenticeship landscape and the quality of some apprenticeships, suddenly.
Paul Joyce 15:50 Yeah, we have Chris, I think the the important thing to say is, fortunately, the majority of apprenticeship provision we do see is, is of good quality. And we do see things like remote learning, which obviously has its place, although it won't replace face to face, but when it's done properly, it can work really well and can be really powerful. The thing, Chris, with apprenticeship provision we've heard here, but you know, a really strong case where there's a need for it, where employers want it, where employers are working really well with apprenticeship providers. And that's the key here, for an apprenticeship to work, there's got to be the need. The training has got to develop new knowledge, skills and behaviours. And sadly, where we see apprenticeship provision not working well. By and large, Chris, it's because we're not seeing enough training taking place. We're not seeing the development of those knowledge, skills and behaviours that are required. And sadly, it's a it's a, it's a poor experience for the learner and the employer, which can damage the brand. And actually, the brand is a good one. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Chris Jones 17:07 And what happens in those cases, Paul, either that, that training is not up to scratch.
Paul Joyce 17:13 So Chris, we've, we were concerned and our our Chief Inspector organised some some new provider monitoring visits with the amount of new providers that were entering the market was was the concern. And these visits give us an early look, an early indication of how provisioning is shaping up. Sadly, about 20% of those providers aren't making sufficient progress. And where we find that to be the case, we report that to the to the funding agency, and it's the funding agency that are able to take some action. And Chris, typically what they'll do is to suspend apprenticeship starts until provision improves. So our inspections drive that improvement, but it's the Education and Skills funding agency that sort of take the enforcement action, based on our inspections.
Chris Jones 18:09 I see. Okay, good to know. And I'll come back to you am let's look to the look to the future. What do you think that kind of, is there? Is there a next big development in this space? Or is there something that Paragon wants to wants to do differently going forward
Ian Bamford 18:25 As an organisation, it's about growing. And it's about ensuring that, as Paul was saying, it's about finding those employers that have the need, and really want to develop knowledge, skills and behaviours against particular standards. And I think it's really important that we do that and really understand the impact that that apprenticeship is going to have on individuals, but as for the employer, as well. So I think it is more of the same. I think there are going to be some changes over the next few months and years. Certainly, I mean, it'd be wrong with me to say there aren't issues around cost of living, but certainly, you know, in terms of paying our staff is going to increase. However, things like funding isn't going to increase. So there's going to be some real push and pulls in terms of value for money, how well we're going to be able to do certain things and what differences we're going to have to make to be able to make sure that we keep quality at the heart because obviously being an Ofsted inspector as well. You know, this is not about just signing up people on apprenticeship for the sake of it actually, it's about having the The Apprentice on the right programme, the right starting points, and really delivering a high quality programme to meet those individual needs and driving so that we get good pass rates at the end of that, you know, and what we're seeing is we're seeing some real positivity in terms of some of the high grades around merits and distinctions. So really, it's about continuing to improve that quality and making sure we're doing it for the right thing you may you may have heard of the spirit of the apprenticeship, we have to do things in the spirit of the apprenticeship. This is not about funding training that perhaps was there before the levy, this is about actually genuinely funding a need for those individual learners or individual employers, but using the levy funding as a vehicle to be able to support that.
Chris Jones 20:18 And Alex, it sounds like you're having a good experience with with apprenticeships, presumably, that will continue.
Alex Grant 20:24 I think the key thing here is, again, it's worth forgetting the fact that actually, we work in the adult care sector. So if the staff were more skilled, if the staff were able to give a skilled intervention, it directly benefits the service users or the clients or the indeed, the vulnerable adults or children over it might be. So the, the more that we can upskill the staff team, the better the service can be. And that that's, that's if you're in care, you want to get the best care that you can, you know, otherwise, why do it. So actually helping staff to understand why they're doing what the what the theories are behind what they do, you know, what the different types of discrimination is and how like important languages, they're all factors that help staff be better at their job, the care sector, right, because it is under terrible pressure. You know, I hear other providers across the city saying, you know, why is someone going to come and work in social care when they can go and work in a supermarket chain, I won't mention in particular, but for 15 pounds an hour, when they might only be getting 10 pounds an hour in social care. So what can we do that help staff to sort of stay for longer or feel more valued, while actually training is a really real key factor. And if I can get new staff in and, you know, talk to them about would you like to do some training, this is what the benefits are, you know, the the level three is the industry standard, but you've not done anything before, perhaps you could do the two and three, I know that they're likely once they start the course, and it's a positive course and to get the right supports, they're likely to stay in remain in that position until they complete the qualification. And then at the end of that, it may be that they move on to something else, but they might move on to something in care that's better paid. So sometimes we the staff move on and go and work for the NHS, for example, where they've kind of developed a care pathway, they've come into care, because they they care, you know, and actually I want them to continue that pathway and training is, is a key factor in that I don't want them to just despair, and then go and work in retail because that's where the money is, but that's not where their heart is. So if we can help them along that journey. And I guess the other thing with Ofsted, during the inspections, if they if Ofsted is able to come back and go, when actually you know what the workforce are really trying to be upskill they're working very hard. Well, hopefully that means we've got a bit more leverage to go back and say actually, how can we ensure that people who work in care have paid accordingly? I don't disparage anything else. But you can earn more money doing something that's perhaps less challenging, less skilled, that's not quite right. But actually, getting a trained skilled workforce enables everybody empowers people to actually go, You know what, I'm worth more than this. We now need to fight and lobby to get them the pay that they deserve for the role that they do.
Chris Jones 22:54 Absolutely. Just just to pick up on Alex's point, you've obviously had an opportunity, lots of opportunities to do training. Where were you? Oh, is that? Is that something that's important to you in terms of choosing a career choosing a job?
Jess 23:09 Yeah, I think training is the most important thing. You know, to that it sets your pathway of where you want to be. And I very much believe you should do the job you enjoy. Yeah. And the training training is helping you to do that as exactly because I've said I've done a few with through way ahead. It's trained me from being a support worker, to a manager through doing the training.
Chris Jones 23:33 Paul, I'm gonna come back to you. Yeah, it feels like the apprenticeship landscape is changing quite a lot. We've got degree apprenticeships coming in at the moment. What what do you see as the as the next steps for for apprenticeships on a on a national scale?
Paul Joyce 23:50 Oh, fantastic question to to conclude with Chris, who could have a whole podcast just about this. You're right. It's it's always in the news. It's obviously a real big policy initiative for for government. There. There remains lots of questions about the levy and the use of the levy. There are some some questions around flexibilities and endpoint assessment. And we've heard from Ian and Alex some of the some of the challenges. So I think Chris, they'll continue to be lots of lots of discussion, lots of debate about how this can evolve. I think it's I think that's right to happen. For me, the most important thing to remember the learner at the heart of the programme, we need to make sure that an apprenticeship really does develop new knowledge, skills and behaviours really does benefit learners, employers and the economy. And I think if we have those high level principles, however, things develop or however things evolve, they won't go far wrong.
Jess 24:57 Thanks, Paul. Ian, how does that sound to you?
Ian Bamford 25:00 So I mean, I think here is a place for the degree apprenticeships, most definitely. But I think what we can't forget. And I think yes, it's a real life example of this. We can't forget the level 234 And five, you know, I think it's really important. Alex said earlier that actually there's a misconception that apprenticeships is for young people. And it's also really around the trades, but actually, it's far from that it's a whole raft of different sectors, and it's every age group. So I think it's really important that we don't lose that balance between the level 234 and then the higher level degree apprenticeships, you know, I think they do have their place, but not at the cost of the, you know, the level two threes and fours. There's no reason that somebody that doesn't start on a level two adult care programme that doesn't end up going into nursing, or somebody that works starts on a level two childcare early years programme that does end up going into teaching. So there's some real progression routes for people to go through from that level to right the way through to level five. But there certainly is a place for degree apprenticeships, but it's about them being used in the right spirit. Again, I go back to that apprenticeship spirit. We've heard of a number, certainly in the sector in the last few years where we've had degree apprenticeships, we're actually there just replacing what was been commercial training beforehand. So you know, I think it's really important that that we don't lose sight of that.
Chris Jones 26:20 Yeah. And I think that point about lifelong learning is really important. Alex gave the example of I think you said a 71 year old Alex, you've got doing doing an apprenticeship. I mean, if I'm able to do an apprenticeship when I'm 71 I'd be pretty happy with that. I think but I mean, the that's the that's the way the the economy is going, isn't it? It's it's people are changing careers more often. You're taking more opportunities to do to do lifelong learning. So apprenticeships being a really important part of that, of that landscape. Thank you very much to Jess, Alex Ian and Paul - that brings us to the end of the Ofsted talks episode on apprenticeships. A fascinating subject, a hugely important one. And thank you to all our guests today. I'll see you next time on the Ofsted podcast.
We're often asked questions about inspections. Here, hosts Chris and Anna answer some of the most popular!
Transcription:
Chris Jones 0:08 Hello, everybody, and welcome to this latest edition of Ofsted Talks the Ofsted podcast. My name is Chris Jones and I'm here with Anna Trethewey. Nice to be here, and a special podcast today because not only are we going through the offset mailbag, and answering some of your questions. It's Anna's last edition of the podcast. And so we're saying goodbye and thank you to Anna, for all her work on the podcast episodes that we've recorded up to now. And Anna, why don't you tell us a bit about what you're doing next?
Anna Trethewey 0:42 Yes, sure. So I'm heading over to a Multi Academy Trust. I'm going to be head of change management over there. And it's been a delight to be at Ofsted. It's been a delight to do these podcasts too Chris. Not least because I get to chat to you, but also just the variety of experts and the breadth of our work has been been really interesting to dive in more to - but should we get cracking we've got a good few questions here from our listeners.
Chris Jones 1:02 Why don't you fire some questions?
Anna Trethewey 1:03 I actually am. So I get the luxury of asking the questions in this podcast and and unpicking where I'm not quite clear on things which is quite often why some of our inspectors do so let's hear more about this. So the first question is, what actually is curriculum intent?
Chris Jones 1:19 This is a good question. So I think there are some misconceptions around curriculum intent. Curriculum intent is simply the curriculum you intend to deliver. So it's what's written on your curriculum map or in your schemes of work or your lesson plans. Something like a vision statement or an ambition. Lots of schools I see have the ambition to teach the best that's thought and said, or to create a love of learning, or whatever their version of that is, those things can also serve an important purpose, but they're not really what we mean by curriculum, which is simply what do you intend to teach? Why have you chosen those things? Why do you put them in them in that order? And intent obviously, is one aspect of how we look at quality of education. So the other aspects are around implementation and impact. So implementation, simply is the curriculum being taught as intended. How is assessment used to identify the gaps in learning? And how is the curriculum adapted? In the classroom in order to close those gaps? The how is the intent of the curriculum implemented in the classroom? And finally impact - so are the children learning what you intended them to learn? Can we see that say in standardised test scores? Can we see it in evidence? Can we see evidence of it when we look at children's books or talk to them? Those are the kinds of questions that inspectors to be asking themselves. I think it's also important to say that none of these elements will be judged in isolation. We look at intent implementation and impact for several subjects in each school. And inspectors consider the totality of that when they decide on a grade for the quality of education. They consider what's consistent and systematic across the school, and certainly not, for example, marking anyone down because a group of children could remember a key fact from their history lessons or anything like that.
Anna Trethewey 3:22 I think is a really important one to them to just outline to stop some scare stories out there. So you've just at the end that it started to describe some are deep dives, what exactly is a deep dive, what happens during one?
Chris Jones 3:34 So deep dive is the method inspectors use to gather the evidence they need around intent, implementation and impact within a curriculum subject. So it involves talking to the subject lead, observing several lessons often going with the subject lead to do that, talking to the teachers of that subject, looking at children's work, including those children who are lower attaining or have special educational needs. Talking to the children, again, often this is with a focus on the lower attainers. So we can understand the provision that's been given to them where appropriate, that will also include looking at the standardised test results as well. The inspector gathers all this evidence, and then they triangulate, which is a complicated word but basically means comparing evidence against other evidence to build up a consistent and fuller picture. And in fact, it might mean discounting some evidence because it isn't supported by anything else the inspector has seen. And only by completing all these activities, will inspect to have enough evidence to build that full picture of the school's strengths and weaknesses in each subject. And that process might take an inspector a full day to carry out
Anna Trethewey 4:53 it's pretty big risk process that kind of looks at it from all angles. A jigsaw puzzle? I heard Amanda mentioned this just recently again, and we've said it all the way along the line, which is Mocksteds and consultants, you know pretty pretty much aren't a great use of money. Why do we think that? We need to keep saying it.
Chris Jones 5:11 So, in general, we think that schools are better served when it comes to their real life inspection. By working on that curriculum and teaching rather than paying someone to essentially pretend to be an inspector. We all know that time for CPD and money for CPD is really limited. And in our view, giving say the English department a day together to review their curriculum, or sending a year for teacher on a course to build their science knowledge. We think those things serve children in the school, far better than a Mocksted, and we'd expect those things to also contribute really positively to an inspection outcome.
Anna Trethewey 5:55 And even in a way that a leadership team might go and see outstanding practice elsewhere. And yeah, so another purchase or I'm just hitting you with all these,
Chris Jones 6:04 it's fine, you can come in.
Anna Trethewey 6:06 The next question is we hear this quite a lot. We've done some blogs about it to alleviate concerns, but someone here was asked I work in a small school. How would the intersection reflects our context?
Chris Jones 6:18 So you're right. We do get this a lot. And it's important to say I think the inspectors do understand the challenges small schools are facing, many of our inspectors will have worked in small schools themselves. Many will be working in small schools currently because if we draw upon it people who are serving in the sector, and they understand that leadership in a small school means balancing a huge number of different roles. And we're no less ambitious only anyone is any less ambitious for what pupils in those schools can achieve. But of course, smaller schools may have gotten to those outcomes by different rooms and we're clear in the inspection framework that bringing in a curriculum off the shelf can be just as good as designing it yourself. We also know at schools with challenges such as teaching multiple year groups in each class. They have to think hard about how to plan that curriculum. In any case, whether it's an Ofsted requirement or not. And actually these schools should, should naturally be well prepared when it comes to an inspection because of that thinking.
Anna Trethewey 7:24 I'm just going to put a shout out there to some of the schools you're quite right. They've got to think really hard. If you're teaching a year five and six class together. You certainly have to reflect and update you can't rely on doing the same thing each year. So actually, I think it's a hats off to those people doing some really sterling work. Absolutely. If we're looking to you know, speak to a particular teacher and a subject in a small school and they're not available, what's the best thing to do?
Chris Jones 7:49 So there are really practical challenges when it comes to inspecting small schools. As I said, a number of staff members in smaller schools have lots of different roles. So the head teacher may also be the DSL they may also have responsibility for curriculum subjects. And of course, they do the day to day running of of the school. So inspectors know that they have to work with the school to plan the inspection really carefully. So for example, they'll minimise the amount of time one particular teacher might have to spend outside of class because of course, that means someone else has to has to cover for them. And the number of deep dives we've carried out in a smaller school would typically be fewer than in a larger school. And this kind of practical consideration also extends to key members of staff who are not present at the inspection for whatever reason that that might be. And that would certainly could impact which subjects are chosen for for a deep dive. Part of the part of the initial conversation between head teacher and inspector is working out some of these practical challenges and we're particularly alive to that in smaller schools. So obviously COVID has had a huge impact.
We know that we don't need to kind of rehearse all the reasons why, but but inspectors are carefully considering that impact. It will always form part of one of the initial conversations with leaders and inspectors will listen to leaders accounts of how the pandemic has impacted them has impacted us staff has impacted the teaching on pupils learning in their school. And we shouldn't forget that. We have had inspectors in schools since September 2020, which from the vantage point of April 2022, feels really close to the start of the pandemic. It wasn't actually long that we had inspectors not in schools at all. So those inspectors have visited many schools in the time since then, whether that's been to research visits, monitoring visits, or more recently, doing the full suite of inspections again. And of course, as I said earlier, many are serving school leaders and they understand all too well, the impact that pandemic has had, and the inspection outcomes for this academic year are strong actually and more schools than previously are improving their greater good. And this I hope gives us all some reassurance that inspectors are taking that impact into account and certainly not marking schools down because of the COVID impact
Anna Trethewey 10:25 and linked question and one that I think we've had a few rumblings about so how would Ofsted use the data from SATs and GCSE inspection?
Chris Jones 10:34 So at the moment, we don't have up to date data from standardised tests. The last time standardised tests were done, as we all know, in the normal way was back in 2019. So actually at the moment, very little was being made of SATs and GCSE scores on inspection. But it is true to say that from next year we'll have access to the performance data from the exams taking place in summer 2022. We know of course, as everyone does that the pandemic hasn't affected everybody equally. Some schools will have had more days where they've had to close than others have. Some will have had fewer children who can properly access remote learning whether that's because of it kit or not having somewhere quiet to work at home or not having internet access or whatever. The cause of that is, of course some schools have been disrupted by incredibly tragic events over the last few years, whether that's among staff or students. So the impact has been uneven and inspectors are there for when they have access to performance. Data from this year will be really sensitive and that in their use of that data. So inspectors will know that the 2022 exam data is not comparable really with earlier years. They won't be looking at the kind of 2019 to 2022 trend won't be that word make huge amount of sense. And of course there'll be there'll be aware of the uneven impact of the pandemic on pupils and schools. So, like this year, exam results will play less of a role in judgments made about schools next year as well. Of course we know that data is only ever one input among many into inspections. I've described the deep dive process which can touch on data when that's kind of external and standardised but involves so much more than that as well.
Anna Trethewey 12:38 Yeah, and I think it's so you put me in the picture. It's part of the wider picture, isn't it? and foremost the questions that inspectors want to ask but of course, it's only part of the story that comes out through through that professional dialogue and inspection. So a similar question around attendance data, how we'll be using that. So...
Chris Jones 12:55 in the same way as the exam data, in all honesty, with with sensitivity and and with care, I think you know, inspectors approaching inspection, looking to capture school out whether that's on attendance day to exam date. Or or anything else they understand what's happened over the last two years and and they are doing and they will continue to tweak that carefully.
Anna Trethewey 13:20 And so some schools have needed to alter their curriculum plans due to the pandemic will that be taken into account as well.
Chris Jones 13:27 Yeah, absolutely. So people will remember that when we launched the education inspection framework back in 2019. We included what we call transition statements which recognised at that time that some schools would be developing that curriculum and it wouldn't necessarily be having the impact that they might have hoped yet. So we said in the inspection handbook, that if those curriculum plans look good, I'm on track to be delivered. Essentially, that was okay by us. And we would we would take that into account and after the pandemic The same principle applies schools, many schools are re planning and redesigning their curriculum to address the gaps in learning that are resulting from the pandemic or in fact further, further reasons. Many schools will have been planning and replanting, and so those transition statements remain in the handbook, although serving a slightly different purpose now, so if schools are in that process of of planning their curriculum or replanting their curriculum, they do still have the protection if you'd like from those transition statements, which says if your plans are in place, they look good, they're on track to be delivered. Then that's that's okay.
Anna Trethewey 14:42 And I don't think any of us imagined that we'd be using the transition statements for such a purpose. So question about special schools will welcome inspectors consider the impact on special schools as these have had to operate under different parameters. To mainstream schools.
Chris Jones 15:00 So the CIO inspector leading every inspection will want to understand the impact of the pandemic on the school no matter what type of school it is. And of course, we know that special schools have had more restrictions than others. At times this is meant that they haven't had the ability to take children and young people into the community, for example, to get some of the skills they might need to move towards living independently of the children would have had severely curtailed access to services like speech and language therapy. So we understand all that and in fact, we've we've published various bits of, of research and analysis that describes this. So So inspectors know that but we also know of special schools that are doing fantastic work to get these aspects back up and running and we want to be able to sing their praises and reporting on the good things that are happening as well.
Anna Trethewey 15:52 Last COVID question and actually last, last question overall for the podcast. Will the inspections look at how staff and students mental health is supported following the COVID 19 outbreak?
Chris Jones 16:02 Yeah, I think we all know that mental health both children and adults is is a really important part of the post pandemic landscape. And as part of the personal development judgement on an inspection, inspectors will absolutely look to understand how schools are supporting pupils mental health, and we also know that often that will be best done through giving them as normal a school experience as possible. With good structures, good routines, well behaved peers. And of course, sometimes there'll be specific issues that need a school wide response, such as misuse of social media, and inspectors will ask pupils and teachers about these issues. It will remain a big focus of the person development judgement,
Anna Trethewey 16:52 then we've seen some of the impacts on physical health as well haven't we?
Chris Jones 16:55 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, we'll be really key to understand how schools are getting back up to the full range of PE and extracurricular sports and all the kinds of things that really things that really have an impact on on the physical health, which, as we all know, can quickly translate into into more positive mental health as well. And I just want to mention the leadership and management judgement as well because of course that concerns how well leaders are doing for their staff. So we talked to staff about the support they get with workload, for example. And if either pupils or staff are concerned that their welfare is not being supported, they would be able to tell an inspector in confidence. And whilst inspectors can't investigate an individual incident, they would certainly look to understand whether this was more widespread. So I think more important than ever, as we all know, that inspections focus on these issues as well as the core academic.
Anna Trethewey 17:53 And something that we also heard on those early research visits was about how lonely it can be as a leader, particularly during the pandemic. So how will we talk to how we kind of looked at that issue on inspection? That's
Chris Jones 18:05 absolutely right. And we know from various bits of data and survey work that we've done and the others like teachers have done, that the burden of the pandemic has really fallen on leadership in schools. So we will talk to governors and trustees on an inspection and one of the things we might well ask them is how they're supporting the leadership in the school to deal with all the challenges that remain, kind of as we emerge from the pandemic, right.
Anna Trethewey 18:35 Okay. Thank you. Well, those are all the questions I was going to throw you so well done to those of you who carry on listening because now you've made it to the clarification parts. So there's a few kind of Ofsted does Ofsted doesn't pieces that waft around in the ether. This is a chance to fast some of those myths. Chris, do you want to just give a bit of a rundown of some of the things that we commonly hear is misconceptions.
Chris Jones 18:54 Sure. And we can never do too much myth busting. And these are all things that are are in the school inspection handbook. So please do look them up there and use that as a tool if if you need but I'll just pick out some of the ones that I think it's important to get across. So there are some things that often will not do, we're committed not to doing so we're not great individual lessons. We don't advocate a particular method of planning or lesson planning, or an advocate a particular method of teaching or assessment because of course, it's up to schools to determine their practices. And it's up to inspectors and leadership teams to have a conversation on inspection about those on the merits of the things that they have chosen to do. So we will not advocate a particular method of planning teaching or assessment for things that we certainly don't require schools to provide. And it's important to say this because we do hear repeatedly that Ofsted has demanded this that or the other and in most cases that's not the case. So Ofsted doesn't require schools to provide evidence in any specific format. All that we need is for you to be able to explain it to an inspector. It doesn't need to be in a specific format. And that includes curriculum planning, as well. curriculum planning doesn't need to be in any specific format. We don't need any evidence for inspection beyond what's in the handbook and the types of things that I've described to date. We don't need a written record of teachers or or feedback to pupils. We know that whole class verbal feedback can be an extremely effective method of providing feedback to pupils. You don't need to write down for offset that that's what you've done. We are not going to ask for individual lesson plans. We're not going to ask for predictions of attainment and progress scores. And we're not going to ask for performance or pupil tracking information. We've done away with any requirements as you know to to look at schools internal data. And finally, there are some things that we were not kind of looking to specify. So we don't specify how planning including curriculum and lesson planning should be set out the length of time it should take to do that or the amount of detail it should contain. Or we don't specify the frequency type or volume of marking and feedback. And we don't specify the content or approach to head teacher and staff performance management. Those are just some of the edited highlights from the mythbusting. As I said, you can see all that in the school inspection handbook. And more.
Anna Trethewey 21:36 It's good to raise it because sometimes it helps us set out exactly this what we do and don't do. Great. Well, I think that's everything, Chris, thank you for letting me grill you thoroughly. Thank you to listeners out there. Obviously if there are more questions, please do get them in but for now, I'll say thanks very much, Chris.
Chris Jones 21:52 Thanks very much. Good luck!
Ofsted Talks hosts talk to Ofsted's Chief Operating Officer, Matthew Coffey, Ofsted illegal schools inspector, Sue Will and Ofsted Policy Officer, Katherine Street about illegal schools and what more Ofsted needs to close them down.
Transcript
AT – Anna Trethewey
CJ – Chris Jones
MC – Matthew Coffey
SW – Sue Will
KS – Katherine Street
AT: Hello and welcome to this episode of Ofsted talks. This week we're going to talk about illegal schools.
CJ: Yeah, that's right offset has had an illegal schools team since 2016. I'm going to talk to one of our inspectors who has been on that team since the beginning, about what it's like to turn up and knock on the door of these places and what we find.
AT: And later in the podcast, I have a really interesting chat with Catherine from our policy team, who talks more about what new powers we need to get to make those inspections more effective. But first, let's get a bit of history and background from Ofsted’s Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Inspector Matthew Coffey.
MC Hi Anna. Yeah, I'm back to coffee. I'm Ofsted’s Chief Operating Officer. And I'm the deputy chief inspector for Amanda.
AT: That's great. So can you just talk to me a little bit about how and when this issue of illegal schools was first brought to Ofsted attention?
MC: Okay, well, that's a good question. I'm not sure there's a real precise answer because, actually in the legislation there's always been an issue of, an acknowledgement that unregistered schools exist, but pre 2016, we used to wait until the Department for Education would commissioners to go in and do an inspection of a suspected illegal school, but it was in 2016, where the Chief Inspector of the time recognised that there was an increase in those commissions from the Department for Education, and more and more Ofsted was getting intelligence directly that illegal schools were operating that we worked with the Department to set up a team that would really respond to what we saw was a growing notification of unregistered schools and so I think the imprecise answer is 2016. But it's always been an issue prior to that.
AT: Okay, thank you. And we've got a number of settings, haven't we? We've investigated since that time. I've got the number here is 850, which is you know, that significant number really, when you think about it across those years?
MC: Yeah, I do remember back in 2016 where, you know, within the first few months of setting up a relatively small team within Ofsted, to look at this issue. We were we started talking about the tip of the iceberg and within the first few months we had about 56 potential unregistered schools. That were on our case list and more and more kept coming and ever since that time, you know, that there's just a lot of notifications about potential unregistered schools, coming from a lot of very concerned people. So it's really good that people have got their radar tuned into the damage that unregistered schools can do and they want us to do something about it.
AT: Great. That's really useful. We're going to hear a little bit more about that later in the podcast and we when Sue will discuss the process for investigating. And I guess actually, let's go right back to basics a little bit before we dive into more detail. What is an illegal School for the listeners out there?
MC: Yeah, absolutely. And on hopefully the definition of an illegal school is set out in legislation and it talks about if there are more than five children being given a broad education or if one of those children you only have to have one child actually if it's a looked after child or a child on some kind of support plan that would take us into the realm of being an unregistered school. Why I say it's a double edged sword because that definition of a broad education allows some people to kind of wriggle out of the legislative definition by saying actually we're not offering a broad education. We're offering a very, very narrow education and we do find ourselves in in some frustrating legal debates that are actually exposed to us that the legislation is imprecise, actually, it's too broad and we really want it to be a bit more focused to get those people that are kind of surfing on the edge of what's right and what's wrong. And that frustrates us if I'm honest.
AT: Yeah, that's helpful, helpful outline. You've talked about the damage that those schools, why should we be concerned about them?
MC: Oh, listen, in my time in Ofsted, I've been into a good number of these places and really you know, doesn't there's not many things that shocked me, but I have been shocked in unregistered schools. I mean, they are filthy. The ones I've been in that they really are very disorganised. Nobody knows who the staff are. That are teaching these children. Nobody knows because nobody's checked. Nobody's done any of the DBS checking. They could be absolutely anybody and they could be teaching anything. You know, so not to any kind of curriculum that we would understand, you know, stuff that people have just made up and of course, we all know the power of education is that you know, adults generally professionally qualified adults are imparting important information in a structured way to children, you know, that that's all out the window in unregistered schools. They're getting, you know, taught anything and actually in some of these places, parents are paying good money for it as well. I mean, he's just wrong on so many levels.
AT: Yeah, there's absolutely that bit of Would you want this for your own children and I imagine some of the things you've seen, really do question that.
MC: Yeah, and these children you know, they've been taken generally out of some kind of good mainstream education to be educated in a way that the parents are told is the best way to educate children and you know, some of it is with good intent. And don't get me wrong. There's not just this world is just not full of 100% Bad people there are there are some people are trying to do a really good job but they just don't get it right. And we need to you know, hold them to account some people just didn't realise and recognise that they needed to be registered and you know, they, they've been given the opportunity to register and then become you know, very good schools in the future, but I'm afraid that is the exception rather than the norm.
AT: Okay, and I'm going to ask you one of those sort of annoyingly tricky questions now, because I think the answer is we're not quite sure. But do we know how many illegal schools there are and how many children tend to be in them?
MC: Well, we don't; not only is it a tricky question, it's really frustrating question because you'd think that, you know, in 2022, we really should know and particularly layer on COVID and, you know, lots of children that, you know, were forced to be absent from school, but those that didn't come back you know, we just don't know there isn't a register that nationally available so that we can see the number of children that are homeschool educated, and whilst not exclusively do homeschool educated children end up in an unregistered school. It is one way through we've we've clearly identified that through the work that we've done since 2016. Nobody knows. These things, you know, like walking through many of our high streets you see a pop up restaurant or a pop up this so you get these pop up illegal schools. They you know, they really are at the top of chip shops and other places, in guarantees, the one that I referred to where we were very worried about children was in an industrial estate, you know, behind one of those big, you know, metal garage doors, you know, I mean, who wants to be educated in somewhere like that? Nobody knows the answer, I'm afraid but we're working really hard and take every opportunity to say to legislators, you really need to, you know, give us the powers that we need, but you also need to clarify the legislation on what defines a score and ensure that there is a register available so that we know the likely numbers of schools or certainly children that would be vulnerable to being in one of these schools.
AT: And we've heard so when we talk about this sometimes unregistered schools can be referred to as well as illegal schools. So just what's the difference there? Because it can get a bit muddled a counter?
MC: Yeah, I guess it goes back to that definition that I talked about the imprecision of the definition. If somebody really clearly breaks that definition is educating children is giving them a broad education or attempting to and there's more than five children. You know, this is this is an illegal school. There are some schools that are doing you know, very small things that are on top of a mainstream education some alternative provision that is specialist that doesn't need to be registered. So that's an unregistered school rather than an illegal school. So, you know, the clue is really the title of illegal and, and I guess, you know, it does come down to the precision of the legislation. Some people also get it all a little a bit mixed with supplementary schools. And a supplementary school is normally of a faith-based nature that is there to educate children in the tenants of a particular faith. They are out of our purview, but I've got to say you know, there has been occasion where we've been concerned about the creep of the scope of what those supplementary schools are doing. And when a supplementary school starts to, you know, encroach on other educational aspects of a child's life, that's when it starts to creep into being a potential, you know, illegal school.
AT: Yeah. Okay. Thank you just touched on. One aspect I was going to ask about actually so we hear quite a lot about unregistered faith schools. Is it true that, you know, most unregistered schools are faith based or is it a bit more of a mix?
MC: It's not true. Actually, you know, there is a relatively small number of faith based illegal schools about a fifth of all of the settings that we inspect in this world have a faith ethos, and it is a very quick assumption that people will make.
AT: and I guess with that, and with some of the frustrations that you have, you know, this is a really obvious question to ask, but I would imagine you'd be delighted to be able to close this close some of the schools down so why can't we do that?
MC: Yeah, well, I guess it comes back to you know, the legal aspect and what we've done in the team, but I'm sure Sue will talk about this a little bit more. Is we've recognised that it isn't as simple as we'd all like to think and maybe back in 2016. We didn't think it was that simple. Find an unregistered illegal school, issue a notice and close it down. But, you know, the tests that you need to go through in order to achieve that prosecution, which in essence closes it down is a very, very high bar. I think it's true to say a lawyer may well correct me, I think it's true to say that this legislation was designed never really to be, you know, used as a prosecution vehicle. It was really introduced as a deterrent to stop people from doing it in the first place. And we soon realised that when we started to have to go through Crown Prosecution Service tests, so we now our team has been recalibrated to have the inspectors on the frontline but also a team of lawyers that are really versed in, in how to collect the evidence that passes the various legal tests and it's made us better as an organisation. Having said that, whilst the legal challenge to close something down might be difficult. Having a bunch of Ofsted inspectors coming along and issuing with you with a notice to say you're doing wrong. Cease and desist is also a very powerful tool. And we can celebrate a tremendous amount of success in closing those down by non legislative means. So you know, we don't measure our success and how many prosecutions but we managed to get it's how many of these schools that we managed to stop operating.
AT: So that's, that's really useful. And I guess So Katherine is going to talk a bit more detail in the podcast later on around some of the specific asks and things that we think should change in legislation. But you know, just briefly, what's helping to change some of the situation here what's being done?
MC: Yeah, well, I mean, we can; being a civil servant. I understand the wonders of the civil service. I also understand sometimes the frustration of the bureaucracy and I know it's not an easy thing to get new legislation in and to get it changed. But we've been campaigning for a long time to get it changed. And we've been working very, very positively with, with the Department for Education, who are committed to, you know, enacting new legislation that give us powers that we need, and also clarify the definitions in a way that I've already outlined. Some of the powers that would really help us is the ability to seize evidence at the minute we can't, we can only photograph it and that's really frustrating, particularly when you do go somewhere and you find that children are being exposed to educational in inverted commas. material that is not appropriate. We can't take it away. All we can do is to photograph it as part of our evidence bundle, walking away knowing that it's still there and that causes a great deal of frustration. I must also give a really positive shout out in this space to local authorities. Because they you know, I think we've worked very well with local authorities and they understand the damage that unregistered schools can do and so they are very quick to alert as to concerns that they may well have and of course, at their disposal and fingertips they've got a lot of officers of the local authority that are out on the streets, day in day out, you know, collecting refuse or parking or whatever it might be. And we found that, you know, by educating their own staff, they can see where there are unusual places that children are seen going into, you know, like in an industrial estate, and that comes back to them and then they come and talk to us. So that's a really good example of you know, cross governmental, working together for a shared aim and objective.
AT: Matthew, that's a really helpful overview. Thanks ever so much for your time really helpful.
MC: You're very welcome. Take care.
CJ: Really fascinating stuff there from Matthew. I so frustrating that we just don't know how many children are attending these settings. And I agree with what Matthew said in 2022 we really shouldn't know.
AT: Yeah, I agree.
CJ: Next, we're gonna listen to one of my favourite interviews so far in the podcast. It was so interesting to hear firsthand what it's like to go into these places and what we find when we do so let's have a listen to my interview with Sue.
CJ: So I've got with me Sue Will from Ofsted’s, unregistered schools team. So tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
SW: Hi there. As you said, my name is Sue Will I'm the senior HMI in the unregistered schools team. I manage the inspectors who conduct the investigations into unregistered schools up and down the country.
CJ: Excellent. And that's what we're going to talk a bit about the inspections of unregistered schools that we that we carry out now tell me a little bit about how an inspection goes down because presumably we don't give them a day's notice that we're doing a normal school inspection
SW: No, That’s right, absolutely not. So Ofsted receives referrals from a number of different sources about unregistered schools come from all sorts of people, members of the public, the police social services of the schools, and a referral comes in and the staff will start an investigation really into what we know about that provision. What we need to do is to establish whether we have reasonable cause to be able to go in and inspect. So under the legislation Ofsted has powers so enter premises if we reasonably believe that an unregistered school may be in operation. So we all carry all sorts of open source searches find out as much as we can about the setting before we go out. And then as I say once we've established reasonable cause we go out to the setting unannounced and then we will turn up knock on the door to conduct our inspection that day. So yes, those that we are visiting, want to know that we're coming out to see them
CJ: And paint a picture for as to how many inspectors that we are we talking about what kind of buildings are they turning up to?
SW: Well will really that depends on what we can find out about the setting before we go out. If we've been able to establish that is already a relatively small setting with small numbers of children, then we will you know we will you know decide how many inspectors we want to go accordingly. If it's a big site, where we've been able to work out that there could be a couple of 100 children, then of course, we will extend those numbers. Now sometimes, of course, we don't know. You know, we're not able to find out that that information. So generally, I would be sending two inspectors out or most inspections at least two people would be going out.
CJ: And are they have a regular school inspectors or do we give them special training or they got certain backgrounds?
SW: Okay, so all of our staff were originally Ofsted staff have all received extensive training. Our training is actually conducted at the Police College. So our is a criminal investigation. So all investigations need to be conducted under PACE conditions to ensure that when we collect evidence, it's admissible in court and so we you know, all of our staff have to learn those procedures and to make sure that they adhere to those in order to get if we have to get a case into court, but then the way we were able to do that.
CJ: So we are acting a bit like police officers then in that case that we?
SW: Absolutely as I said it's a criminal investigation. So if you think about it, the end result could be somebody's going to prison. I mean, that's that that could be the end result. So of course we have to make sure that we've secured that evidence in a way that we followed the investigation process thoroughly. As I said, all of our evidence is being collected in accordance with PACE. We conduct interviews, we take statements. So yes, sort of. We're following you know, we do the type of work that police officers would be doing.
CJ: Yeah. And these places these settings can be in a variety of buildings, can't they? I don't imagine many of them are in the old Victorian schools that we see around or nice, modern, new school buildings. Tell us a bit about where these places tend to be.
SW: Well, I think we hit the nail on the head there. I think we've seen settings in all sorts of places. Ranging from sometimes in school bill, old school buildings that used to house schools, but are no longer fit for purpose. So we've seen groups move into places like that. We've been to settings on industrial sites. We've been to, I once went to a setting inside a caravan. We've been to settings that are being run in domestic premises. So to be honest with you anywhere where you could, you know, have a roof over your head, probably you know, you're likely to find an unregistered
school.
CJ: I’m interested in the caravan. How are they how are they running a school within a caravan?
SW: So this was a setting that we went out to a couple of years ago now was an unregistered AP that was running on farmland, and they had a six caravans on the site where the children were receiving their education. So for them to go from one subject to the other they would have to come outside of Bonn caravan and go into another cross a muddy field in the rain. So it wasn't really probably the best place to be having your schooling.
CJ: No. And so our inspectors turn up they knock on the door, they press the buzzer to the industry or state or whatever it is they do. What's their, what's the typical reception that they get?
SW: It differs there are some people who are doing this who don't actually realise that they're doing anything wrong, you know, they fall into it. Maybe there might be sometimes that they're good people who wants to try and do good things. And that's a bit mistaken really. And those people generally when you knock on the door will tend to invite you in and will welcome you in and that that's one that's one side if you like. There are another group of people that you will knock on the door and they'll hold you at the door. And the reason that they're holding you at the door is because they could be ushering children out of the back door and across the road. Or we've had a situation where children have been ushered through corridors that have been built in between houses, so that when, now whether they've been put in place for when Ofsted turned up, but certainly there are well rehearsed procedures I'm going to say to evacuate children from buildings for when we do turn up. So we have those situations. And then we've had other situations where people have been abusive when we've turned up. We've had inspectors who have been abused and there's been aggression shown towards them. And in fact, in our first year of operating, there was a provider who was a provider who was prosecuted for a racially aggravated offence against one of our inspectors at the time.
CJ: So I'm interested in these people that they quite clearly know they're doing something wrong, you know, if they're if they're holding an inspector out the door so they can get the kids out of the building or hide documents or whatever it is they know that what they're doing is not right, whether they know it's illegal or not, but they know that it's not it's not right, don't they?
SW: Absolutely. Yes. I mean, as I say it's well-rehearsed, but then they're often you know what once we get into the setting, they'll be the people who will be less than helpful, I'm going to say, yeah, so they will be the people who won't offer to tell you anything about the service that they're offering. Who won't offer to tell you the children about the children who are at the setting, because one of the things that we will want to do is to get the names and details of the children because whilst Ofsted is there to investigate unregistered schooling, and we are the only people that have access to these settings, so if it's an unregistered setting, there isn't anybody else with a statutory duty to be able to go in there. So one of you know, well say one of the most important rules we have placed that we've gone in there we have one chance. So if we observe concerns for the children's safety and wellbeing, we like to make those referrals to the those agencies that can do something about it, whether that be the local authority, whether that'd be the fire department or whether that be the police. And in order to help those children. Of course, we want details about those children, their names, dates of birth and addresses and so on and so forth. And so often those are the people who are not forthcoming with that sort of information who don't want to help us and give you give, perhaps give you an example of one case there. As I said, trying to get details about the children sometimes is really very difficult. And so you'll put a question in a different way to somebody and I would say to someone, and this did happen, I said you know, you have over 200 children in the setting, you must have a list of names. I was being told that there wasn't a list on the premises. And we'd said you what you must have a list of names that have you know, have children at the setting. Because for fire, you know, just purely if there was a fire alarm, you would want to be able to check those children out. And the answer that was given to me was that no list was required, because God would make a decision whether those children were going to survive or not. So that was really quite, quite worrying.
CJ: Yeah, absolutely. So you're not going in there and doing a typical Ofsted inspection. Then you're not looking at the quality of education and the personal development all that this is this is about establishing the facts of what's happening in this place.
SW: Absolutely. We're going in, as I mentioned at the beginning to conduct a criminal investigation, so we're looking at evidence to be able to prove one way or another with evidence that's pointing towards an offence that an unregistered school is taking place, or evidence that an unregistered school isn't taking place. Do you know where the investigator so we're looking for both ways.
CJ: Do we get a chance to talk to children very often who attend these places?
SW: Most certainly what when we're in the settings we do. I mean, that's something that all of the team try and endeavour to torture the children. Again, different provisions are very differently sometimes there isn't a problem, you know, sometimes those that are in charge are happy for the children to talk to us. And then there are other times where children are actively discouraged to talk to us. And we've had I've had I've been in settings where I have been engaging in a conversation and an adult has walked into the room and has been very angry. That the fact that I was you know that we were attempting to speak for children ushered children out raise voices. So yes, there are there are settings where people will make it very difficult for us to be able to try to talk to the children.
CJ: And is there ever a language barrier?
SW: Yes, yes. Sometimes. Yes. Sometimes there is absolutely.
CJ Do we ever take interpreters or people that speak that language as inspectors.
SW: We don't take we haven't taken anybody out with us. We've certainly used interpreters to look at some of the evidence that we've been able to secure on some of the visits but today, we haven't taken interpreters out with us. We're a bit in terms of what we need to collect on that day. We're able to ascertain whether they're children of statutory school age, generally by looking at the children we can observe what the children are doing. So to date, we haven't done that.
CJ: And what happens if you see if you go into a place you establish that this is this is essentially an illegal school. It's not safe for the children. Are we able to do anything about it at that point, do we just have to walk away?
SW: So if the setting is unsafe, as I mentioned before, you know we're looking at having one chance so we need to take the opportunity to do everything that we can and generally we would come away and as I said make those referrals but there have been occasions where it's been so bad when we've been on site that we've called those agencies whilst we're on sites, and we've asked them to join us. Certainly, I've been involved in inspections where we've called the local authority, for example, and said you need to come down here now we believe that children are at risk and can you come and join us? Members of my team were conducting an inspection, only the back end of last year where they had to call the local authority and the police to join them because they were worried for the safety of the young people.
CJ: What was going on in that setting?
SW: Again, information wasn't being shared. We were very, very worried about the premises. Some of these buildings, I mean, I mentioned to you that you know, the different types of buildings, but within those buildings, some of the premises that we've seen have been really quite bad, really squalid dirty, with electric cables falling down. No fire procedures padlocked fire doors. So when we've had real, you know, cause for concern about the children's safety where we haven't wanted to leave the children there, then then, you know, that's when we've called those agencies because we've been happy that they've, you know, rather than coming away and making that referral and then waiting for them to tell us that they've been there, we'd rather be there and when they turn up at the door,
CJ: And what about parents do encounter parents? What, what do you think if you put yourself in a position of some of these parents, what's their what's their motivation for sending children to these places?
SW: That's a really, really interesting question. It's something that we all ask ourselves that there's two different types of provision as we've mentioned before, there's the alternative provider and very often, perhaps those parents don't have a choice in it patch those children are placed at the setting because there isn't anywhere else for them. To go. So those parents maybe aren't doing that through choice. You're they're not they're not choosing to send, send the children there. But the other group of the other group of settings that we've spoken about, for example, some of the religious settings, those parents would have actively chose them and when you want us have to question why you do that some of these buildings as I've mentioned to you are cramped, tiny with no facilities, as I have said dirty. You know you do have to think what why would why would you do that? Why would you want to keep your children out of school where perhaps the school that's just a down the road from where they live that have the most wonderful things on offer art rooms, science labs, drama rooms, gym gymnasiums, why would you choose to send your child to essentially a broom cupboard? I went to set it once that was no larger than a broom cupboard. And the boys were sat in there having their lesson. So you have to do have to wonder parents have never spoken to us at those settings. Certainly if they were present during the visit, we would we would try and speak to them. But often when we're conducting our inquiries after a visit, that they often wouldn't want to talk to us and we would try we would absolutely always try to speak to people but they haven't often come you know, haven't taken up on our offer for questions, but it is something that we you know, continually ask ourselves.
CJ: Yeah, I mean, it must be a fairly compelling religious or cultural reason that's behind that decision was significant because like you say that it's a big that's a big trade off to have to make to send your child to some of these places that they must know I'm not I'm not actually suitable for children to be.
SW: And sometimes you want as I say, you, you go into the settings which really is heartbreaking. I have to say to you. Here we are 2022 in some of the biggest cities, and children are in sometimes I describe it as Dickensian rows of tables with broken chairs and they're sat there and why would you do that and how let down they must feel you know that they won't be able to compete with their peers, they often will have gone through this system and then you know, they're not having what you and I would consider a formal education. They're not taking examinations at the end of it. When they're not being prepared for life. You then must feel very let down. So yes, the question is, why would you do that?
CJ: Tell me a bit about what happens after the inspection then? So inspectors have gathered their evidence they've got the paperwork that they can that they can establish where do they go next?
SW: Well, if one if during the inspection is a small part of an investigation, I'm going to say that's something you that you do as part of an investigation. But if when we're out on site, we identify that there is evidence to suggest that an unregistered school is running. Then we would serve a warning notice to the person in charge who we identify as being the person in charge. And the warning notice sets out legislation. And it explains that you should cease operating as you are at the moment and then we will come away and we will carry on with further inquiries, that that may be all sorts of things where that you know, depending on what we found on site, but that often that visit will open up a lot of other avenues that we need to explore as part of the investigation. Sometimes we'll go back and we'll go back and sometimes that the people who have fallen into this by accident that didn't really mean it to turn into an unregistered school, they've done it sort of unknowingly, they will have been the people who have changed their ways. Who have made sure that they are now complying with the law. And then there are others who haven't who you know, who are carrying on in the way that we found them, you know, at the first visit, and it's that stage where we have to consider what to do next. Because obviously to prosecute somebody for running an unregistered school is I'm gonna say our last resort we'd rather do things without prosecuting people. But you know, when we've found you know, some of these dreadful conditions that I've told you about where we've warned people that it is an offence, sometimes we're left with no other option but to prosecute them. So we then work with the Crown Prosecution Service to put together a case file with a view of prosecution.
CJ: What how difficult are processes is that kind of do we need kind of super high standards of evidence to get the Crown Prosecution Service to take that on?
SW: we work to a very high level Yes, we work and we collect our evidence, mainly in the form of photographs. Currently, that's how we collect our evidence. And yes, we pull together our case files that are scrutinised, reviewed, and several times over to be able to put this this case file together. That's ultimately of course signed off by the Secretary of State and then taken forward by the Crown Prosecution Service, the complex case unit of the Crown Prosecution Service, in court.
CJ: It does sound complex. The inspectors wear cameras don't know is that is that so that they can gather evidence is that for their safety?
SW: Well, we use a body worn video camera for two purposes. And the first is the evidence Absolutely, it's a first-hand evidence you can then see it, it's there. And really there's no argument there in terms of what you can see. But yes, your right foot for inspector safety, as you know as I mentioned to you before, sometimes we're met in fairly hostile situations, and it is hoped that if someone is being filmed on camera, they're less likely to do something that they shouldn't do.
CJ: So through presumably we we do go into some places and conclude that they are, in fact operating completely lawfully do we?
SW: Well to gain entry as I mentioned earlier, one we have to have reasonable cause to believe. So as long as we've got our reasonable cause, we can go in there and that's because we believe that there's likely to be a school there. But after we've conducted that inspection, and we've, you know, observed the setting we've collected evidence, we may establish that a school isn't operating. And if that is the case, we will thank those who are in charge for their time, thank them for their cooperation, because they generally are the people of course that will cooperate, and then we go on our way.
CJ: Sue. That's been fascinating. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
SW: Thank you.
AT: Wow, Chris, that was really interesting. It must be quite intimidating for our inspectors turning up at these places. Not entirely sure. They will find.
CJ: Yeah, but it's such important work. As Sue said, often were the only people who get access to these places.
ST: Yeah. So listen to my interview with Katherine, where we talked about what might make that role easier.
AT: Hello, Catherine, thanks so much for coming and chatting to us today. Can you just introduce yourself a little bit before we get started?
KS: Sure. Yeah. So I'm Catherine Street. I'm a Senior Policy Officer in the unregistered schools team.
AT: Right. And you're going to talk to us a little bit about the kind of what next what will be helpful in terms of us being able to tackle this problem better. So I'm going to start off. I mean, it's not a small question, but really helpful for your take on it. So if we could just start off and I'm going to ask what changes do we need to make it easier to tackle illegal schools?
KS: Sure. So we need legislative change in three areas. So we're asking the Department of Education to make kind of changes to the law around our registered schools. So firstly, we need better registration requirements. So at the moment, there are a couple of loopholes in the registration requirements, which means that some places which you know, I would think of as a school don't technically counts as schools. And so that means that they don't have to register and the unregistered schools team can't really do anything about them. Secondly, we need better investigation powers. So we need to be to help us to do more thorough investigations and to gather all of the evidence we need to find out if an illegal school is being is operating, or to and if we do think there was one operating to gather the evidence, we need better investigation powers. And then lastly, just to make sure that when if we have prosecuted someone if someone has been found guilty of running an illegal school. The courts and the magistrates have the right sentencing options available to them, which means that they can't just carry on as they were before. So those are the kind of three areas of change that we really want the Department for Education to make as soon as they can. So their next kind of the next opportunity they had to change legislation we think there should be definitely be on their agenda.
AT: Great. That's really helpful overview and we really are so limited on what we can do. At the moment. So yeah, that's really helpful. Catherine. So in terms of can you just talk us a bit through what the current registration requirements are and why they're inadequate?
KS: Sure. So I'm most places that offer full time education to children. So it's four or more children, or children with either one charter child who's looked after or has an education health care plan, they have to register. There are a couple of loopholes in the law, which mean that the places that we would think of as a school don't actually have to register as a school. So you know, our inspectors will go into the settings and they'll see places where that are kind of running Monday to Friday during school hours. Lots of children. These are educational places, It's a school, classrooms. It's a school and but because of this loophole around the curriculum that they teach or the content of the education, it means that they don't, they don't they're not required to register at the moment. And so even if our inspectors see things that we find really concerning, and we have seen places with really were we don't think the education looks like it's very good, where we have kind of their safeguarding or health and health and safety problems. They don't have to register because they they're not delivering a suitable education, which is which is the language in legislation so we just need the Department of Education to close that loophole. And that's a real priority for us to make sure that we can move these children into places that are illegal and safe and have some oversight of them. And then there's another issue around defining what is full-time so we just need a bit more clarity in the law to make sure that anywhere that's providing all or almost all of the child's education counts as a school as well. So it's less kind of tied to particular number of number of hours and more about if it's a place that's really taking the function of a school. And I'm not I'm not talking about places that are supplementary to school, so we're not concerned about football clubs, you know, morning prayer groups before school, Sunday schools, music lessons, these are places that are really taking the place of the school and we think they should all have to be registered.
AT: Yeah, that's really helpful. So that's the kind of sizable that first step next in terms of investigation and prosecution what would make that easier because that's quite often where we come in, right?
KS: Yeah. So when we have reasonable cause to believe a school's operating and this isn't kind of your average Ofsted school inspection at all. These are just criminal investigations. And when we think a school might illegal school might be operating, we have reasonable cause. We need the right powers to mean that we can gather the evidence once we're in the setting. So for example, to search that's kind of the basis of most of our investigations. We need to be able to apply for search warrants. There's not something we can do at the moment. So we can do those real really thorough searches, so we can have the police with us when it's appropriate when it's necessary. And then we also want to be able to seize evidence. So this is actually something that other parts of Ofsted, who also conduct these criminal investigations can already do. So they can seize evidence on for example, in early years and social care when they're doing those criminal investigations. With the school with the illegal schools investigations. We can't at the moment so we just want those same powers to be able to seize evidence. Again, something we only use when it's appropriate. We wouldn't kind of be just taking every piece of paper that we could find. Yeah. We also want to be able to require information so we can ask for information about the setting. And that has two purposes really. So firstly, to be able to help us to gather the evidence, as I've talked about before, and also we want to be able to gather information about the children so that we can pass that information on to the local authorities to help them with their safeguarding role. So that's also something that's really important to us to be able to safeguard the children in the settings that don't have any kind of formal oversight and that in many cases are illegal. And we also want a bit of an extension of what's called the prosecution time limit. So we have six months to prepare a case at the moment and we want to increase that to 12, which we'd use when we needed to, we would still try and do it as quickly as possible because we really want these faces shut down as soon as we can as soon as we can, but sometimes we do need a little bit of extra flexibility.
AT: Yeah. Now that makes sense. And that bit about requiring the information. We talked so much, don't worry about the importance of sharing information, especially when they're safeguarding, you know, how do other agencies work together to ensure they're all working in the best interest of children? I think that is actually really, you know, would help close that loophole. Yeah, I guess.
KS: Yeah. And we want to know who the children are on the setting. So if we can ask an adult to give us that information, particularly because some places and many often in urban areas, will they'll be told you for more than one local authority, so we can tell the local authority where the setting is, but we that doesn't mean that that all of the children will have kind of the right local authority informed and that information will be given to the to the right people. So if we know who the children are, ideally, where they live, then we can pass that on.
AT: Yeah, great. Okay, brilliant. So then we kind of come to the last step, which is prosecution, and then what happens afterwards. So can you explain just a little bit about how we prevent these schools from carrying on after a prosecution because some do don't know You know, we know.
KS: Yeah, yeah. I think before we kind of started up prosecutions, we somewhat naively thought that once we prosecuted a place but we found that that hasn't so we've done six prosecutions so far and two of those were the same place twice, because we prosecuted them once that the individuals got kind of fines community service order, found guilty. Basically carried on and so we had to go through the whole process again. So what we want is that is for us to is for magistrates are in for courts to have the right sentencing options so they can hand down a sentence that prevents the person from carrying running that centre setting or similar settings. It means that that that's the sentence they're given that we could monitor that properly. And we you know, that would, that should kind of close these places down and mean that the children can move on to proper schools to legal registered places to a legal setting where somebody's looking at the education someone's looking at their safeguarding that will be important checks that are made and registered settings, children and settings that are that have those checks, which I think every child deserves.
AT: I'd really agree. Well, thank you. That was a bit of a whistle-stop tour I realised you know, there's three big areas that are asking for change, but they feel vital really don't then in making sure that we can continue to keep children safe and provide them with the education and care they deserve.
KS: Exactly.
AT: Well, Chris, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to discuss this hidden part of Ofsted work in a bit more detail.
CJ: Yeah, me too. And I've got to say that I'm sure we will keep banging on the government's door for the powers we need to help us investigate these places, and ultimately to help these children get a good and safe education.
AT: Exactly this. Yes. Thanks for listening today, everyone. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. And please do go back and listen to our previous episodes. If you haven't already. And we'll see you next time.
This episode is a recording of the launch of the Prison Education review of reading education in prisons, with Amanda Spielman HMCI and Charlie Taylor HMIP and a panel discussion followed by questions. The event was held in March 2022 in London.
AS: Amanda Spielman
CT: Charlie Taylor
SC: Sally Coates
BM: Bridget McKeown
FC: Francesca Cooney
LJS: Louise Johns-Shepherd
KG: Kelly Gleeson
KGO: Kirsty Godfrey
Welcome to Ofsted talks. This podcast was recorded live at Ofsted and HMIP’s joint launch of ‘Prison education, a review of reading education in prisons’, which took place on the 22nd of March.
AS: I want to thank everybody who's worked on the report. It's a joint effort between emotionally spiritually HMIPrisons and Ofsted many, many experts have been involved with, drawing on people who've gone before - I'll talk about you in a moment, Sally. But it's a phenomenal piece of work. I'm so happy that it's come together in this sort of very clear and I think, urgent way. That's really a very important push [that] a huge proportion of prisoners need and aren't getting, and that there are very obvious and clear ways to make it so much better than it is today. I've got the pleasure of introducing Dame Sally Coates who in 2016, published her independent review of education in prisons, it made a strong case for putting education at the very centre of the prison regime, and for making prison governors accountable for and able to choose the education that best meets prisoners needs. But since then, there's frankly been little improvement, I think, in the quality of prison education. And the pandemic has undoubtedly contributed to making it worse. But I think it would be valuable to have this panel discussion because I think drawing on the experts in this panel, and this audience helps us exert the right, the right pressure, the right push in the right places. Sally is now of course director of secondary academies at United learning, as well as being patron of the National Citizen Service Trust. Thank you for agreeing to chair this panel.
SC:
As Amanda says, my day job is running academies up and down the country for the biggest multi Academy trust in our country. So I'm responsible for about 60 secondary schools so my passion is education. And when the Secretary of State at the time Michael Gove asked me to lead review of education in prisons, I had never stepped into prison, I knew very little about prison, people just don't know what goes on in prison, unless they work in a prison or indeed or unfortunate enough to go into a prison. I like to review with a very expert panel and Natasha, who's here, was actually on the panel. But I think both Natasha and I knew very little about prison education when I when I started the review. And it was a real eye opener, going into prisons and going to classrooms, particularly as I'd been in classrooms for most of my working life, either as a teacher, or indeed, running schools. I saw very little good education, I did see some, we did see some, but we saw very little, and most of the classes we saw would probably inadequate if indeed, in mainstream education. And it was a very depressing experience. We went into 10s of prisons up and down the country went into female estate, the male estate. The review, was published in 2016. And we made a whole series of recommendations, all of which were accepted by the government at the time. And to be here, six years later, reading this report, which I read, you know, I'm really, I think it's a really good thing that this report has been commissioned. And I read the report with great interest. But I also read it with frustration, disappointment, and in some ways, anger, that we are still talking about the same things that I was talking about in 2016. Some things have changed, governors do have more accountability, and what happens in classrooms, particularly around literacy, which we know is so important, that very little has indeed changed. And I do hope that today, we have a discussion, and we take some of the recommendations that have been put forward by this report that something actually happens. We need some action now. Otherwise, in six years’ time, we'll be sitting here again, hearing yet another report and saying again, nothing's changed. So I'm going to open the discussion, but first of all, I'm going to ask the panel to introduce themselves.
Hello, I'm Bridget McKeown. I'm the Library Manager at HMP Manchester.
SC: Thanks Bridget Francesca.
FC: Hi. I'm Professor Cooney and I'm the head of policy at the prisons Education Trust. And we also call in the prisoner Learning Alliance.
CT: Charlie Taylor, Chief Inspector of Prisons.
AS: Amanda Spielman, chief inspector at Ofsted.
LJS: Louise Johns-Sheppard, I'm the Chief Executive of the Centre for literacy in primary education but co-authored the report with Kirsty
KG: Kelly Gleeson administrator for the building futures team with the prison reform with lived experience of prison.
SC: hanks very much. So I think I'm going to start by asking Kelly as you have had a lived experience of prison, what your experience of reading and and literacy was in President What is it really like?
KG: It's, it's really bad. Sadly, I've actually been to prison four times, since 2010. Never again, it's really bad that the wages for education a pound, but you can go into a job in two pounds, 22 pound 50. As a mother, and I know for the women as well that were movers or wanting to keep the contact with the family phone credit is so expensive, people need to buy toiletries, etc. So they will go into them jobs and avoid the education side of it just because it doesn't pay well, they can't keep in contact with the family even more. So if you can't read and write you need that phone credit, you know, because you've taken away that the written contact to your children or your family. It's been the same all the way through. I mean, I've kind of done a tour of the country with women's prisons. And it's been the same since I've since 2010. education classrooms are chaotic. You've got some really, really complex women in the women's estate that have been through such traumatic experiences, adverse childhood experiences, in a classroom with one tutor that can't manage, you know, can't manage a classroom of all these people. There's not enough support. There's not enough one to one, there's not stuff for that. So it's a bit of a mess, if I'm honest.
SC: Okay, thank you very much. And Bridget, would you like to comment on that, because obviously, in from the perspective of libraries, and how they work within prisons,
BM: We're quite lucky in our library, and I don't want us to be the lucky library, I want us to be the library that everybody sort of aspires to be, because we have a dedicated officer. And that isn't the case across many of the prisons, I think we're one of the few that have a dedicated official, what that means is that we have somebody who can support us with Shannon trust, we have somebody who can support us with any groups that we want to run. We've got somebody who supports us directly if we bring people in to do activities, because they're there, and they can go and get the people that the demand because it's a men's prison, and bring them to the library and take them back. And where that falls down, unfortunately, is the regime is stuffing is the priority that library is given within the within the prisons, it can be. And for me, you say you're passionate about education? Absolutely. I'm passionate about reading about reading for pleasure. I've got a seven year old grandson who's learning to read and he's probably at a similar age to reading level to some of the people that I'm working with. How are these people functioning in daily life, if we want people to come out of prison and have opportunities and be better, and change their life around if they're coming out with the same skills, failing them? It's absolutely failing them.
SC: And I think Natasha, remember, we went to Grendon prison. And I sat in with the rest of my power couple of people, my panel, and about 60 men came here all sat around the outside of the room, and one by one went round and introduced themselves. And almost all of them had had very expensive education when they were at school. And one man, I'll never forget, I'd been in prison for 40 years, and I still can't read. I mean, absolutely shocking. I was just stunned by that. 40 years in prison, and he still can't read. And as we know, many people in prison come from traveller background or come from, you know, disadvantaged homes where they have dropped out of education for one reason or another or being permanently excluded. And then they get into the youth justice, and then the prison education prison system. And it's just continues, and then they come out and obviously reoffend because they have no skills to do anything else. So Charlie, perhaps you have, you could let me know why the barriers, why is nothing changing?
CT: I think it's a huge concern. I come from education background as well used to be a head teacher of a special school. So I came into this world with a huge interest in education. Whenever I whenever I meet a person, I always ask them about their education experience, what it was like for them at school. And so many of them for whatever reason, fell out of education, some were never in school at all. Some were kicked out of school, usually in about year seven or eight, and never got back into any sort of meaningful education again. I think the reason why progress hasn't been made is because it hasn't been a priority. And I think there has always been a temptation within the prison service to focus in on things that are incredibly important, but nevertheless, to the exclusion of other things. So the focus on security, the focus on stopping stuff, getting into prisons, stopping violence, and stopping and stopping prisoners escaping, those things are all incredibly important. But that has been at the detriment of learning to read and pushing the quality of education. I also think that is an accountability issue, because governors are not accountable for the quality of education in their prison, in the same way that we as head teachers absolutely would be. And therefore, because there's an accountability gap, it's something simply that governors do not lose sleep over. They don't get judged on how good the education is on their prison, that the provider gets judged on that the prison service doesn't make the quality of education a priority for it, when it's judging the success of the governor. And therefore, until we get to a stage where governors and leadership within education, are responsible for the quality information, I think it will be hard to make progress.
SC: So I'll be asking the panel wants to comment on that. Francesca?
FC: Yeah, I mean, I absolutely agree that prison education is not a big enough priority, and it's really noticeable. But in the white paper, there are financial commitments to security aspects of prisons, but there aren't clear financial commitments to how much more resource is going to go into education, if at all. And he and I would say the other thing that really comes out of the report is how contracts are getting in the way of delivery contracts are not enabling good delivery of prison education. And that really needs to be locked up.
AS: Yes, I've visited one prison where the contract was very clearly get directly getting in the way of confusion, a bit of intellectual confusion, I think about the education that's needed. I think, in the in the new approach to functional skills, and the new qualifications is actually a recognition and built and built into the lowest levels, the entry level qualifications, the need, actually to teach, teach reading from the very, very basics. I think functional skills qualifications, as they get used in practice, often sort of tend to miss out that better and be and the teaching becomes more about making the best of what reading skills you've got in the real world, but not addressing the problem. That means that the even that at level one is more than half the prison population can cope with. So I think I think we've got to get that understanding more deeply through all the people who are who are responsible here. I also think that the incentives that you took talk about Kelly, some of those seem like very quick fixes. I can see there, there are many difficulties with staffing that make things hard, but not that hard, but not insuperable. But things like differential pay, right pay rates, need no extra staffing, and they should be remarkably simple and straight and straightforward to implement, there should be no disincentive for prisoners to take part in to take part in education. And it should be a fundamental principle.
FC: They're just going to pick up on a couple of those barriers. One is around the what Amanda was saying about the curriculum, driving functional skills driving the curriculum, and therefore being focused on something that isn't necessarily right for the vast majority of people in the classrooms, which is, you know, has not not changed. But I but I also think there is an issue around the skills of the staff who were in those, those classrooms, not that they're their teaching skills, but their their subject knowledge and the pedagogical knowledge. And, and again, like, like mentors, it's not about the prison regime. But some clear training, when 50% of the people who are coming through your classrooms cannot read at a functional skills level, then those teachers need to have some training around the subject knowledge and the pedagogical content that enables them to teach reading. And at the moment, they don't end with the best will in the world. We saw teachers in classrooms that entry level three, so the lowest that they the lowest level of possible entry, who had come from hairdressing or carpentry. And it's that thing of putting somebody into teach those prisoners in their classroom, there's no way they can have that, that subject knowledge. But that commitment to teaching would be a really, really important thing, I think, and is currently a barrier. And the other thing I think is about seeing reading and its widest purpose, because these are adults who we can't force to necessarily engage with reading a book, every prison we went to, we asked the question to people who weren't engaging, or we asked a question to the staff, why do you think people don't engage, and they talked about the stigma, the stigma of not being able to read, and that's why they didn't engage. But all a lot of those people have family context that they do want to engage with their children. They have, they have legal things that they want to look at, they need to read their menus and those kinds of things. So giving the importance of reading really, really high profile in the prison, removes that stigma to a certain extent and says everybody's working towards this. Everybody's working towards it. So it's important.
AS: Yeah, thank you. I can't imagine being locked up in yourself 23 hours a day and we're not having access to a book or not being able to read a book even if I had one. Kirsty Godfrey, who's going to give an overview of the findings of the report. Thank you, Kirsty.
KGO: Thank you, Amanda. So I'm Kirsty Godfrey, one of her majesty's inspectors. And yes, I've visited all of the prisons as part of this research project. And today I'm just going to share with you some of the main findings. So in terms of background in particular, our research aim to find out how prisoners reading is assessed the provision which is in place to improve their reading, and how much progress prisoners make. We carried out research in six prisons, and the visits involved discussion with prison leaders, leaders in the education departments, teachers, librarians, and prisoners. We also visited classrooms when there was English education taking place. Our research showed that prisons do not give do priority to improving prisoners reading, and that those with the greatest need often receive the least support. There's little opportunity for prisoners to learn to read. And so as well as missing out on the benefits of reading in prison, many will be denied the opportunity to learn the essential skills they need to resettle in the community. We identified some systemic barriers preventing prisoners from receiving effective support to acquire or improve their reading skills. So I'm now going to highlight some of those barriers. First, we found that reading education is not given sufficient priority in the prison regime. Reading is not a distinct part of that core education offer. The importance of learning to read or improving prisoners reading is all too often overshadowed by a focus on acquiring qualifications. Meeting contractual obligations around enrollment on courses and passing of qualifications prevents education leaders from prioritising, making sure that all prisoners learn to read while gaining a level one qualification was often a name for education departments, as this is a requirement for much prison employment. This results in some of the entry level courses not been considered a priority. Even though those entry level courses, which are suitable for non readers or those that are in the early stages of learning to read, meet the needs of as much as half of the prison population. Early Reading provision then often relied on Shannon trust, a voluntary organisation that trains prisoners to mentor fellow prisoners who are learning to read and following COVID-19 in the restrictions, the Shannon trust programme was much slower to be reintroduced than English functional skills courses that took place in the education departments. Also in the prisons, we visited systems to assess prisoners reading ability and identify the reading needs and implement solutions to monitor progress were largely absent. Information on the progress that learners were making while learning to read was extremely limited. And this was one of the key areas that we aim to carry out research on. Yet the lack of information recorded about it meant that we couldn't find out how much progress prisoners were making. Consequently, leaders and education managers did not have the necessary information to even begin to address prisoners reading needs. Our second main finding was that education provision was often not organised in a way that supports prisoners to improve their reading. Very few prisoners, except in one of the prisons visited were receiving any form of English education. As few as 2% of the prison population were enrolled on English courses. The pandemic appears to have exacerbated an existing problem about the time prisoners spend on education. Prisoners were generally not able to attend a combination of both work and education. And with work being paid for more, it often encouraged prisoners to work rather than access education. We also saw limited communication between education departments and libraries. And of course, a closer partnership could have been used to align the library offer with the educational programmes and provide further opportunities for prisoners to practice reading for a range of meaningful purposes. For example, through the story book moms and dads initiatives and others The key finding was that the curriculum was not well designed to improve prisoners reading.
The way in which the curriculum was implemented, was not focused on teaching prisoners to read or develop their reading skills. There was also a lack of understanding about the content of the entry level courses for English functional skills. And so education departments, we're not using a reputable structured phonics programme to teach reading. As stated in the subject content for these courses. And field few teaching staff had the subject knowledge and training to know how to teach reading. Course Materials and Resources were often not suitable in teaching adults to read. Teachers made frequent use of text extracts rather than whole books, lessons focused on comprehension, and neglected the basic building blocks necessary for learning to read. This meant there were not enough opportunities to practice and improve reading. And finally, a critical finding, which runs throughout the whole report comes as a result of many of the barriers that I've already stated. And that is that prisoners with the greatest need to improve their reading, generally receive the least support. So we hoped that the publication of this research and the recommendations it makes will bring about significant improvements to the way prisoners gain and improve fundamental reading skills.
SC: Thank you. That's terrific Kirsty. Thank you very much. Can I take some questions or any points or comments? Yes, thank you.
KG: Hi, I'm Kate green Member of Parliament for Stretford and Urmston. I'm also vice chair of the all party group for Penal Reform. And I particularly wanted to, first of all, say how depressed I actually am at this event. And I very rarely come to events like where reports are being published, where I feel quite so much despair. It's absolutely shocking to hear that the most high need prisoners are not receiving professional teaching, that there's no incentive on either prisons or prisoners to participate in education, and that we have people who are literally a captive market for education, and we can't actually deliver it to them. I find it incredible, actually, that we're in this situation. I wanted to ask two questions, if I may, Sally, first of all, given the propensity of short sentences, what can be achieved? I mean, ideally, I would like to see far fewer prisoners in custody on short sentences but exacting we are where we are, what can be achieved with those prisoners? And secondly, could somebody describe to me the screening process that takes place particularly because I know there's a high incidence of, for example, dyslexia, among the prison population. So it would be really useful to understand how prisons first identify the needs. Before we get into all the depressing stuff we've been hearing about meeting it.
KG: The things that we thought might work for short for short sentences, where we saw practice that that was helpful was in terms of engaging prisoners with texts and with books and giving them the opportunities to, to use those those texts and books. We didn't see in the visits that we made an assessment that we have prisoners on entry that we thought would help the teachers to teach reading. And we didn't see continuity between prisons. So we talked to several prisoners, who told us that they were doing a qualification that they had already done, because the information about the assessment hadn't passed on. But more than that, that the assessment was so broad, that it didn't actually identify those specific skills or gaps in knowledge that those prisoners had that could have enabled the teaching to happen. If the assessment was right, I think the teaching could be more focused to those people on very, very short sentences.
CT: I would I think it's worth just saying that the moment many prisoners are assessed by giving, being given a long form to fill out many page long form to fill up in which they tick the boxes. I think it's question number three on that form is, do you find it difficult filling out forms, I sat in HMP Leicester with a pile of these forms in front of me, just going through them, and at least half of them had ticked the box, I find it difficult to fill out forms, they then had to fill out another whatever it was six or seven pages have formed. So if the assessment isn't dynamic enough, then there isn't really an understanding of so it may be that they got dyslexia, it may be that they've never been exposed to literature. or been taught properly in the past? It may be that they've got learning difficulties, it may be that the English isn't their first language, there are a whole bunch of reasons why people may not be able to read. And until you get a proper diagnostic test in place, you just wait no matter what.
Yes, I was gonna say, I think the really important point here is this, this very large slice the prison population has, essentially they've all experienced reading failure, they've virtually all been through primary school, at least, without succeeding in learning to read. So whatever particular sort of learning difficulties you might be able to label with them with, they've all essentially got this huge discouragement and the need for something that is very well structured, systematic takes them into small steps, that minimises of clutter and redundancy that focuses on that on the core job of teaching, reading in the simplest, clearest possible way to maximise the chance of experiencing that feeling of making progress. And getting towards being able to be being able to read well. And that need is fundamentally the same for pretty much every kind of reading difficulty there out there answer 17 different ways to teach men or women to read, depending on exactly what the label is. So concentrating on getting that core quality and having trained training training people to be competent to teach, that is the thing that could make the most difference for the greatest number in the shortest time.
BM: Can I just say we, I mean, within the prison, within many prisons, I'm going to notice somebody here from the Shannon trust, there is a reading programme from the children trust, which is a very, very comprehensive programme that, that you work through the thing. The thing with that is it and it's wonderful, please don't think that I'm saying it's not his again, it's the priority of it. It's a voluntary organisation, it is a charity. And although they do have a seat at the table here and H NPPs. It's not being pushed from the front, from the from the SLP. From the governors, it again falls down in that priority, but in answer to question directly within the shadow trust and the reading programme, even somebody on a short sentence that wants one at the expected is 2020 minutes a day, five days at five, five sessions a week, if they have that they can make really, really good progress.
Ian Merrill, Shannon Trust: Thanks, Sally. Just to build on Bridget's point there. Welcome the report. Thank you for it, I can understand how a lot of the emphasis is going to be on improving mainstream education. But what we wouldn't want to get lost here is the opportunity to scale up peer-led reading programmes that use phonics turning pages as Bridget mentioned, that's my slight concern. The organisation is now ready to scale. I'm sure there are other organisations in the voluntary sector who could do more, it simply requires some pretty modest investment. We know what to do with that investment, we can do a lot more, and we can open the door for a lot more people to mainstream education. It's not either or.
KG: So what's happening is that people tend to say in answer to the question, what do you do for for people to help them reading? Oh, Shannon trust? Yeah. And, and so absolutely agree with everything Ian said about scaling up and all of those things, but you can't. You can't use it as an excuse not to do it properly in the mainstream.
Sam Duncan: Hi, I'm Sam Duncan from UCL Institute of Education. I'm really happy to hear this report, because this has been my experience for 20 years, that those in prison with the greatest needs are the least well served, to questions stroke kind of comments about how can we push this forward. One thing that I think will make a big difference is not to have group teaching in prisons, which combine entry one, entry two and entry three, this spans a massive range of reading need. Entry. One is where people are really learning to decode to understand the sound symbol relationships, it has the greatest stigma, entry, three people are really brushing up more or less, they have those decoding skills. They're developing fluency, particularly in male prisons, where there's so much violence and prisoners feel so vulnerable, perhaps also female prisons. Having those two groups together mean those with the greatest need, who need to learn the decoding, will not speak up in group sessions, and will hide or act up will get banned from sessions, and they won't, that won't work. So I know it's more expensive dividing them. But if there's any way we can push for that, and I'd be happy to be part of that, I think that's one thing. The second exactly as you've said, there's an issue with the teacher education of people who are teaching and we work on teacher education programmes. It's very difficult. It's difficult to fund having good CPD is very difficult to find, but in my experience, what's been happening over the last 15 years is good adult literacy teachers haven't been able to make a living doing their job. The pay and conditions have meant that they've had to leave the profession. So expertise is lost expertise is haemorrhaged every year. And therefore, the really important thing, as a colleague said before about assessment, you know, knowing how to really assess a need, that takes a lot of expertise. And if if there's not the pay and conditions to allow teachers to build careers as adult literacy specialists to maintain those careers, it's really it's a losing battle. So I know those are very hard things, but those are the two key things I would recommend we really focus on because I think this report is spot on.
Matt Hancock: Thank you, Matt Hancock, I'm going to admit something at the start. I was in DFE for two years as the Minister responsible for prison education just before your report came through. And I'm not often shocked anymore. But I've been really shocked by this report today, because absolutely nothing has changed for the better. If you read this report compared to then, and that was eight to 10 years ago. And I know from that experience, that the fact that the responsibility sits both between MOJ and DFE makes it hard to provide leadership right at the top. And so it's wonderful that Ofsted and HMIP have come together because it needs both of you and then both departments to make change happen. I come to this because I've got a campaign for better support for those who are dyslexic, but really ultimately, that's about literacy. So my question is what can we do in terms of actions implementing your report Sally will be a good start, but in particular, in the accountability space, because it seems to me that all of the suggestions that have been put together will only be unlocked if prison governors feel they've got skin in the game and even something as simple as that their rating is determined by the proportion of prisoners who leave their prison illiterate for instance would then have knock on consequences throughout the the system. There is no magic bullet of course, there's a huge number of things the data issue in my local prison, absolutely furious that they never get the data so when they do assessments, the prisoners the first thing that every single prisoner says is I've already done an assessment is Why do I have to bloody well redo it? And that's they blame GDPR I mean, I bought through GDPR it did not stop that. And that can be fixed. So, but my point of that going into that is to say there are huge numbers of small things that need to be fixed. But getting the accountability right surely will help to start or other big things that we should be calling for as well.
AS: We are part of the system of prisons, prison inspections, we inspect, and it's educationist with within purposeful activity, part of prison inspection where the findings are consistently until overwhelmingly very, very poor through the entire prison system there in not many prisons that get that get a good on that category. And this has been the case for a long time. And yet, it doesn't seem to exert the pressure that you would that you would expect it to given its value.
CT: Absolutely, I think it's a frustration of anybody who's occupied this chair, is going back to prisons, the same prisons again and again. And writing what is often a very similar report when it comes to the concerns that we flag and it's 40 years on since it was first started in its current form. And I dug out the original chief inspectors report. And the second paragraph of it begins by saying there are too many prisoners locked up in their cells for too long with nothing meaningful to do. So to some extent. Some of the frustrations back then have not changed in any way. And and it is as Matt says that prioritisation of of prisons, the prioritisation of reading in prisons. And the fact is, it's it's not that hard to teach people to read, actually, there are some people who find it more difficult than others. But actually, we know how to teach people to read, we can make progress here. You know, this isn't rocket science, it isn't some unbelievably difficult process. Actually, we do know how to teach people to read, and people can make progress. And, you know, I was really struck by I met a guy in Belmarsh, who, who had just started within three days, it started a 30 year sentence. And he had one thing he had a book that his lawyer had given him. And it was Wild Swans that people may remember by Jung Chang, but it came out, he'd read it three times. And the only way that he was going to get through that sentence was by finding some meaning elsewhere. And being able to think or talk about the cultural revolution, actually was giving him an opportunity to think differently about himself and about the world he was in and make some sense of what he was going to go through for the next 30 years. But if it's not a priority, if it's not something that that governors that presents the prison service focus on, if there is a sense that you can simply oversee Prison Education, with a few giant contracts, and then all you need to do in order to improve things is just turn the dial a little bit on a contract, a fantasy that if we just get the contracts, right, we'll solve the problems with prison education, instead of understanding that actually, it's about the context of individual prisons, it's about having brilliant people like Bridget, who are in prisons and making things work. But actually, as Bridget says, Manchester is extremely lucky having her and she does an amazing job. But if you don't have a Bridget and you don't have a prison who buys in, then progress just isn't made.
AS: How many more reports and how many more such pieces of research is it going to take to to make the changes? And we've talked a lot about accountability? And when is that actually going to happen? And when are we going to get really impatient, which it feels that we are in this room, and it feels that the people in this room could make the real difference? And have all the know how we have all the know how we also know what we should do and what we ought to be doing? Should we not really push for the doing on it now and and that really feels quite urgent to me. I want to express a small note of optimism here. And you're absolutely right. But I think one of the things that has changed in the last 20 years is I think our national understanding of how best to teach reading and especially what's most effective for the children who will have the greatest difficulty learning to read has come on in leaps and bonds. And I think the extent to which that is accepted and being built into every primary school in the country. The current incarnation of inspection does that so much better than any previous incarnation. So I think the preventive piece is getting a great deal better, I think we'll see fewer children with these difficulties. And it will be very interesting to see sort of to what extent that flows through into sort of behaviour later in people's school careers. Not all the things that make young people come off the rails. There are there are many young people being taught in it not not just in youth institutions, but in alternative provision in SEND schools as well as mainstream schools. Getting this understanding could really help sort of shift practice and rebalance attention. But we need to make sure that prisons don't stay walled off. From from from, from these these developments, these shifts,
CT: I was shocked by some of the stuff we saw going on, the incentives are in the wrong place. The incentives for governors are in the wrong place the incentive to lock unlock prisoners in order, they can get involved in mentoring schemes, the incentives to focus on the importance and progress and educational progress that the prisoners make is in the wrong place. The incentives on providers are in the wrong place. They're focused in on qualifications, as opposed to people actually making progress wherever they are. So there continues to be a big tranche of prisoners who don't get any access to teaching at all. And the incentive for prisoners is in the wrong place, as well as, as Kelly, so eloquently put it, where you're better off, you're better off, and you get better paid, walking around the prison with a wet rag, wiping down sell doors. And there is a greater incentive to do that. Because you get enough money to get through the basics, then there is of going into education, and learning to read. And that, to me is a hugely wasted opportunity. But also the way that assessment works, the assessment isn't thorough enough, it doesn't give a good enough description and understanding of the issues of prisoners, but also the fact that the information doesn't get out. So the fact that the sharing of information between different prisons doesn't happen, and the frustration again and again, that I get from talking to prisoners, who tell me that they've done these tests before they've done this qualification before elsewhere. And yet, they're being asked to go through and do the qualification, again, in a different prison. It costs 45,000 pounds to keep someone in prison for a year, on average. It does seem extraordinary that that that huge cost to the taxpayer, that if someone comes in, unable to read, that they go out, unable to read. So I hope the government takes us seriously. I hope the we can build some impetus and some momentum here, in order that we can begin to really make a difference for that group of prisoners who could do so much better who could get so much more out of the time that they spent in prison.
Hosts, Chris Jones and Anna Trethewey talk about schools exclusions and alternative provision. Anna talk to Ofsted's Anna Heavey about what Ofsted looks for on inspection. Chris talks to Danny Coyle from the Newman Catholic College and Anna Cain from the boxing Academy about complexity around exclusions and keeping children in school.
Transcript
AT: Anna Trethewey
CJ: Chris Jones
AH: Anne Heavey
AC: Anna Cain
DC: Danny Coyle
AT: Hello and welcome to this episode of Ofsted Talks. Today we're going to be talking about exclusions and alternative provision.
CP: Yes, Anna – we are. A challenging topic. We are exclusions are really difficult for schools and no headaches excluding likely are but unfortunately sometimes they are unavoidable. So this podcast is going to explore how we can ensure that when exclusions are necessary that children are being excluded are supported in the best way possible and have access to the best alternative provision to help them get back on track.
AT: Yeah, it's massively important. So first up, I talked to Anne Heavey from an Ofsted policy team. And we had a really interesting discussion about what we look for around exclusions and alternative provision on inspection.
CJ: And then I took part in a fascinating discussion with Danny Coyle, from the Newman Catholic College and Anna came from the Boxing Academy, which is an alternative provision and we discussed the effect exclusion can have on children and some ways to reduce it.
AT: Brilliant. Okay, first let's have a listen to and talk about exclusions and inspection.
AT: It's lovely to have you along. I wanted so for listeners out there. This is Anne Heavey from Ofsted. Can you just talk a little bit about who you are
and what your role is pleased?
AH: I am Anne Heavy. I'm a member of the school's early education policy team. So I help the organisation think about how we're inspecting schools the methods that we use and the what we're hoping to achieve as we're doing that through handbooks, our guidance and our inspector training.
AT: Cool. Okay, great. So that means that you are very well placed but my first question What does Ofsted look at when considering exclusion levels on inspection?
AH: So there are a few bits of information that we will have about the school, which I'll go through and I'll also talk about what we actually lay out in our handbook about what we look at. So to begin with, our inspectors will have access to information about suspensions and exclusions. Historically, that have taken place in the school. And they will pull out quite interesting information. So they'll look at the number that have taken place, and also the reasons that have been recorded for both suspensions and exclusions. And they won't be making any judgments at that point about whether or not that exclusion should have happened or kind of this is automatically terrible or brilliant, but it will help set the tone. And one thing that I would just like to draw attention to is we do see no specific reason or not specified often listed as why an exclusion happened and it is likely that the inspectors will want to find out a little bit more about what's underneath those suspensions and exclusions because if we're not sure why they happened, how can we learn from them and reflect on maybe how we refine our processes and provision? We will also right at the start of the inspection The inspector will ask the school to provide records of their exclusions and a few other things like use of internal exclusion arrangements. So we'll be looking in the round. How behaviour and attitudes are managed as part of that behaviour and attitudes judgement. One thing I would really like to flag is that we're very clear in the handbook that we don't think excursions in and of themselves are a bad thing. Headteachers do have the power to exclude if it is in the best interests of their school community. However, what we will be guided by when we're considering the schools use of exclusions and suspensions is whether that was a last resort, and what is the culture and the actions within the school that help everybody to achieve really well and access a safe environment. We certainly won't look at a school and think there are no exclusions that must be great automatically or there are lots of exclusions that must be bad. We want to know why what's going on and have that rich discussion.
AT: So my next question is, you know slightly philosophical you touched on it already, but is exclusion a necessary part of school life?
AH: That's a really good question. I think it's important that we remember that it's a legitimate action to take in some circumstances. So is it a necessary tool in the toolbox for a headteacher to run a safe and productive school? Yes. However, is it something that we think headteachers relish? No, I think we can recognise that it's a difficult process for everybody involved there as we know lots of consequences and implications. And it's, it's yeah, it's difficult. So we know headteachers will be making difficult decisions to manage the balance between maintaining that school environment maintaining a safe and productive situation for everyone and also the best interest of that child. So it's a necessary tool, but it's one that should be used very, very carefully. And with a lot of consideration.
AT: Thanks Anne. That was really helpful. I'm going to move on to alternative provision now. So if you could just lay out for me, what is alternative provision, we often just go to straight to AP, don't we? So what is alternative provision?
AH: Well, thanks. Nice, easy question.
AT: I thought you'd appreciate that.
AH: I think I'll start by just highlighting that it's a really diverse sector. And I'll wimp out of immediately answering your question and say that AP really exists to support those children who for whatever reason, ordinary mainstream education isn't working, what isn't the right thing at that time. So the cohort of pupils that access AP is very diverse. And, you know, we've just been speaking about exclusions and I think it's very important that we recognise that yes, it is a primary destination for many children that are excluded. But AP settings also work with children who may be out of school for medical reasons that may have experienced bullying, and have other reasons to not be engaged with mainstream education. So it's an incredibly diverse sector. And to attempt the you know, what is alternative provision question? It's it is that it's the alternative that is necessary in the moment to support a young person or a child to make progress and to learn, hopefully to reengage with mainstream education, but certainly to secure a meaningful next step or destination. So I hope that answers your question, but it’s a good one to start with.
AT: I think the difficulty in pinning it down is sometimes you know, you come at this question, sometimes with more questions, actually. I think it's certainly understandable. I'm going to ask another broad question for you, but one that it'd be helpful to get an understanding of, what kind of standards do we see in alternative provision.
AH: So for listeners that have already read our annual report,
AT: Thank you the geeks of you're out there.
AH: Well, there's a really helpful table within the school section, which compares the inspection outcomes of different types of school. So for those providers that are registered, and that we inspect, we can see that a lot of them are good or outstanding. Actually, if we're being frank, it's a really strong part of the sector in terms of inspection outcomes. So we can see there are a lot of providers out there that are delivering really high quality provision. I'm now going to caveat some of that. We're gonna talk about registered provision, I think at the moment and some of the concerns that we have about providers that aren't registered, but as I said earlier on the cohort that access AP are extremely diverse. And have got a lot of complex circumstances in their life. So you could have a really strong provider, that isn't the best place for a specific an individual child. So our concern is as much about the quality of the provider and the quality of education, the state that the status and training of staff and, and their contextual safeguarding knowledge, as it is those that commission the place for the child, whether it's a school or a local authority, how well does that Commissioner understand the specific needs of that child? And have they thought this is this the best possible provision to secure the best possible progress and put in that necessary support for this child, or crudely is this just what's available? And so that's a concern. I have another concern which I'd like to share, which is the use of part time provision. And as you all know, the education inspection framework is underpinned by our concept of a really coherent, high quality curriculum. How can we be sure if a child is receiving a patchwork of provision with some time spent with one provider some time spent with another and maybe they're at school as well, that that adds up to a meaningful and coherent whole and that someone is holding the reins of that provision and sure that it adds up to something that is genuinely worthwhile in every moment for that young person. And let's be honest, this isn't an issue for the AP provider necessarily, this could be an issue for the commissioning school. We do see cases when we're on inspection, where the child has been sent to the nearest convenient space, which could be great, but isn't the great thing for that pupil. So that's, a concern.
AT: So I was going to ask you, what can be improved about this revision? I guess? You've already touched on some of the kind of commissioning arrangements there. Are there any broader messages or you know, specific things providers? That are listening? Any comments on that please?
AH: I think one of the things we're really interested in is how that next step is secured. So it's it's tricky as next one. We're on inspection. We're looking at the provision that's available for children that are there in that moment right now. And really what is so crucial is that that AP empowers and secures a fantastic next step. And that could be to a special school back to mainstream to a different AP to post 16 provider. The destinations are as diverse as the cohorts. Yeah, but it's a big ask on providers, and I think we should be really honest about just how big this task is to understand every pupils needs put in, place that bespoke package and then secure that next step for them. That's a lot to ask. But we are worried about destination breakdown. And what happens particularly at post 16, where the, you know, the statutory role of AP just doesn't exist. And if you think it's a bit of a cliff edge, you know, you've had a lot of support. We know a lot of providers really build around their child. And then if you've had that at the end of your key stage four, and it's not there isn't a bridge into what comes next. You could fall over and who is going to catch you and who is going to make sure you have you know, the progress that has been made at that setting is carried on to that next step. So that's something we would really like to work on. And that's not just providers, that's everyone involved in that destination. And then the other thing we're really are concerned about is the use and our kind of sector knowledge of unregistered providers.
AT: Yeah, I was going to ask for this. So for people listening out there who don't really know what I mean by registered and unregistered, can you just give us a brief definition of that and then talk through some of the concerns we've got.
AH: So a registered provider is one that is known to the Department for Education and that we can inspect so we know quite a bit about registered providers and we will continue to inspect and understand what's going on in those providers. And as I said, the inspection outcomes for registered providers are pretty, pretty strong. Unregistered providers are just that. So they're not necessarily providing while they're not providing a full time operation and frankly we just can't be sure about the quality of suitability and safety of the provision on offer. Now, I don't want to sit here and just do down everyone that's involved in the sector. That's not my aim. Because we know as I said, right at the start, this is a really diverse sector. There are lots of providers out there who are employers who are, you know, community service providers that are providing a really bespoke, really unique offer to that child. And again, I said earlier, we've got to make sure the provision is the thing that child needs. So we need to find a way that doesn't drive great providers out of the system who are providing that great service, but it is it is not okay. And we are worried about the fact that some of our most vulnerable children are being sent to settings that we cannot be confident or safe. And that is a very low bar. And it must be reasonable to expect us to make those checks about the suitability and safety of those providers. And we will hold to account in our provider inspections, those that aren't properly checking out the providers that they're commissioning, so when we inspect a school we will always ask are you commissioning AP for any of your pupils and we will look into that and we will we will be very concerned if we find out this suitability checks haven't been taken out. But yeah, repeating that question, is it okay that some of our most vulnerable children are being sent to settings that we know almost nothing about?
AT: Thank you. That's a really helpful question, I think to pose and finish with. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.
CJ: That was really interesting, Anna. I think the points made around registering AP at the end are really important. It's a low bar, isn't it ensuring that all children are in safe and supportive environments but we're not even there yet.
AT: Yeah, yeah, you're right. It is. So your next guest specialise in a supportive environment. That's right, isn't it? Right? Yeah, they do. So let's have a listen.
CJ: I am very pleased to be joined today on the podcast by Anna Cain, who's Principal of the Boxing Academy, Danny Coyle, who's Head at the Newman Catholic College and both of them have some fantastic insights to give us on this whole issue of exclusions, alternative provision and the issues around them and ask them to introduce themselves and say a few things about their work as a starting point. So tell us a bit about yourself and about the Boxing Academy.
AC: Hi Chris. So the Boxing Academy is even in the field of alternative provision quite alternative we’re the only school in the country with boxing on the curriculum and inspected by Ofsted, I'll have you know. Boxing is it's the values and ethos of the school so we're providing an alternative education rigorous and ambitious and aspirational but using the ethos or fear of a boxing gym to create something different. So that's the alternative part but actually it's quite traditional school as well.
CJ: Brilliant more broke Come on, Danny oversee you tell us a bit about your school.
DC: Okay, thanks very much for this Yeah. Danny Coyle that teaches you in college here in in houses in northwest London. A boys school year seven up to 11 with a with a mixed sixth form. I think what characterises this school most is this deep commitment to show an inclusive ethos as hopefully will become a part of our joy the cause of this podcast. We fundamentally really no child should ever be good enough. And therefore everything follows from that, you know, the bigger the curriculum, the belief in second and third and fourth chances that high quality relationships.
CJ: Brilliant. So we're gonna talk about that exclusions and about alternative provision. But Danny, why don't we start with as you said, inclusion. What does What does inclusion mean? Mean to you, Danny and how do you how do you support that?
DC: We could spend the entire podcasts talking about? You know, in recent years, I've started looking at it from a wider societal perspective, actually, you know, in my younger years as headship and being involved in the pastoral system in schools, it was very much looking at the four walls of the school, and now come from it from I want an inclusive society. And therefore, as a headteacher, you know, we do have a power we do have authority to try to put our vision into practice. And so my belief and aspiration for more inclusive society can be lived, for example, you know, we ensure that the curriculum meets everybody's needs. Talk about this later, but for far too many years in this country, you know, schools have curtailed the curriculum, so it's exceptionally narrow a huge focus on the academic big three or four. Which means those children who could flourish in art or drama or sport and off certainly don't get their talents. Don't get opportunity to have their talents. maximised.
CJ: Yeah, good stuff done. And how about you, Anna? Obviously your school you're dealing with children often been excluded in a variety of senses of the word. So how, what does what does inclusion mean to you?
AC: Well, in our school inclusion? We try not to use the word actually, because we know we're alternative provision and many of the young people who come to us they've had inclusion done to them and it's not a word that they're comfortable with. So, you know, internal inclusion can quite often be quite a terrifying sentence to say to a young person. Slightly broader - I couldn't agree with Danny more actually, this could be a boring podcast that this way because they were in danger of agreeing on lots. But you know, we are, I've always looked at this is that society benefits if these young people are able to become successful adults, that is, to me the point of education, not GCSE or a certain type of academic learning. Schools are here so that we help young people become successful adults. What inclusion means in terms of daily practice is we're really not keen on excluding kids, not even for a couple of days. I think maybe every year there's one or two fixed term exclusions and they will only happen because a spaces needed to put something else in place. I've only ever excluded one child permanently from the Boxing Academy. It was because I was simply left with no other avenue. I can't tell you that we do this, this this and this because every year is different. Every child is different and we are constantly reviewing and trying to be as flexible as we can to meet their needs. But the bottom line is, they all deserve to be successful and they all deserve to go on and be successful adults.
CJ: That's really that's really interesting that you've to do extremely low numbers of fixed term and just one exclusion in your time there and how do you how do you manage that? Because presumably there is there is bad behaviour there are serious incidents.
AC: plenty Yeah.
CJ: so. So what's your what's your response to that?
AC: So just to be clear, the Boxing Academy is like I say, there is no typical AP anyway, and we're even more untypical. We do specialise in taking referrals of young people that are absolutely not able to get a place anywhere else. And it's usually because they have some sort of record of aggressive and violent or threatening behaviour. What we do is we sort of de stigmatise the whole thing around violence. So the first few years at the Boxing Academy and I've been in a really long time now. We spent an awful lot of time arguing and trying to convince people that boxing doesn't make people violent. And so quite often we find that, you know, the young people who come to us have been through a lot of different negative experiences, but they've learned they're usually quite smart. They've learned if you behave in a certain way to threaten someone or if you flip a table or whatever it is that they're going to do. You get yourself removed from the situation that you're not very happy about. And there could be lots of reasons for that. But this is a tactic. When they come to the Boxing Academy. They'll say, Well, you know, might have a frank and full discussion with a member of staff which involves say, Well, if you do that, I'm going to punch you in your face. At which point the staff member will go, oh, hang on a minute. If you want to do that we have to go and spa so you don't have to have a medical we'll get the gloves and we'll do it properly. And at which point, we usually find that the young people are really astonished that that threat doesn't just immediately revolve resulting in exclusion It might sound a bit odd, but once you remove that sort of power, if you like, it's a sort of a weird sort of power that children held by throwing their weight around. And we're like, everyone who was a boxer, we love fighting, but we do it properly. So if that's really is that really what you wanted out of this, they almost always don't really want to have a fight or some sort of altercation. A lot of it will be to do with it de-escalation we do a huge amount of work around trauma and attachment problems. You know, it's very easy to see where these children have got these, you know, have developed these behaviour problems from and it actually takes a remarkably small amount of patience and listening to get them to a point where they don't feel like they need to do things that cause them to get excluded.
CJ: Fascinating. Not every school has a boxing ring. The ability to do that. Danny. Your school is much more conventional, but what has Anna said, either resonates or doesn't with with you in terms of how you deal with that that type of behaviour.
DC: Well no, we haven't permanently excluded a child since 2017. There have been many occasions when that would have been the easiest thing to do. And we have a wide raft of interventions and sometimes it doesn't work and you have to try something else. But that was a conscious decision to be in a situation where children don't get permits to live in their school. Because I worked in schools before where you know, it's a weekly it's a weekly events. Yes we do fix over solutions. I did one this week for racial abuse. Not great, but it'll be better. It'll be better next week when the person comes back. The most common reason why young people get permit excluded is for constant defiance, consistent defiance, begging for schools on a regular basis. So constant defiance means that it isn't working for the school. It isn't working for the young person. But let's try something different. That's all we're doing here and like Anna as well we've done tonnes of stuff on adverse childhood childhood experiences here and the impact of trauma and also how many, many children with autism for example, just see the world differently than we do, so again, it's not a subdivision, really. To start up with division and keeping children in school is a good thing.
AC: I just wanted to agree with you that thing you said about no permanent exclusions. Its choice. I'll be honest with you. There are times when everyone's got their head in their hands. We've had young people placed with you can go eight, nine months down the road and everybody's like, nothing is working. This kid is such hard work. They aren't responding. At which point we saw, you know, there's a lot of teamwork and collaboration and support, but we like to remember that one to remember that one. That one took 14 months, and then suddenly one day to the next different child. It's if you make the choice not to exclude and to be inclusive like this, then it forces you to find a way to make it work. And I know a few schools like Danny's, but actually not very many that just say it doesn't matter what happens. We are not going to do permanent exclusions. And at that point, there's a different scenario.
CJ: Thanks Anna. Of course it’s really important not just to think about the child who is potentially being excluded but head teachers across the country are weighing up really difficult decisions about the impact that some of this poor behaviour is having on the rest of the school, the rest of the class. And sometimes headteachers are having to make really difficult decisions to exclude because that is not just in the best interest of the pupil under discussion but is in the nest interests of the school community and the best in of their classmates who are trying to go about their education and get as much as they can out of their schooling as well so really difficult decisions. Danny, I’ll come to you next, what do you think about this really difficult balance about trying to keep children in class as much as possible but also respecting the authority of the teacher and making sure that those classmates don’t lose out.
DC: I think we need to see things slightly different. I'm not saying we abdicate responsibility, I believe in authority. I believe in teaching that you know the powerful knowledge that we talked about at the school. We have authority of teachers because we know stuff, and that children don't now believe in strong classroom control and teaching on corridors and all that sort of stuff. No, we just walked in from the playground 800 children and they line up, their not silent, but they line up and go to class. So you have to run a good school authority and the most essential because at the same time when children make an infraction it's not the end of the world. But can I just go back Chris because the curriculum we can't forget the importance of that. You know, I think schools, good schools, outstanding schools, whatever that means, and now getting more opportunities to think about a broad wide range of curriculum where you get to do a bit of drama and sport and PE during the course and but we get boxing we don't do it as you know as a CT we do as an after school. activity. The whole thing about high quality teaching, having really knowledgeable, committed caring teachers in school is the start of everything. You know, the curriculum foundations in place, their visions in place, a high quality teaching in place, or in our school, and I've learned this more and more now. Over the years is the importance of literacy. You know, if you consider that 50% of prisoners in UK jails are functionally illiterate, you know, so in other words, they've got a reading those below the age of 11. If we could rectify and improve that, that that literacy level, arguably, we could improve the number of people getting kicked out of school and then men end up in jail. You know, we often say the limits of my language are the limits of my world, which is Wittgenstein obviously, but the fundamentals of running a school, the fundamentals of running the Boxing Academy. are based upon real high quality teaching, a fabulous curriculum, and a huge focus on literacy.
AC: It's amazing how many young people come to us and we obviously we get some details on what the schools think their levels are and their abilities. And actually they can't read properly. And what they've done is developed a way to get out of being found out for that over the years. It's not always the case, but it's often part of it.
CJ: I agree. We can't, we can't overstate the importance of being taught to read and being taught to me as early as possible. And we've actually we discussed that on a on the podcast we did about prison education we discussed as Danny says, so many prisoners are functionally illiterate. And you know what part did that play and actually, them ending up where they are? And what does what does success for the children in your school look like then? Anna? What are you What are you aiming for
them?
AC: So obviously, we were offering a reduced but totally you know, tailored curriculum a GCSE is enough to get them into college or into whatever they want to do. And the reason it's a reduced number is simply because all of them have got enormous gaps in learning. So there's a huge amount we strongly believe in all of our success in terms of careers and outcomes has back this up, it's better to get five decent grades at the best that you can, but to be sort of getting 10 very, very low grades that won't get you anywhere. So that's just the academic side. The truth is that really what we're doing is we're offering them a chance to turn it all around, turn their experience in education into a positive one. I think that a large number of young people who come to us genuinely do not understand the point of education. I think they probably think that education is an elaborate punishment and so we spend a huge amount of our time bringing them to a point where they understand the point of education, they understand how to be successful in it, and they have aspiration and ambition for the future.
CJ: Yeah. And for those differs young people that come to you as a result of having been excluded from a mainstream school. And you're able to turn them around, you're able to get them to college, able to do to make them see the value of education. Do you think does that then prove that the kind of the exclusion was the right thing to do in the first place? Are you happier they're with you then then they're mainstream school.
AC: That's a really interesting one because somebody had we had an argument about that the other day. I think, I mean, a lot of the young people who come to us are not permanently excluded. They are on a duel registration referral. And I really admire mainstream schools that make decisions like that which because it is in the best interest of the child. I don't know. Some people may not realise but the process of being excluded a uniquely damaging and distressing period. It's a long period. I would really like to see that not being part of this, this landscape. But unfortunately, it is. We have a lot of young people who come to us on that duel placement, but for the ones who have been excluded. I do understand that sometimes schools don't have a choice. In some cases, it has triggered intervention support from agencies that would never have been able to pick up the problems for this child or the child's family sometimes. So there are occasions on which exclusion was the right thing to do. I do believe that not mainstream is never going to be for everybody. And I would like to see the language around using alternative provision, far less. It's talked about in some schools like a flip a punishment. If you don't behave you're going to get sent to somewhere that will sort you out or often. The referral is the right thing for the young person, but it hasn't been presented to them or their family as a positive step. And I don't believe that needs to be the case because actually, it usually proves that they've been moved to us and that they were are in the right place.
CJ: I know what us to hear from a pupil called Sam, she is at university, but she was excluded in her GCSE year and finished time at school as an alternative provider before going to college. So let's have a listen to her experience.
AT: Can you talk a little bit about what happened to you?
Sam: Secondary School I was pretty good for a few years and then all of a sudden around. I say year nine year term my behaviour kind of like declined due to like my own mental health and like issues I had at home. And I did reach out like many times throughout the whole time I was in secondary to my school, and it was always kind of said that help would be put in place and I kind of never was. So then every time I got like excluded for something minor, it's all kind of built up. And then eventually, there was like, quite big incident, a couple of big incident and so sort of in the beginning of Year 11, but that basically kind of rather than kind of helping me, they just sort of sent me to a pupil referral unit for the rest of my school time. But it's I feel like a lot of that could have been prevented if I had the intervention earlier because it wasn't like there weren't aware of things that I had going on. So yeah, that sort of thing.
AT: What was the process of being excluded? Like, did you have a meeting with your head teacher or were your parents involved?
Sam: Yeah. So like after, wherever it happened, I was on exclusion while they decided what to do. And then the decision was made to put me in a pupil referral unit. I didn't really get a lot of help to because obviously, I was taking a lot of GCSE is and most of that wasn't taught and pupil referral units didn't really get any sort of much at all help for my school and how to revise and stuff like that. Like I was kind of just kind of left, hung out to dry a bit I felt
AT: When you were excluded is how did that make you feel?
Sam: It was quite a rejecting sort of feeling because it was I'd been I had been trying to get help for quite a while. So it's kind of like, Yeah, it did. It did definitely. There was it was definitely a feeling of rejection kind of thing. And it felt like but you can't deal with me if that makes sense as I didn't want to deal with me. It just Yeah, didn't feel very nice.
AT: Is there anything in the process that you would have liked to have happen differently?
Sam: I guess just a little bit more support as well. Especially because just kind of thrown into like a pupil referral unit with you know, obviously kids that were like, significantly worse than me. I didn't like I never had any sort of like, violence or anything. You know, I mean, so to be lumped in with kind of kids who did have those sorts of things was obviously it kind of felt like just being pushed aside and like, not able to be amazed and it definitely made me feel a bit lost. So I think it's an extra support would have been would have been a lot better.
AT: Can you tell me a little bit about what your pre was like? Were they helpful? How did they support you?
Sam: Yeah, okay, obviously, it's quite, quite daunting environment and obviously the quality of teaching there isn't isn't great at all, which obviously isn't the fault of the Pru because they have so many kids. There are so many different levels, kids that are in school for quite a while. And the teachers tended to be quite supportive, but there was just more so you know, they'd like to tell the teachers they're doing everything they can with extremely limited funding and limited resources. Like it felt a little bit prison like at times, but like the teachers there obviously there's nothing they can do about it. So I found that to be quite supportive or feels quite daunting and kind of sort of scary at times.
AT: So you took a GCSE as well. Did you go on to further education college?
Sam: Yeah, once I got my results, I wasn't really sure what we're gonna do. Then once I got my results, I actually managed to kind of get a bit lucky I did quite well. So I did end up going on server education, but I'm sort of like most kids, pretty much every kid I went to PRU with didn’t end up doing that. So that kind of just shows that there's not really that much support and pay for these kids. It's kind of like you're just cast aside and then you can't really get back into the mainstream.
AT: You’re at university now?
Sam: Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, but yeah, I do count myself quite lucky in comparison to a lot of my peers in that sense.
AT: Thank you so much for chatting to us
CJ: Danny Sam was talking about the fact that she felt her exclusion could have been prevented. Sounds like that something that you're familiar with?
DC: Yeah. As I've said a few times now, you know, you got to get in school teaching is one of those jobs where things can change very, very, very quickly. So you're going to get incidents from time to time. I would I would never say the headteacher shouldn't have the right to purposely because you know, sometimes things can happen which are exceptionally serious, you know, we are part of society. And we reflect that. Well, as I keep saying By and large, young people are permanently excluded this is the constant infractions of school rules.
CJ: And she said that the excluded gave her a strong sense of rejection. Do you find that children who come to you have that?
AC: Yes. And well I mean, I mentioned briefly earlier about the actual process we reenforcing that way to stun even young people who've been sent to us on a on a dual registration placement so they haven't been excluded in the school is still responsible for them and still has contact with them. They often feel rejected and I'm not surprised she found rejected I thought both way she talked about the PRU was really sad because she was saying you know the quality of teaching is not great, but that's not their fault. And I'm thinking I don't agree with that. I'm sorry. It's just awful that even the child I mean, I know there will be lots of people who mean well in certain places, but for the child to pick up that the quality of teaching is not very good and to make excuses for the play. I think that's heart-breaking. I think it's a really good indicator of what's wrong with how we do this in this country. It just should be alternatives, and they shouldn't be second choices or second best.
CJ: Yeah,
AC: AP genuinely isn't rigorous enough. And we don't even know what how many Opie's there are in this country. There's no proper definition of it. Nobody can agree on how it's supposed to work. The funding is extremely patchy. And some of its full, you know, the variation in quality and is it's actually quite extraordinary that we are in this situation I don't know about you are probably Ofsted, I know Ofsted feels a way it's an absolute dog's dinner. But what that means is that the really vulnerable children that nobody cares about, never get and you know, I just think that there needs to be I'd like to see alternative provision, not a second choice or the dumping ground. So the young people we have seriously a lot of them if they haven't been able to turn stuff around at the Boxing Academy and by the way, I'm not pretending they come out perfect, but what we can do is effect that that ignition of that change now that inspiration that understanding how to go about improve things and getting things right. If they hadn't come to us they would have ended up causing society a massive amount of distress and actually money, but I don't see any real drive to try and make it more systematically more even handed and fairer. So yeah, I think that just broadly that is something that we really need to get right.
CJ: Yeah, couldn't agree more and we don't even see we don't have something as basic as registration for all alternative provision you know will be providing pretty serious amounts of education in an alternative setting and not even have to kind of register or be accountable to any to anyone or these are some of the most vulnerable children we have. Yeah, I think Ofsted is called for a long time. For for all alternative provision to be registered and that's such a low bar to go for as net if we can't even do that.
AC: Yeah, I do think it's really good to be shining a light on this we need to stick keep talking about it. What happens is reviews get published and proposals get published or some, you know, think tank does a report and nothing changes. You're still dependent on the right people in the right school on the right day to intervene and try and save a child for whom education isn't working. And it simply should not be left to chance like that. So yeah, I'm just glad that we're still talking about it.
AT: That was really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. But they obviously do a range of things to meet their needs at the school community. It's great.
CJ: Yeah, and I'm really pleased that we've been able to do this podcast and have this discussion. Conversations around exclusions often heated and polarised and it's important to get the views of some people who have been through that process, but also some people who trying to manage it the best they can.
AT: And I think in any debate as ever, it's always important to think about, well, what are the things that we can agree on? It's really important that alternative provision is the best it can be. Everybody wants that to be the case. And it's been good to hear a range of different views and opinions in this piece.
CJ: So thanks, everyone who took part in this podcast and thanks to you, and thanks to everyone who listened. See you next time.
A recording of the live panel discussion that took place at Ofsted's Annual Report launch on Tuesday 7 December 2021. The panel discussion the issues facing education, children's services and skill over the last year, and look forward to the future.
Transcript
AT – Anna Trethewey
CJ- Chris Jones
AS – Amanda Spielman
JC – Jenny Coles
HB – Hardip Begol
YS – Yvette Stanley
CR – Chris Russell
AT- Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. On Tuesday, the seventh of December, we launched our Annual Report on Education, Children's Services and Skills. Following the publication of the report, we had a panel discussion in front of a live audience to discuss some of the issues over the last year. Obviously, as this was recorded at the beginning of December, the discussion reflects COVID as it was then we've moved on quite a bit since before Christmas, but I hope you enjoyed the discussion or the same. So listen away.
CJ - Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the launch of this year's Ofsted Annual Report. My name is Chris Jones. I'm Ofsted’s Director of Strategy. We've assembled this distinguished panel of guests that you can see at the front and I've just introduce them before we hear from them. Firstly, Jenny Coles, who was until recently was the Director of Children's and Services in Hertfordshire, is a former president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services and is currently Chair of the What Works Centre for Social Care. Thank you for being with us, Jenny. Next to her is Hardip Begol, who is the Chief Executive of Woodard Academies Trust is also a non-Executive Director at the Centre for Education and Youth and a former senior civil servant in the Department of Education. Welcome Hardip. And from Ofsted, we have Yvette Stanley who is our National Director for Social Care and Early Years Regulation. And Chris Russell, who is our National Director for Education. Before I asked them for their reflections on the past year, I'm going to ask Her Majesty's Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman, just to give us some opening remarks. So over to you, Amanda.
AS - Thank you very much, Chris, and welcome, everybody. As Chris said, I'm not going to do a full on speech, you've had a chance to look at the report and read the commentary. We wanted to bring together this group of interested and interesting people, including all of you to talk about the report and the issues it raises. So just to be very brief to begin with, it has been an extraordinarily difficult year, in many ways, and for many different groups of people. But I do think that we've asked an extraordinary amount from the youngest people in our society. For much of last year, they had usually experiences of childhood put on hold in order to protect in the main, the older members of society. That most obviously affected their education, but also their care, their social experiences, and the development and growth that we often take for granted as part of growing up. And here I know that everybody will have read, thought been, talking over the week over the weekend and this week about the very unfortunate young boy in Solihull who won't be growing up. It's a tragic reminder of how difficult the job of child protection is. We're now all trying to make sense of the impact of COVID. At a time when that impact is still very much being felt this tremendous work being done across education and social care, as there has been throughout the pandemic. So we do all owe a debt of gratitude to the teachers the social workers, the childcare workers, the lecturers, everybody else in education and care who really have put in the hard yards over the last 18 months. As this report does make clear, we do owe this cohort of children and learners something else. We do owe them the best possible chance to fulfil that potential. And to do that, we really do need to understand the year that's gone and work out what needs to be done to make up for lost time. And I think that's all I'm going to say by way of introduction. I'm going to hand back to Chris.
CJ – Thanks very much Amanda. So I'm going to ask the panel just for a few opening remarks of their own reflections on the past year and I'm going to start with our guests near me. And so, Jenny, what's the last year been like for you?
JC - Well, I think like for all of us, it's been a year of changes really and massive challenges. But also seeing a great amount of resilience. And I suppose when you asked me that question, Chris mentioned it yesterday. A few things came to mind. First thing was the intense partnership working that happened over the last year and almost straightaway actually and I know in so many places as in Hartfordshire. managers and workers came together from across the other partnership of police, health, voluntary sector, and education settings to think about, particularly the most vulnerable children and included in that those who have special educational needs and disability were a real real concern. And within that, the importance really came to light of public health. And there was an awful lot of talk about adults quite rightly so but the role of public health in supporting us all for children, not least helping us translate the numerous guidance that came out from the DfE on almost daily basis throughout certainly most of the year and I know that still needing to continue. But also the ingenuity of frontline workers from everybody from early years and children's centres, from teachers and in education settings, social workers, family support workers, foster carers who use their whole family to support if they if they contracted COVID and residential workers who lived for two or three weeks at a time in children's homes so children can be cared for. The IT rollout was amazing. I have to say that probably would have taken local authorities to implement taking at least a year we got in a week and that has continued to continue to develop over the year. And I know today and that's been mentioned in the report there's been really good progress in the use of technology but that also brings its challenges. And as a recent report by the What Works Centre look at the impact of the pandemic on the work of social workers. It very clearly states we need more evidence about the use of technology and where it can add value and where it doesn't add value. And finally, two more things, the basic needs of families the amount of food that was delivered throughout the pandemic, particularly up until Christmas last year, schools going out and doing visits carrying food and food vouchers gave us a very timely reminder about family poverty and the challenges that were there before the pandemic and certainly still are with us. And second thing I want to end with is what young people said and so many local areas, did surveys and talk to young people. And for them the impact of the pandemic we must as the report says really show their voice because for them, they miss their friends. They miss socialising, they miss seeing their family, they particularly miss going to school. And that was the whole thing about schools and education settings. Being the hub of the community was really strong through the pandemic and needs to be really strong as we come out of it. And they were also particularly worried about their emotional health and their mental health. So ending on the voice of the child. Thanks, Chris.
CJ - I will no doubt pick up quite a few of those themes as we as we talk about further harder. Hardip You've been running your school trust for the for the past year or more. What's been at the forefront of your mind.
HB - Well, Chris, I joined without academies trust as a CEO in April 2020. After over 20 years in the civil service I chose that time to join the Multi-Academy Trust sector where geographically dispersed trust oh six, all through secondary schools across the country, four out of six which were requires improvement, but I just want to echo Jenny's tribute to school leaders and staff in terms of all their efforts to serve the needs of young people, in particular, lots of non-teaching staff in our schools, who played a tremendous role in making sure that when our schools were open and remember, they were open all through the pandemic, even though there's talk of national lockdowns, our school stayed open. If anything, they stayed open longer because we put on Easter provision and summer provision and that's no and most of that is due to the work of our technical staff, our catering staff, our premises staff are the unsung heroes of the school sector. But I want to be optimistic about what happened over that period of time. The research shows that there is some learning loss but for disadvantaged young people, we've had decades of knowing that they're way behind in terms of their progress. So let's not say that the pandemic suddenly has revealed that disadvantage young people don't do don't do well. So I want to pay tribute to those young people and their resilience. Parents fed back to us that they really welcome the support from schools and on the whole, the remote learning offer that was provided by our schools. And interestingly in our Trust, we found that by summer 2021 says summer, just gone. Staff engagement levels were higher in our schools than they've ever been in the past, again, tribute to our teachers and what really motivates them in terms of meeting the needs of our pupils. I think one of the biggest challenges remaining in addition to attainment is attendance in our schools. And in common with most schools across the country, we are now seeing a group of young people whose attendance is much lower than it should be. And that's in addition to young people who have withdrawn from mainstream education. So that's something hopefully we can pick up as we move forward. But I think there's many reasons to be optimistic. Two of our schools have had inspections this term and both of them became good during those inspections because they invested the time and effort into making sure they carried on meeting the needs of young people and improving the quality of education.
CJ - Thank you harder and I promise we didn't know that when we invited. We invited harder to be on this panel. Yvette, I'll come to you next for your reflections.
YS - Thank you, Chris. I just really echoing what Jenny and Hardip said, as you know from our report, we continued with our regulatory work in early years and social care registering provision and across all remits visited provision when they were safeguarding concerns and we also had a great number of our staff out there working in the frontline. It made us very humble. And both of those pieces of work meant that we heard what was going on on the ground. And I think that vigilance across education and care, doing their best for vulnerable children. That's always dynamic, isn't it risk changes for children. And they responded well, to those children where we already knew there was a risk. The challenge, I think, and it comes out clearly in our report and a number of comments the HMC I said over the last years is that for good reason retreat from the health service from universal children's services to support the COVID response meant the children with SEND children with pre-existing mental health conditions, and families lost valuable therapists and respite services. Some looked after children did exceptionally well Jenny mentioned foster carers and care workers wrapping services around children making sure that they will continue with their education supporting them in in managing the frustration of lockdown rules. We saw all of that, but some children lost, lost valuable contact with say their siblings they really felt really challenged. In in very difficult time. So a lot of our report will talk about the vulnerable children because our eyes were very much on them and they are going forward particularly in the context that we're all working for today. I think the other thing I would like to say is that the situation was never stable. Was it, it was hugely dynamic. And depending on when we were visiting, we saw people at very different ages and stages in terms of the process, ever adapting to the different requirements of PPE. There were real issues in the children's care sector getting access to it even in the first stages of this. So you know in the worst of times, it brings out the heroic but we also had to speak out about some very challenging circumstances, particularly children in secure training centres, who were very, very restricted in these most difficult times. So obviously, some learning going forward. I'm sure that colleagues will adapt their practice. A myth: social workers were not sitting in the office or at home, they were visiting children throughout those high risk, a lot of virtual work to add to the contact with perhaps looked after children and care levers. Absolutely that line of sight. If we didn't know it before, we absolutely endorse it again today. That line of sight is absolutely essential. And the virtual enhances it doesn't replace the human contact and human relationships.
CJ - Thanks very much event. Now, Chris, you've got the unenviable task of going last on a on a panel like this. Is there anything you'd like to add to what your colleagues have said?
CR - Yeah, I mean, I'm sure I'll be repeating in part really, but I mean two things, particularly for me, really. I mean, certainly made us all realise, I think the importance of our normal provision, and we now realise 18 months plus later how much we took it for granted. And I think, you know, of course for from speaking as the National Director for Education of course, that's the educational part. Of that in all its manifestations, really, you know, the impact that we've seen on that in terms of that breadth around the drama and music and the PE that all got hit through this time, but also that kind of protective effect as well. We really see the impact of that, don't we, I think in terms of physical fitness, but also mental health, our not having that kind of normality, and that normal provision, and that's such a profound effect on many young people. Because you know, with others have talked in the panel about the limitations of virtual and it's, and it's probably only coming back to things like this, isn't it that that has made us realise, actually the richness of the face to face. And while people work tirelessly to set up remote learning, really from pretty much nowhere in many cases. My daughter, as we went into lockdown was in her second year of teaching, teaching Year Four and she left me a no doubt at all about the limitations of remote learning. I have to tell you that so, you know, it's not the same and we've all recognised that very much. And we've also recognised that, you know, I think that some groups have been affected more than others. Some individuals have been affected more than others and when we bring out in the report the particular impact on people's with SEND, for example, prisoners, apprentices. So, you know, some groups some individuals have had a particular impact there, but I mean, certainly what's what we've also seen and we've very much seen through our work over the past year is been the commitment and the creativity of education and care professionals really. Coming in as an inspector, you will you will we all come from the you know, the fields that we inspect, we've all experienced it but I think I think Yvette talked about humility, and I think we've all felt a humility there really, with people facing with that creativity and that commitment and that resilience, unprecedented challenges that nobody expected to meet. And it's good to see that you know, people have faced those so positively. I mean, always remember, right back when we started entering visits since last September, going out on one of those, and seeing a school that had done really well and had coped really well. And even at that stage, we're seeing the positives about changes that they've made and I think that's a real tribute to people's creativity. But also to end on that and good to hear Harding's inspection outcomes and it's been good for us, I think, going back to routine inspection, this term to see you know, typically those very positive outcomes and actually seeing the progress that people have been able to make, despite those considerable challenges during the pandemic.
CJ - Thanks, Chris. You talked a bit about, all the panel, talked a bit about the kind of importance of the incredible hard work of professionals and support staff over the last over the last year I just want to expand on that a bit. Hardip, your staff, you mentioned setting up remote learning, setting up holiday provision. What were the biggest challenges?
HB - I think that one of the biggest challenges obviously was something that we all faced about the unknown nature of the pandemic and the quick changes for every person that said, I want one sentence of guidance and no more. There was another person who said, What do you mean how am I supposed to work with one sentence I need at least 10 pages of it. So I've got a lot of sympathy for my former colleagues in government in trying to meet that wide range of views. And then I joined a school leaders union and I see from the inside the tensions between different factions on there and I think that trying to comply, but use your own judgement during that period, I think was one of the biggest challenges. But also I think that as a sector, the vast majority of people who don't speak out, just get on with it and they do their best. And often, a lot of people speaking about these issues aren't representative of the day to day, staff that I know who get on and do what they're in the profession for, which is to meet the needs of young people.
CJ – Thanks Hardip. Amanda, I wonder if you want to pick up on any of these themes around the hard work professionals, as well because I know you try and visit as many as many schools and other providers as you can. What have you seen when you've been out and about recently?
AS - The effort that's gone in really does shine through and it's often interesting to see how much people want to talk about what they've done. I find it really interesting listening to pick the topic, people talk about how they've approached it and getting reassurance, I think, from the act of talking through because I think what's happened is so many people have had to make so many more decisions than usual, in very unfamiliar space. It's been a bit like putting every leader in the country back in day one of their jobs without anybody more experienced around to show them the ropes, and that that's an enormous strain on people. I think I think acknowledging the strain this has been for so many is really important. I mean, I do just want to temper Hardip’s, optimism, just a fraction. And I'm also optimistic. I think most children are resilient and I think we're seeing some encouraging signs that the average is moving quite quickly in the right direction. I think we I think we can see from a number of directions, that the spread has widened considerably relative to pre COVID levels. So we do have more children who are who are well behind where we would want them to be on all fronts and I think that's going to be going to be a real challenge which I'm confident that education and care can address well. But I don't want to be too pollyannish about it; but I do want this message of optimism that most children will do well. So there are people who are promulgating absolute doom and gloom and extrapolating hundreds of years or 1000s of years to get back. I don't see it that way. But I am hoping for some realism and for a very focused approach to recognising who needs help, who is actually going to be fine with a core experience of school, of care. Once you've once you've got the normal lessons, the extra curricular activities, the sport, the social life, the good adult relationships. Most will respond to that but who is it who needs who needs more and making sure that's really well marshalled. It's it is a big challenge, but I know people will rise to it.
CJ - I'm Jenny on the on the local authority side. What's been the biggest challenge for the social workers and their colleagues?
JC - I think I just like to pick up on the line of sight really, because although workers really rallied and thought of those creative ways, they only; what workers said to me is we only know what we know where we know families and we've built that relationship. We can hopefully navigate our way through and bring in support. But when we don't know and they were really worried that universal services in that first six months, had to be cut back and redeployed, and they and that really worried people because families didn't have access to those everyday health services all the time. You know, immunizations had to be caught up just those services where they could talk if they were having some challenges. And, you know, and that is, you know, is still a worry. And it's really important that you know, we wrap around those services, whether it's in early years or whether it's around schools, so families have access to support all their extended family to ask for help when they need it in a timely way. early on.
AS - Yes, I'm just to add to that the line of sight point is really important and something we were pressing on through last year and when you think about it, so much of Child Protection relies on having children who we know or who may be at risk in, in a lot of people's line of sight from different directions for all the different universal services as well as well as social services and others went when needed. And lockdown was a policy that was absolutely explicitly designed to minimise the number of people who each of us including every child saw, so there's some direct conflict in there that I hope will really be considered. If and I hope we don't but if we ever do need to contemplate any kinds of restrictions like last year, again.
CJ – Amanda, picking up on that. This time last year, your Annual Report, you spoke about the importance of schools in the community and the services that we now expect schools to provide and your questions kind of have we have we set up? Have we set up the system to reflect that that that new reality? I wonder if your thinking on the importance of schools as a community hub has evolved even further over the last year.
AS - I think it's absolutely been reinforced we and we made this point last year, I think it's reminded us all how important incredibly important nursery, schools, colleges are as institutions that anchor communities and give me give meaning to them. They've shown great breadth and flexibility I still think it is very important that we don't overload them in the long term. What's important is to have the right pieces and each one playing its part and we know that there is a sort of constant pressure to load more functions into education and we have on a number of occasions pushed back and said let's make sure that that schools job and their core job is really manageable and be sparing with the extra things we load on in perpetuity. So not withstanding that the admirable way that schools have stepped into some at some at some of the breaches, I hope it won't be necessary for them to take such broad roles in the longer term.
CJ - Some of the some of the biggest challenges that we highlighted in this year's Annual Report and have done over the year around children with special educational needs and disabilities. Have particularly hardly hit hard, hard hit by the services being withdrawn for unnecessary public health reasons. Yvette, do you want to talk in a bit more detail about what we've seen in our various inspections of SEND?
YS – I’ll start and perhaps Chris will come in; we cover the universal in the very specialist between us. I think we saw children at the most complex and having challenges getting into schools because of the health support that some of them need to function in that school environment. And also perhaps kept at home because of parental worries about their own health. Disabled children's holiday schemes weren't able to run them. It's a statement of the bloomin obvious but for families needing that welcome respite, it was a massive hit and we and the isolation that is often experienced by the parents of children with disabilities and SEN was enhanced. So it's one of those things we're all in the same storm but the boats are different and this particular group fared particularly poorly. Chris do you want to fo on to the more broader end?
CR - Yeah, I mean, just to I mean, practice to talk a little bit about special schools, particularly this point. I mean, we, you know, obviously, as I sort of mentioned the beginning, you know, in the report pupils with SEND is certainly a group that we've seen that have been particularly affected by the pandemic and, and we saw that in our special schools work and the work that we did there, the visits that we did there, and clearly, some of the things you touched on the particular challenges around multi agency services and the disruption to that there were particular travel challenges there as well in many cases, and we did see a strong impact and of course, then, even when the young people were in school, impact on the curriculum, and the diversity of experiences for those young people often wasn't anywhere near the same but we also saw, you know, many, many doing a really good job and we give an example in the Annual Report around attendance because clearly that's such an issue for many of those young people and actually the power of expectation and we give an example of one special school that you know, basically said it has to be 90%. Our aspiration is 90% attendance and they worked with parents and were able to sort of overcome some of those barriers and those understandable concerns that people had to actually get, you know, really high attendance there. And I think those are a good example of what can be done even with that creativity, even with a particular challenges that people did face there. I mean, in terms of our Area SEND work. I mean, we did a mixture of interim visits as we did in other areas, and more kind of normal inspection work towards the end of the year. I think what the interim visits did, which, you know, I think did well actually across our remits was give us a real picture of the challenges that people were facing at that point particularly in the in the autumn. And we you know, we did we did some of our inspection work and you know, as, as we found all the way through there really, you know, we you know, we did find in a number of cases that we needed to give a written statement of action because there were particular things that the local area needed to work on.
CJ – Thanks Chris. Hardip, you’re the optimist on the on the panel, and you said, you said to me yesterday, you felt were a bit a bit too, down in the dumps in this area.
HB - I think that it's not so much down in the dumps, but there have been a lot of problems in education for long periods of time, and I think it's the laying at the door of the pandemic some systemic problems, which have been there parents of children with SEND for long period of time have not been well served. And to say that is to do with the pandemic, I think is to do a disservice to let off the hook. People need to sort out some of the systemic problems, but I do want to echo Chris's point on special schools, but I think they are different than the SEND services provided by local authorities. I'm a member of the Eden Academy Trust, as well as the former Trustee of that, and you're sorry to go back to surveys. One of our schools surveyed, parents are overwhelmingly positive about the support that that special school had provided, and knew the circumstances of why young people weren't safe to come into coming to those schools. So I think the picture is varied and just using the term SEN, I think encompasses a whole range of provision, including excellent special school and excellent Multi-Academy Trust to some, quite frankly, appalling levels of SCN services and experiences in the system.
CJ -Hardip, you mentioned the challenges of attendance. And Chris, you mentioned attendance as well. Obviously, there's the challenges through the, the period of the pandemic but also as we as we try and get people back into school. What in particular, do you want to pick up on attendance?
HB - Well, I think your report picks up one really important issue again, another systemic issue that's been with us for a long period of time about withdrawing young people from school to electively home educate them. There's lots of excellent home educators out there but what has prompted the reasons why parents are withdrawn? And I don't think it's for the reason of providing them with a suddenly excellent education at home. There are other factors in relation to that. And do we have the services to be able to persuade those parents that actually education in a educational setting with expert teachers would be in the best interests of young people? But I think there are a group of young people now who have much more serious needs, whether their mental health needs, whether it's anxiety, whether that's parental anxiety, rather than anxiety with the pupil themselves, which do need to be addressed. I think you can't let them just carry on because they will get more and more entrenched. So as we go through this term, can't just sit there looking at the numbers because each week, each month that goes by, it's less and less likely their attendance will improve. And therefore I think we do need to have stronger intervention. Now on this on this issue, and I was glad that Ofsted picked it up in our inspections about the higher levels of persistent absence for our disadvantaged children, so we need to do better on that front.
CJ - And, Jenny, this issue of elective home education must be something that your colleagues and local government are thinking hard about.
JC - Absolutely. And not before the pandemic as well. This has been a year on year increase property for the last five or six years. How many Association Directors do an annual survey? I can see Gail nodding there. Yet again this year, we've seen actually quite a big increase which we were predicting because of the pandemic but this is something that's been there before and, you know, a chance to mention having a national register if you're going to give your child a good education, then why wouldn't you register with the local authority? I mean, that that will need to bring resources with it. But we're now at numbers where we need to really consider that
CJ – Amanda that’s something you've spoken about.
AS - I think I've talked about that in nearly every interview I've done today.
CJ - Chris, anything to pick up on on that.
CR - Oh, sorry. Apologies. Yeah, I mean, just to build on, you know, the point about attendance really, I mean, it's obviously it's, it's always been critical that that, you know, children and young people are attending and never more so given the, you know, the disruption that they've had, they're really and of course schools and other providers have always worked had to work hard to ensure the best attendance and even more so, of course now but I mean, I think those principles of how you achieve that remain the same, just really more important about having the expectations, communicating them, working with parents, where there are barriers, getting underneath the reasons looking at your data, analysing the data. And I think where we've seen that then we've seen that that impact, but of course, it has been more challenging than it was before. And those things have been more important than they were before. And of course, the whole COVID experience has created a bit of a cloud around all of that, hasn't it where there is a danger that some young people get lost to that and drop out of the system and don't attend anywhere near as much as they should.
CJ - Now I want to talk a bit about an element of Ofsted’s work that is perhaps is less well known than our work in education. our work in schools, and that's we spent quite a lot of time in the report and have done over several reports. Talking about children's homes, and the lack of accommodation for children who need a home like that. Yvette tell us a bit more about the challenges with children's homes around the country.
YS - Will we have the highest care population that we've ever had? And we have more adolescents coming into the care system with a broad range of more complex needs, including issues like mental health, including issues like county lines, sexual exploitation. So we've seen a seven fold increase in the numbers of children, where local authorities are going to the High Court to the court of inherent jurisdiction because these children need welfare, secure provision, and there just isn't enough. For these children. And so the court is, is agreeing that that threshold is met. But local authorities just can't find any provision to meet those needs. And then if you look beneath that at the broader range of children's homes, there just isn't enough provision in the right places in the country. So a quarter of the children's homes, they're up in the northwest and in parts of the Midlands, and in London, you've got to go 160 miles to find a secure bed. These are issues that have been there for some time. And Amanda's talked about some of the issues behind that possibly capitol building etc. And the cost of that, but we really need some planning across youth justice. Good policy is bringing children out of the criminal justice system, good policy and health is bringing children out of the Mental Health inpatient system, but that knitting together of a strategy, local, regional, and national to make sure that we've got the provision map for those children is something we've been talking about for some time, really pleased that there's some capital in the pot to help with some of that. I'm really looking forward to the Care Review. thinking very carefully about how that knitting happens to get the right provision in the right place meeting those children's needs.
CJ - And Jenny, Yvette talks about the increasing numbers of children who need care and who need these services at a kind of national level. What does that look like at a local level? What are the challenges of dealing with increasing numbers of children in that position?
JC - That I mean, this was a real challenge before the pandemic so and it might have been exacerbated, but it certainly there and over the last five or six years, the needs of children and young people in care has been changing and have become more complex. And therefore, the homes if we're taking them into care that we provide for them need to be able to wrap around them and having different funding streams for mental health. For social care, for education for all those things doesn't help and you know, I've said this when I was president that it really needs a cross departmental response at a national level at and at a local level. We need to be meeting the whole needs of the child not just parts of it. And, you know, Yvette talks about extra capital and so forth. But if the right home was provided at the right time with the right support, we may well not need as many residential homes. So I hope in the Care Review really looks at what children's need children need, as opposed to fitting them into buildings. And I think there's been a very strong message from young people as well. I'm not saying that's easy. But it's really fundamental if we're going to improve outcomes for children in care.
CJ - Great, and that's over this time next year, we can be talking about some solutions rather than just restating the problems again, I'm going to kind of finish off the discussion with kind of looking forward to the next year. Let's try and be a bit more positive about what 2022 might entail and what we're what we want to get out of 2022. So I'm going to go along the panel again, I'll go in reverse order just to be just to be fair, So, Chris, what are you hoping for the next year?
CR - I'm sure I'm hoping mainly for what everybody else is, which is more of that normality. I mean, I spoke at the beginning of how us taking that for granted. I'm not sure we do any more really, and what we all hoped for. We'll recognise the ongoing challenges that that professionals have been facing in education and care, both in terms of dealing with the current situation and of course, dealing with the legacy of the past 18 months. So I think more than anything else, we absolutely hoped for that normality and the restorative impact of that normality. You know, Amanda spoke about that earlier, really, and I think you know, that the resilience of young people, and I think that gives us some optimism there but it does need as much normality as possible. Despite the fact that as we know, people, as I said earlier, people are incredibly creative in actually dealing with the challenges that they do face. You know, I think we really hope for that. One thing that I would just add to that really is that what we've certainly seen in terms of remote learning and in terms of as children, young people returned to school and college and people got underneath and other providers and got underneath trying to remedy some of those gaps in knowledge and an understanding was that the more people really understand the curriculum, and can use that and can get underneath the gaps that exist and work out what the key knowledge and understanding is that's been missed. The more people understand that, the more successful they were in those areas. So I think, you know, hopefully, there's been a lot of learning in the system through that process, which will support that going forward to so that there are some elements of positive legacy there in that area.
CJ - Thanks very much, Chris, Yvette.
YS - Talking about that positive work across local partnerships, I hope that's built upon the child protection system needs everybody to play their parts and to understand each other's contribution. So I hope that's built upon. I think how early back to graded local authority inspection, I take my hat off to those places but have managed to improve and I know it's happening in the schools face to despite the extra burdens of COVID. The over 50% of local authorities have improved in their graded inspection as we moved from the previous regime to ILACS so I hope we build on that. We did see early years providers and children's homes coming forward to register. In fact, some did some spectacular work in early years. We haven't mentioned early years much providing childcare for hospitals. That was one of the really heroic things that that we should put on record our thanks to them for doing so. I'm hoping that good people to continue to come forward. I think there's more we can do to support the care workforce in terms of its training, support and pay I think there are issues still to address with that. But I'm but I'm optimistic in terms of what I'm seeing with people getting back hunkering down and making sure that they're doing the best for children.
CJ – Thanks Yvette, Hardip?
HB - Having been positive through all of this. I hope we don't go back to normality there are some major challenges facing the education system in this country. Jenny mentioned poverty for young people, low expectations, insufficient attainment. So I hope we don't get back to normal but use this opportunity to say, Isn't it time that we bring people together to try and solve some of these entrenched problems that have existed pre COVID and that we give education the attention that health has had over the last period and some of the funding that health has had to try and tackle some of these problems? And I do echo Amanda's point schools have stepped up over the period, but I don't think it's a long-term sustainable solution. If you want the best people to go into teaching and learning in schools to lay at their door. All of the problems that young people in society face.
CJ - Thank you. Hardip, Jenny?
JC - Well, we got two big reviews, the care review and the second review. I really hope they report over the coming year. And I also really look forward to continuing to build that evidence base of what works for children. And all of us keep that focus on children nationally and locally.
CJ - Thanks me and I'm under a career limiting move. I've given you the challenge of going last
AS - Thank you. I like a much of what everybody said but that that return to normality, which I think will release everybody in education, social work, social care, to be to do the jobs they came to do not to be COVID managers anymore. And I think releasing that capacity will energise them and bring them afresh to the problems that the kinds of problems that Hardip talked about, I've talked about with the energy and capacity to focus on the things they want to be focusing on. So that's what I hope to be talking about. This time next year.
CJ – Thank you Amanda. Thank you all very much for making the trip. Thank you to our panel and particularly our guests.
Amanda Spielman discusses the content and context of the 2021 Ofsted Annual Report, talking about what we found in all the areas we inspect during this period.
What's it like to leave care? We spoke to a care-experienced person who's also Ofsted's head of research. How did the pandemic impact young care leavers? Find out more in this episode of our podcast - subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Transcript:
Leaving Care
CJ: Chris Jones, Ofsted’s director of corporate strategy
YS: Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for regulation and social care
AC: Andrew Cook, Ofsted’s regional director for the North West
DB: Donna Brown, Ofsted’s head of research
CJ: Hello and welcome to this episode of Ofsted talks. This time we're speaking to Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for regulation and social care, Andrew Cook our regional director for the North West and we're talking about leaving care. We're also speaking to Donna Brown, our head of research who is herself care experienced.
Tell us, obviously got a massively important role in this sector, part of which we carry out by talking to as many care leavers as we possibly can. And over this summer we surveyed care leavers Didn't we talk about that and what are we hoping to find out?
YS: Yes, you're absolutely right, Chris, talking to the young people is a really important part of our time in children's homes. When we're working when we're working looking at fostering agencies and local authorities, and we also do our annual survey because it's really important to us to know how young people are being supported and preparing for their futures.
We were pleased to ask some current care leavers about helping us design the questions and making sure that we really got to the issues that were of concern to them. We not only want to hear from young people who might be leaving care soon or from those who they left care recently, we also wanted to hear from people who left, maybe a few years ago and really so that we can learn from the experience of everybody who's been through the care system.
DB: Just to say the team absolutely loved doing this piece of work, particularly because they got to work with care leavers in constructing the questionnaires, they got to hear their experiences, but they really worked sort of hand in glove with, with a lot of caregivers on this project and a lot, a lot of people gave their time and supported the team and developing it, and, yeah, we were really pleased and really grateful that they, they took part.
AC: Did we get, did we get on care leavers from across the country?
DB: I mean, not that it wasn't representative, obviously, but, but yeah, we had it, we had a good mix of care leavers attend workshops to develop the questions and it wasn't a case of us sort of, we've got some questions we've developed what do you think of them they really, they started the ball rolling and they came up with, you know, what was most important to them as care leavers, and we really, we really took their lead on it actually so we’re really chuffed.
YS: Just to endorse what Donna's just said, you know, we would have come up with a crusty old sentence about how you’re being prepared for financial independence.
AC: Yeah, and they strip that back to the absolutely, you know, have we got enough money.
YS: Yeah. And to be frank, you know, our children are used to having a budget and managing, they often take a great deal of personal responsibility far earlier than, then you know biological children do who still live reside with their family so people raised with us how they're being supported with independence, how are they being supported to maintain relationships with their biological family, because beyond care, you know, your support networks are going to be really important. So it's how you maintain those relationships, relationships with your personal advisor with your social worker with your biological family, with your foster care siblings, you spent years with a family that relationship isn't severed overnight.
AC: I really think that getting behind the things that are really important to our care leavers are absolutely key. And that's interesting because in the Northwest I was hearing stories of some of the, you know, in the COVID times that we've gone through, where restrictions to transport public transport was actually a real issue for some young people, you know, it actually, it stopped them going to see members of their family and you know it's just those really practical things that got in the way, as they did for everybody but obviously, particularly for care leavers.
DB: In the team, we're still working through the responses and, you know there'll be drafting the report in the next couple of months but I think what it will really help us do is compare side by side. The statutory, what our local authorities are required to provide in preparation support, and then what are currently telling us they're actually getting and how big is that, that difference, you know once we picked it apart a bit more we'll be able to train inspectors on what we've learned and they'll be able to take that out into their inspection practice as well, so it'll be a real wraparound piece of work.
CJ: Tell us what is Ofsted’s role in children's social care for those who perhaps don't know so much about it?
YS: We're Ofsted, we’re the regulator of children's homes and foster care agencies. So this means that we register the people and the places to support children in care, and those preparing to leave care. This means that we monitor and inspect the provision and report publicly on what we find. And when things are just not good enough that we can undertake enforcement activity and that might mean saying that they can only have fewer children at the provision or even closing a home in an agency. We also inspect and report on local authority children's services but the DfE their regulator, and they will decide whether to intervene in a local authority. When we visit children's homes, we'll be talking to the children who lived there about what it's really like to live in that home, how they're supported now and how they're being prepared for the time that they will leave. We did the same when we inspect local authority Children's Services where we meet children who are in care and also care leavers, what is their experience what's working well for them, what could the services that are meant to support them do to help them for the future. But now, he really importantly, do they feel safe and supported now, and are they being well prepared for life beyond care.
CJ: We've spoken a bit about foster care already, tell us a bit more about what happens in foster care and importantly what happens afterwards.
YS: So, so most of the children in care in the country are in foster care so they're living with a family with a family where there may be other foster children who will be their siblings or maybe with the biological children or the foster carers or if the foster carers a bit older with contact grandchildren, which is always lovely. These are the homes, and the family for our children over periods of time. And it's really important that young people know what's going to happen to them beyond 18. For some young people now that means staying put arrangement which allows a young person to remain with their foster carers after their 18th birthday, but it has to be both right for them and for their foster carers and their foster carers do have to agree to it and there are complicated issues around payments and benefits, and a whole heap of other things that make that do make that very difficult decision for foster carers, many of whom would love to continue to be the be the parent, even if the children move on. It's a bit more challenging for children in residential care, there is a staying put close equivalent, but, but it needs a lot more investment and support to make it really work. We look at staying put arrangements on inspection, and most people would agree, the opportunity to stay port with their foster carers is is such a good initiative. After all, most young people don't leave home until they're ready and for emotional people that definitely isn't before they're 18, and for some considerably afterwards. But we know staying put opportunities are not always available, and sometimes the support for from the carers does taper off, and sometimes the planning, the planning doesn't start soon enough. I remember having many conversations with my social workers, and with young people about what is the time to start making those decisions about your next stages in your life. And, but I think young people, even at 14 want to really know what's happening to them at 18. Because they're planning what they're doing in terms of their education or they're going to go on to university. So having those conversations, albeit that they can be difficult, early on, and working over those years to make sure that there is a clear a clear pathway for those young people into early adulthood is just so important.
DB: It's so really difficult, a difficult one, that isn't it about, at what point you start those conversations and what conversations you have, because they're starting at too late, but then there's, you know, for me personally, I was having those conversations at 14/15, moving into a new placement, where it was made pretty clear. When you turn 18 You know you have to leave. So at 14/15 I was very conscious that I had a set time period, and you know at 16 I got a job so that I could start saving, I did my driving test really early, but I felt that pressure, very young and was worried about where I was going to go what was going to happen to me. So, it's tricky isn't it to get that balance right.
YS: It's really important that young people have got that as much certainty of planning, but in even having that conversation you're creating uncertainty and anxiety, and that's why the relationship with their social worker, and their foster carer is so important and why I was against your social worker changing in that period of time, if we can give as much continuity to the young people during that period of time, then, then that gives them one less pressure in what will be, and if those of us that weren't in foster care. Am I gonna stay on to do a levels, am I going to go to college, to have all of that. And then on top where am I going to live. Am I able to maintain my relationship with my foster care siblings. It is really hard and, and absolutely really important that we do that so well, and so supportively and with as much continuity as we can offer.
AC: Donna, really really important is if you talked about making [decisions], what was the role of the school in all of that do you think that helped.
DB: Funnily enough, actually, I just, I had one really great form tutor who sort of sat me down and said, Look, if you go to university, you'll get a student loan, and you'll have somewhere to live for three years, and you can sort of not worry about it for a bit then. And it was the perfect time to have that conversation with me because I was 14. GCSEs were far enough away that I could get my head down, but close enough that I could just, I could just get on with it so, so that's what I did and that, and I, that was what I worked towards, and it wasn't after be honest that wasn't because I had fantastic ideas about what I wanted to do in a career or anything it was literally, that's a really good option of a place to go and live for a bit. And luckily, you know, that, that worked out reasonably well but were all the people around you at that point, that were supporting me? Were they all talking to each other as well. No, I mean, that I'd spent most of my time and care in formal foster care stranger foster care, but at that point I'd moved into kinship with my aunt and uncle. They didn't really have much of a relationship with my social worker who kept changing, who I didn't really have much of a relationship with. And basically the only thing I got in the end was, they agreed to pay half of my university fees, which didn't actually help me in the immediate term at all. It meant when I was 30 I had a lower student loan to pay back but when I was 18, that didn't really do very much. No, I would say it was my friend's parents that helped me the most. Actually, my best friend's mum gave me a lot of support, and a lot of encouragement and I got it from people, you know, informal relationships rather than any kind of care provided relationships.
CJ: So, Ofsted, we're always in the market for opportunities for improvement and we talk to government don't we regularly about things that we're worried about – Yvette, what's on your mind at the moment?
YS: I think something that's very topical Chris is the worries that we've had for some time about some of the quality of accommodation, being provided to care leavers under the term of supported lodgings. I personally have seen some brilliant provision, really top quality with people, you know, having a really supportive relationship into early adulthood with young people, varying the support at the age and stage that the young person is you know in and having a really person centred approach for that. But I've also seen some unsafe and unacceptable provision, and perhaps some young people moved into supported lodgings before they're really ready for independence and I know that's a tough call, young people will be pushing, there's many young people who say no I want, I want to move out on be self sufficient and some of them will be ready and some of them will won't some of them will be ready and then something will happen, and they need more support put in. So I think we've got to be much more fluid in that but in response the government have been consulted on new standards for that supported accommodation, it may not mean that we have the exact same model for children's home, because it will be a very different sort of provision, but I really look forward to being part of a dialogue with young people with care leavers with local authorities and with providers about what really good accommodation and support for that group of young people look like so we, we are absolutely up for that challenge Chris and, and I think there is a way to go until we see enough provision for these young people as providing with the right support at the right time. And that's just one of the many issues that we've talked about today and the government I think has recognised the number of really important and complex challenges there are here in setting up the independent care review, and led by Josh McAllister is Ofsted, playing a role in that we are indeed so I regularly meet with Josh and we've submitted a range of documents, not just direct response to the questions he's asked but also from our rich Research and Evaluation inspection findings to, it's a real opportunity through the review to drive improvement for children, young people, including I think for care leavers because we do see a lot of good practice we see a lot of individuals going the extra mile. We see some improving local authorities, but actually we want, you know, our ambitions for it to be even better. And for more children to be safe and supported into adulthood. We've been meeting regularly with the review team, we hope, in particular, that they look at how all departments can work together to better support children. So for example, and you can see from the conversation with Donna housing will be a key issue. She took the opportunity to go to university to know that she'd have continuity of housing for three years but what happens when you come back from from university, how easy is it to get accommodation in the in the locality where you've got the most connection? When you may have been moved around the country, whilst you were in care. So, all government departments have got an opportunity. Here, is it the responsible for housing, as well as local authority Children's Services and we want a really cross government response to how can we secure the right employment pathways for care leavers. I know as a civil service, it's something that we've invested time and energy with, but there's so much more we could do, particularly in the context as Andrew has said earlier about our worries about rising numbers of care leavers not in education and training with the contraction in some of the areas that they've traditionally taken up employment. So we're really glad that the care of use case for change recognises the importance of building relationship and that cross government working too often relationships are broken following moves or changes in the lives of children and care leavers, they don't find themselves with support networks that the wider population has, and also some of them who need support later in life. Donna may well have come back for university got herself a part time job had some support, but then actually things, things break down, I'm talking about lots of different Donnas, there might be another Donna for whom it was much more fragmented and they needed to step in and get that support. So where do you go, where do you go as a care leaver when you're 25 and things aren't working out so well when you've, you've got into debt perhaps you've lost a bit of your job or your, your family infrastructure that was providing some support steps away again. So we really want the system to think about what is the support beyond 18/19 or 20 for people who've been in the care system. How can all government departments and, and wider agencies, step in to support them and getting the stability and resilience they need into adulthood.
CJ: So I'm going to bring in Andrew Cook our regional director for the North West, Andrew, tell us about the issues facing care leavers in your patch.
AC: So, in the North West, the North West is one of those regions that was actually really impacted hard by COVID Right from the beginning and and continues to be so in many ways. I suppose that right at the beginning there was, everybody was trying to do what was the right thing for children and young people and there was some, there was some quick thinking by local authorities to try and support care leavers and sometimes we did see some really creative ways in which to support them. I think probably some of the real challenges was was just a lack of access to internet laptops and all of those sorts of really practical things that probably made caregivers feel even more cut off than they were before some, some were telling us that they actually appreciated being able to be in touch with their advisors using technology but actually you know that face to face was missed by all of us, but particularly also for the care leaves as well and some of the social events that authorities would have been putting on for care leavers were also obviously not there, I suppose, what we did hear from personal advisors was that you know where they did keep in contact that contact was good, and care leavers have told us through some of our inspection work that actually the support that they received was great. That was sometimes a real need for practical support practical support. And sometimes social housing and the accessibility of for that, for care leavers is really an issue, but you know I think local authorities have always tried to find ways around these things. I think the virtual school, which obviously has responsibility and responsibilities towards care leavers I suppose there are different places if I was to be honest across, across the region.
CJ: Donna Brown is Ofsteds’ Head of Research and is care experienced herself. First of all, Donna, tell us about what you do is head of research.
DB: Thanks Chris. So I have a I have a team of researchers, while few teams of researchers actually work on various projects across Ofsted have one team in particular, led by Tania Corbin who runs our social care research team, and then I have lots of responsibilities for education work as well. I've been Ofsted for eight years now so I worked my way up from the bottom actually, and I've worked on lots of social care work on inspections supporting inspectors with data analysis, interviewing about adoption. I've written lots of reports for Ofsted on domestic abuse, neglect of older children, knife crime, the whole range of things. But yeah, I need a team who kind of do a lot of that work on education and social care.
CJ: So Donna tell us a bit about your care experience then.
DB: I went into care as a baby eight weeks old, I think, from what I understand, I spent the first nine years of that in foster care but moved around a fair bit, I think, the longest I lived anywhere it was three years, the shortest was sort of a few months, moved to school a lot. It was, it was, it wasn't good, to be honest it was, it was quite patchy and inconsistent, and I had lots of unplanned endings and some foster carers were not great, some, I had one in particular that was absolutely fabulous but lots of moving and lots of, lots of difficulty really and completely separate from my family very little contact with my brothers and sisters, if any, for periods of years at a time. When I was nine, I went back to live with my mum, I said back but went to live with her for the first time, and then spent sort of nine to 18 moving around various family members, temporary foster care, also very inconsistent and very kind of not very happy to be honest.
CJ: Sounds pretty tough, and I'm sure there'll be lots of people with similar experiences. Tell us about the process of leaving care and striking out on your own as a, as an adult.
DB: So that conversation sort of started around 14. It was when I moved in with an aunt, an uncle of mine I have to say my, my uncle, really wanted me there. I really wanted to help, but my auntie wasn't so keen so the compromise was that I would leave as soon as I'd finished my exams. So I knew, you know, very early on that I needed a plan of where to go, which I find quite stressful, he could put me under a lot of pressure. Pressure that didn't, to be honest, that didn't actually sort of hit me until my late 20s Because I just, I just got a job at 16 I worked and studied, and I just, I just powered through, and then. It wasn't until I was sort of 26/27 that it kind of hit me that I, you know, had been really stressful, and I hadn't really looked after myself very well, and I was in loads of debt. I'd been I'd had periods of homelessness for up to 6/7/8 months at a time sofa surfing, including my work and at Ofsted actually, many moons ago. I didn't have much support, I felt like it very much felt like a cliff edge that people talk about, and I was really underprepared because actually I was really excited for it. I wanted to leave care I hated being in care. I left the country to get that far away from it, and then find myself on my own, and in ways that I didn't expect. And, yeah, I just find it really hard and there was nowhere to go and I just felt like I couldn't fail, because if I failed I have nobody to, to call. And I find that really hard.
CJ: Tell us about how that drove your path to where you are now than because by any measure, you're incredibly successful within us that you do lots of impressive sounding qualifications, and a great team and job here. Have the other two things linked.
DB: Yeah, I mean, I would say, in a couple of ways really, the main one is I wanted to spend my career helping vulnerable children, either on the edge of care or encounter or leaving care, and I didn't really didn't really mind what profession that was in, to be honest, I just wanted to do that so everything I've studied has all been around child law or family law. My PhD was in children's rights, so I've just spent years learning, listening to loads of care leavers myself actually. And learning about lots of experiences that are different to my own, and then try and find ways to help. I think the other thing is, for me, I felt like I needed to make sure that I could be totally independent. and the best way that I could do that was to just work. And while, you know, I think from the outside, that does look like Oh, isn't that amazing she's got this amazing career and well done and that's, those things are true, but I also had periods of really poor mental health, periods have nowhere to live. You know I've had, I've only just finished another round of therapy this last year for a whole range of stuff so it's not, it's not all about what it looks like on paper, is it. Yeah, it's still, it's true really that care never leaves you, I think, I think I'm learning that at 35.
AC: Still, I mean you are hugely successful and your storytellers, tells us a lot about you and your determination, the resilience in really, really tough challenging times. When we think about care leavers as a group, it's, I mean it's really sad to see that actually, there isn't always that success is there in your people's lives. What do you think made it different for you, or what does it make you know what was it that made you end up where you are, because what as I listened to you that there's lots about you being determined, but is that, is that determination from inside yours or was it influenced by other people?
DB: That idea about what success means is quite slippery, isn't it, because I think when I was younger and I went to university I thought I'm just such a success for what I've done, coming from this situation. As I've gotten older, though, success means different things to me. Now, success means having good mental health, which I didn't have for a very long time, Success means looking after myself eating well, having good relationships with people around me feeling safe. Success for other people, is, is building their own family having children. I think, academically, I did well because I liked learning and I was interested in school was my safe place. So, you know, I know that's not the same for a lot of people but for me, when I went to school I could be myself, I wasn't at home where I didn't feel safe and I was quite scared and shy and quiet I went to school and I made friends and I chatted and I loved it I did every after school activity going just so I didn't have to go home. But all of that stuff sort of culminated in in meaning I had options I guess at 18 but lots of care leavers, you know come to that later in life. By 30 caregivers have pretty much caught up. For me catching up, then catching up on mental health catching up on having somewhere to live, having a community around me, for others catching up means going back to school or finding out what career it is they want to do so, can we know enough about it.
AC: I suppose as a, as a regional director in the North West. What worries me is, is around care leavers are not in education, employment and training. I know that's just one aspect of life, and success isn't everything that but if you use the word options and it does give you options. When you've got education.
DB: It's not about, it's not always about the destination I think that's the other thing, it's about your journey getting there. So I think the main thing for care leavers, they're not supported enough to make that journey and through young adulthood, fun and pleasant and happy and you know, exploring life, And part of that is finding a job or a career or a passion that you can kind of live on is definitely a part of that. I suppose it's just, it's just the idea that it's all about particular measures of success is the if we lose sight of the fact that it's also about having friends it's also about feeling safe, it's also about feeling like you belong somewhere. So by having a good relationship with yourself, like you like yourself you enjoy your own company, but all of those things are all hurdles in and of themselves, obviously having a job and having some money in the bank helps. That makes things easier. So I definitely would be worried. And I, you know, I think for any of us care experienced or not leaving school or college during a pandemic is, is a worrying, like, it's stressful what what are they going to do?
CJ: Thanks very much to Andrew and Donna and thanks to you all for listening. You can find Ofsted talks on our Twitter feed, on our GovUK page and on Podbean.
What's education like in prisons? Ofsted Talks hosts, Chris Jones and Anna Trethewey talk to guest speakers about the challenges facing prison education and the need for rapid improvements.
Transcript
AT: Anna Trethewey
CJ: Chris Jones
PJ: Paul Joyce
FC: Francesca Cooney
SM: Sheena Maberly
AT: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. Today we're going to be talking about prison education. Now Chris you and I've had a number of meetings over the last few weeks on this topic, and really concerning isn't it
CJ: Hi Anna. Yeah, we've spoken to a few people about this we've spoken to our very own Deputy Director of Further Education and Skills, Paul Joyce. We’ve have spoken to Francesca Cooney, who is Head of Policy at the Prisoners Education Trust, and we've spoken to Sheena Maberly, who is a policy lead dealing with prison education in Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service
AT: It's been a really fascinating few discussions. But what we've heard hasn't been great has it, let's be honest.
CJ: No and I've said, we've been concerned about prison education for a number of years, long before the pandemic. Prison Education simply gets the worst inspection results of any area of education we inspect. It’s something we've been talking about for a while.
CT: And COVID just seems to have come and landed on that and made things much worse by the looks of it.
CJ: Yeah, exactly. We introduced the education inspection framework into prisons in February 2020, so just before the pandemic and we've done some inspection since, and the findings are really concerning.
AT: Now, before we get into the meat of those interviews I thought it'd be useful to listen to the bit Paul Joyce our Deputy Director of Further Education and Skills and he'll be talking through a little bit of what we've what we do want to prison inspection, and then our place in the system on what we've found.
AT: Obviously we play our part in inspecting them. How do we go about that just for the listeners out there, what exactly do we do?
PJ: Well, really, we, we look at prison education in much the same way as we do in the rest of the work we do with Ofsted. So, we will be using an inspection framework very similar to that we use in in schools and colleges to look at how well prison education is delivered. The quality of the curriculum, the quality of the teaching the implementation and impact that education has on prisoners life so it's much the same as the inspection activity we carry out elsewhere.
AT: That's really helpful. What, what we tending to find at the moment when we're going out and inspecting
PJ: Well they're lies the start at a problem, really. It's not a pretty picture. In terms of what we are finding. And sadly, and this is, this has been the case for a long period of time. And clearly, COVID and the current circumstances, have, have not helped, but by and large, it's in a pretty bleak picture. We find that education isn't sufficiently prioritised in the prison regime, and often not doing what it should be doing for the prisoners that are in custody.
AT: So just a quick summary. He went on to talk about some of the key issues so there's really poor management of the quality and education skills, work and they're slow progress with improving the provision since previous inspections, only a third of prisons inspected since September 2019 deliver an appropriate curriculum to meet the needs of their prisoners. In many cases, the number of activity spaces available and education skills and work isn't sufficient for the number of prisoners, or the spaces are poorly allocated and used and then lastly, prisoners with a range of additional learning needs, which we know is high in prisons, receive insufficient support and the range of education skills and work activities that vulnerable prisoners can access this is really poor.
CJ: I had such a fascinating discussion with Francesca Cooney from the Prisoners. Education Trust, and what came through really strongly for me was the mixed track record that prisons have. And just what a struggle, it can be to get people to engage with education, as they're serving their sentences.
AT: I can imagine it must be quite happy so yeah it's a really important first step getting people to engage but that might be quite hard. So let's have a listen to Francesca.
CJ: Prisoners presumed they enter prison with a mixed track record in terms of education, is that fair to say.
FC: Absolutely yes, absolutely I mean many prisoners have not engaged in education very much at all. We know you know at least half of people coming into prison, I was as does not having what we would consider to be functional literacy. We don't have up to date figures around this but we think maybe four out of 10 have been excluded or suspended from, from school, and many, many people in prison have really negative prior experiences of schooling, and certainly of conventional schooling. And I would also want to point out, but at least a third of prisoners have additional learning needs, or have some kind of neurodiverse condition. And what that means is people learn differently people concentrate differently people need different kinds of support. So many people are coming into prison with additional needs, not having had their additional needs met in the community, and then struggling once they get into prison, as well as.
CJ: That chimes with what we're thinking about how offset a big strand of our work is around reading and particularly early reading and making sure that absolutely every child that possibly can is taught to read kind of comprehensively and can read fluently as early in their school life as, as possible because we know that difficulties with reading means difficulties with accessing the rest of the curriculum, means that children can fall behind their peers and can lead to frustration can sometimes lead to being diagnosed with special educational needs, and, and that can spill over into behavioural difficulties as well lead to exclusions and ultimately as, as you've said good for some unfortunate children as they become adults could, could lead to imprisonment. Is that is that focused on reading something that you think would be beneficial.
FC: I think it would be beneficial, but what I would say is it would be fantastic if prison education could be taught in quite a different way. I mean it's shocking that so many people come into prison, not being able to read and write, but it's actually inspiring that a lot of people do learn to read and write once, once they are in prison. And some of the things that I think would help would be if class lengths were shorter, at the moment people can sometimes be put into classes that last two and a half or three hours. That's not brilliant for people with poor concentration, I don't think most people in the community would want to three hour class. We should look at embedding functional skills more in depth into different subjects, so that if you're doing bricklaying you're also learning numeracy you're also learning literacy, people really respond to practical skills vocational skills, and they respond to functional skills more where they can see how they can use them on a day to day basis. I also think that prisons don't make enough use of peer mentors. So what I'm talking about there is other prisoners, so there are schemes where prisoners teach other prisoners to read, and they aren't really successful that's in a one to one situation, and that one to one situation can really help people who are not comfortable in class, who do not want the embarrassment or being being sort of exposed around, around their poor educational history, and once to one work really, really supports people that have been shown to be really effective.
AT: So what you and Francesca just discussed them and the difficulties of reading and how important that is to allow learners access to education, I just think is so important. I really liked ideas of Francesca's idea on peer to peer mentoring I know it's quite hard to do and do well, but she talked about it, really, really helpfully.
CJ: Yeah, and embedding key functional skills as well just seems really, really important. Francesco and I discussed what courses that Prisoners Education Trust offers are what's popular with prisoners, and how taking part in those courses can actually help reduce reoffending. It was really interesting. So let's have a listen.
CJ: Prisoners Education Trust, as you said provides funding for courses for prisoners, what are some of the most popular in demand courses that you provide.
FC: Okay, well we supply over 120 different courses there is quite a wide variety, we always say that we provide courses in all, all different, lots of different subjects from bookkeeping to beekeeping. But our most popular courses, I find it really interesting our most popular courses are ones which will potentially lead to employment, and to a career. So courses in health, fitness, nutrition, things like becoming, becoming a gym instructor courses in sort of mental health and counselling and supporting people with substance abuse. A lot of people who've had those kind of difficulties want to use their experiences to help other people. Business accountancy, those are very popular courses as well, so generally I find it really interesting that people seem to have a very clear idea about what they want to do in the future, and they really want to do courses that will benefit, benefit them on release.
CJ: that's really interesting. So that suggests does net.do completing these courses could have an impact on whether prisoners reoffend or not. Is that something that you find?
FC: Absolutely there's very clear evidence that successful education has a, has an impact on offending rates, and that's something that the Ministry of Justice accepts and they know from their own research as well. But despite this, we find that education isn't always prioritised in prisons. And I have to say that it's not true that all officers or people working in prisons necessarily understand the impact that education can have to transform lives, so that message hasn't really necessarily got across to everybody working on prison wings, and that means people may not be as supportive of facilitating access to education, as they could be. It's not necessarily seen as a part of the prison's mission to reduce reoffending, in a way that it should be.
CJ: what you're describing and it's a really, it's a real missed opportunity. It's it sounds like, from the impact of of the education that good education can have in prisons on in prisons on unemployment on reoffending rates on life, life on the outside world, for the system, and many prisons to not be grasping this opportunity feels like a real waste.
FC: It's a massive waste and it's a massive waste of potential. Some people get the skills and qualifications they need in prison and they take advantage of every opportunity offered. But I would say they are the exception, not the norm. And we've got some recent data that shows that only 4% of women leaving prison were in a job. Six weeks later, and only 10% of men leaving prison had found employment and six weeks later. So that shows us that people are not leaving prison with the skills and qualifications, and training and education they need to be able to find employment. And as you say it's a massive missed opportunity.
AT: Unsurprisingly bad Francesca spoke so eloquently about the importance of prison education. Now let's have a little think about some of the challenges.
CJ: Yeah, I spoke to Francesca about that as well. Let's hear what she has to say. What kind of education should prisoners be experiencing kind of how much of it should they be getting, who should be deliver and get that kind of thing.
FC: Okay, well that sounds like about five questions in once so I'll try and I'll try and answer them. So I think one of the main challenges in delivering prison education is, is how prison. Prison staff prison officers and the prison regime, and how prison education providers work together. At the moment it can be quite fragmented and hard to coordinate prisons are incredibly complicated organisations to run, and there's lots of challenges around. For instance, activity spaces, you know prisons are overcrowded. That means there isn't been infrastructure to deal with the amount of people that are in them. So there's not enough space in workshops or in classrooms, not they're not activity spaces. So for instance Brixton, which is a prison in South London. It was built for 400 men and 800 men are living there. And if you can imagine that means double, double the quantity that they actually have capacity for. So, prisons struggled to find activity spaces for their for their populations, particularly busy prisons. And then on top of that, they don't always allocate the spaces that we have effectively. It can be really challenging for prisoners to actually access education because most, the most prisoners. They need to be unlocked by an officer and escorted from their wing, down to the education department. If there's not enough officers on duty, and in many prisons or shortages of officers. That means people can't actually reach the education department in the first place, they're locked in their cells. They're not able to access it, education, and a lot of Ofsted reports, talk about the difficulties of just managing the practicalities of accessing education in the first place. So obviously they do talk about the quality of what's delivered, but they do talk a lot about how difficult it is for people to get into, into education and the problems around attendance allocation and activity spaces.
CJ: That's really interesting. So there are some you've highlighted some systemic issues I guess they're over overpopulation in prisons there being an obvious one, but other prisons that do this well, or more well than others that we can perhaps learn from.
FC: Absolutely, and I think one of one of the things that we can see is where, where prison. Prison staff and prison education providers are working closely together where there's more coordination, it can be more effective. And sometimes it really helps if the governor is actively and visibly supportive education prisons can be quite hierarchical places, I would say, and what that means is the governor can set the culture overtone of an establishment. If a governor makes it really clear that education should be more of a priority in the prison that can help with education, delivery, and we see a complete variety of how education is provided and how effective it is, in some of the smaller prisons in some of the open prisons, we see really effective education and we see we see these prisons working with their local further education college with local universities with different employers and other organisations in the community. And I think that's really positive to see to see that kind of networking, and that work going on in the community.
CJ: It's good to know that it can be it can be achieved.
AT: To me what came out of that is that it's all about the attitude of the prison and how the prison works that really makes a difference in delivering education.
CJ: Yeah, that's right and as fantastic has said prisons often large and really complicated places, and education is just one part of what they have to do, but it's, it's so vital to improving the life chances of those who end up in prison so it's really important that it's given the priority it deserves.
CJ: Now we're going to come on and talk about COVID in more detail in a minute. But first of all we're gonna have a bit of conversation about digital technology, which has obviously become more prominent during COVID, and has done in schools and colleges and other providers but increasingly in prisons as well. When I was talking to Francesca, she told me about how hard it is for prisoners to access technology, and even before the pandemic struck it was limiting prisoner education.
CJ: I imagine that one of the big challenges in delivering Prison Education is the fact that you don't, presumably have any digital technology involved.
FC: Absolutely So prisoners are massively disadvantaged because they don't have access to internet. They don't have any technology in their cells, and the only way they can access computers is if they can get to the education department which, or the library which depends on officers being able to escort them across. So, you know, we, we are really concerned that prisoners are losing out on many opportunities that would help them to progress their education resettled successfully. And we believe that limited restricted access to the internet is essential to develop Prison Education provide opportunities for people in online courses, and we think it can be provided safely and securely in cells, it can be monitored it can be supervised. And prison learners deserve the chance to develop essential digital skills, many of people don't have that coming into prison, and would serve the chance to access courses that will help them spend time productively while they're in prison, and then increase their chances of studying or training or getting a job when they're back in the community.
CJ: So what are the barriers to achieving that is that about the priority given to education in prisons and kind of having a can do attitude or are wider rules about access to technology that stand in the way.
FC: Well I think, I think, for a long time the barrier was concerned about, about risk and security. I mean, obviously there are risks, working in prisons. And I think during lockdown what what has been shown is that actually those widths can be can be managed, and certainly restricted intranet, can be can be provided safely and securely. But I think really now the challenge is, is funding and getting the Ministry of Justice and the Treasury to commit to enough resource to put into the pot into the infrastructure of changing prisons so that they can be cabled and have the installed technology that is needed. So it is about making the arguments that actually a small benefit society in the long run, it would be an economic thing to do in the long run, it would save money in terms of reducing reoffending, and it would save money in terms of supporting prisoners to maximise their potential, but it's, it's still, it's still something that it's difficult to to argue for, in some ways.
CJ: Yes, I can see I can see why and funding is always the big issue isn’t it.
AT: I guess this is a tricky one, isn't it, it's quite a bit of attention here about how we provide access to digital devices to allow for learning, but in a way that's safe for prisoners and the public.
CJ: It is, and I had a really interesting chat with Sheena from Her Majesty's Prison and probation service about this, she talked about a small scale project that was rolling out secure laptops to allow prisoners to learn in their cell.
CJ: Could I ask about access to digital devices as well as obviously outside of prisons as a big aspect of how education was dealt with through the pandemic but obviously there are limits to what you can do with digital devices in prisons, is that, as have have some prisons been able to use digital devices and in innovative ways.
SM: Yes, and I think that you know just to start slightly further back, there are good reasons why we don't allow blanket, access to in cell technology, mainly around protecting the public, of course, is just not appropriate. But what we have been able to do is start and I would emphasise what start, trailing the delivery of some educational content through the provision of secure laptops. So that is very small scale. At the moment it is not widespread across the estate at all, but the learning from that would then inform both the roll out in that limited way, but also wider roll out in the future. And it's something that in terms of our longer term strategy would be a high priority. So that prisoners have that opportunity to undertake learning and that could be learning of any kind.
AT: Okay Chris, so we talked through some really vital topics here, but a measure of prison education in the round, but we need to talk about COVID-19 Right, it's the elephant in the room about our conversation of prison education so what do we know about it and what impact has it had.
CJ: Yeah, of course, this is the this is the big thing of the moment, and I had a really interesting conversation with Francesca about what education actually looked like in prisons during COVID-19 So let's have a listen.
CJ: Tell us a bit about how the pandemic has affected, education and prisons.
FC: Okay, well the pandemic has affected every area of our lives in the community, but even more so I would say in prisons. So, in March last year prisons went into lockdown, and what that meant was that prisoners were kept in their cells for 23 and a half hours a day. Most prisoners were kept in their cells for that length of time, and we know that's extremely cycle, psychologically damaging for that to happen over a long period of time, and prison teachers prison tutors were not able to go into prisons anymore because they were not seen as key workers. So there were no classes and actually for quite a while, there was no education at all. For a few months, because there were no systems set up to provide education for prisoner learners. So in the community, we saw that universities and colleges, make their courses online, and everything could be developed virtually and maybe in some ways, that wasn't ideal for everybody, people could still progress, and, and carry on with thier education, but, but the prisoner learners the situation was completely different. And it's also important to remember that there's no digital technology and in prison the cells. So people didn't have access to internet while they were while they were locked up during during lockdown. So at the end of last year prison prison education staff could go back into go back into presence, but they hadn't been able to offer classes, up till the last few months where things have opened up so they can, they can offer some classes now, but they're socially distance, were smaller numbers very restricted. There's lots of rules around them. It's not the same as it was prior prior to lockdown. So lots of the education that has been delivered over the last nine months, has really been paper based learning, in cell packs materials that have been produced by person education departments and handed out for prisoners to complete in their cells, and then hand back, or marking. There's a bit of phone tutorial support going on now. And there was some other kind of forms of support but it's been so different for prisoners compared to what people have been able to access in the community. And what that means for many prisoners is they haven't had the opportunities to get the qualifications they need. They've had to stop their courses right in the middle of them. And they haven't been able to make the progress that will help them when they come out and are released and try to resettle in the community.
AT: That was really interesting like so much of what Francesca said chimed in with the conversation I had with Paul about what we've been finding when we've gone in. There have been, obviously the delays in any form of education getting into prison is in that first lockdown and Paul really highlighted how the packs Francesca described are often not tailored to the needs of individual prisoners, meaning that, you know, sometimes, although there's some stuff there. They're of limited value.
CJ: That’s right and in my conversation with Sheena. She was able to talk about some of the learning that Her Majesty's Prison and probation service have been able to take from the pandemic.
CJ: You mentioned some of the learnings that the prison service can take from the last year and a half; expand a bit on, on what you think those are.
SM: Yes, I think there's two main things here. So one is the concept of blended learning, which if you were studying at a college in the community would probably be a phrase that you would be very familiar with, but it's been difficult for us in prisons. So one of the things that we're looking at is how we can maintain perhaps some of the learnings from blended learning so even although some prisoners will be able to access education, away from residential wings. The fact that some of it could still take place on wing in cell. Therefore, outside the corners, during which you would normally expect to access education so you just got that increased flexibility, that's something that we're looking at very closely, again, with our provider colleagues, it's very much a partnership approach. I think the other thing is about prisoners who are perhaps more hard to reach, and there can be many reasons for that. But we know that some people, perhaps don't want to engage in classroom based learning, perhaps we didn't have positive experiences of that in prior educational experiences. It could be about their own personal safety. So, there are reasons why prisoners, perhaps would not necessarily choose to do that. So again, it's something that we want to be able to continue, and that could be a place for continuing to provide packs, even as a first step, because prisoners who engage with packs may then decide that they do believe we'd be happy to engage later on. But even if we don't, we're still able to offer something. So it's about that levels of participation, and it's about reaching people. We want prison education to be inclusive, clearly from the perspective of protected characteristics. But also inquisitive, in the broader settings, so irrespective of who you are, what you're the nature of your defences, how distant, your release date might be. You've got the opportunity to engage in something and then progress on from that, depending on what's right for you.
CJ: But we know we know don't we that education is most effective when whoever is on the receiving end prisoner child college student is able to talk to a teacher face to face is able to get that instant feedback is able to act on feedback and is able to have those interactions with, with a teacher. So I assume we're not anticipating and beyond another pandemic we're not anticipating a situation where prisoners are just not able to get out of their cells in order to access that kind of education
SM: No, absolutely not, again it's very much back to blended learning, and providing it's safe to do so, then we would want that participation, and that participation, face to face experience to resume the value of developmental feedback is immense and of course it isn't restricted to education, it's about careers guidance, it's about accessing library services and speaking to a librarian, speaking to a careers advisor about what you might want to do in the future, perhaps with little or no work background at all, or in a position where you do have a work background but for various reasons, you can't go back to that after release. So, the quality of conversations and the quality of the specific events for all professionals who work in the education space in the prison sector is absolutely invaluable, and I think it's just worth highlighting but you know I represent the adult world so people are beyond the age of compulsory education. I think that's particularly important in that case, because people don't have to engage. So therefore, we want them to want to engage, but for some people, we will start from a position that's farther back from others. So, once they get that quality interaction which we know goes on in prisons, I've had the absolute pleasure of witnessing that in so many occasions where people were reluctant to engage, but once they go and they have that quality experience, perhaps realising for the support they need for dyslexia or some other neuro-diverse condition is clear, it's, it's given positively and it's given discreetly, but that's just so important so yes absolutely, we want to be in a position where that resumes, but I think we're to go back to an earlier conversation, it's about building back better. Because actually we don't just want to go back where we were even although there were some very very good aspects to that, we want to get to a different position of this better, and includes more of a prisoners, more of the time.
CJ:That's great to hear. Because I think we had often been concerned about education in prisons for a long time it's by far the, the weakest performing of everything that we inspect in terms of the quality of education provided, but also it just strikes me that it's such a huge opportunity. Within that, to raise to raise the standard of education, and, and therefore to have some of the impacts you've been talking about whether that's rehabilitation or moving into work, or just re engaging in education for it’s own intrinsic worth, which I think is important as well. we've, we know that lots of prisoners would not have had a great time at school, by any means. In fact, probably some of the worst school experiences. And that would have flowed through into their adult lives and potentially even causing some of the problems that landed him in prison in the first place.
CJ: Which takes us on very nicely to talking more generally about what improvements, need to be made in prison education irrespective of the fact that we've been through a pandemic. Sheena talked about that too.
CJ: Do you think do you think education is appropriately prioritised in prisons, there's a lot of stuff going on in prisons clearly a lot of things for people to juggle and managers to manage does education get the priority it needs.
SM: I think that there is room for development here and again I think there is the caveat that all prisons are different. And clearly, it is a specialist role in a prison to decide what the priority for any one individual is at the right time it that's someone who knows the individual prisoner and knows what the arrangements needs are because of course, educational needs, don't exist in a vacuum, but some of our clients, for example, include having a better data system an integrated data system, because if we're in a position where we have an integrated data system that would help prisons know what priorities, individual prisoners have at a particular time, and therefore hopefully make it easier for those needs to be prioritised, but we recognise that of course that a range of priorities in prisons, and certainly some of the work that we'll be doing around accountability and metrics should make some of the prioritisation issues and decisions easier and cleaer at establishment level. I would add that we're doing all this work in partnership with stakeholders and of course that includes our stakeholders who probably work in prisons but also some of our long standing supporters of education, sort of Prisoners Education Trust, Prisoners Learning Alliance, and of course speaking to prisoners themselves. So yes, a lot to be done, but starting from a place where these have been is already a good practice even although some of that good practice has been suspended. Wholly or partially during the pandemic.
AT: I think particularly interesting the idea of keeping blended learning to make education more, you know, better available to those prisoners who were traditionally harder to reach.
CJ: Yeah I think prisons are having the same conversation that schools and colleges are having. As in, what are the best bits of online learning, we can keep while still understanding and getting all the advantages of traditional teacher led to face to face learning.
AT: Yeah, and I think it's probably a good point to bring pulled back in so we talked about what Ofsted can do to help prisons improve and then he gave a whole system a call to action, as you can well imagine from someone so passionate about this topic.
AT: Now, if we think about our role in this, obviously we are there to inspect prisons, how do we help them improve, can we help them improve what do we do?
PJ: Well Anna I think we do have a vital role, and I'm very pleased that we are undertaking some additional activity and some additional research, because this, this is such an important area of our work. I mean, our job is to inspect and report, we obviously do that, And I have. I continually comment in both our annual report, and indeed in the prison inspectorates annual report about the quality of education and what needs to be done and actually Anna it is again, is time for me to call for action. To say that you know think things really do need to improve. COVID has made a situation that that wasn't ideal much, much worse and education can play such an important role in rehabilitation and in reducing reoffending rates. We need to help HMPPS, we need to help individual prisons and education providers to do what they can to improve. So our reports, our thematic reviews, our recommendations, really do highlight why education provision isn't working as well. And my call to action really is for those leaders and managers to to take heed of those recommendations and to improve things and improve things quickly.
AT: Okay, that's, that's really powerful stuff. I think our, you know, the ideal is that, obviously, safety is paramount for prisoners and staff working in that in those prisons but for education to be the first thing to go is tough. Now we mentioned the prison review education, obviously we will see that coming up, and I understand that you're starting with research into reading into prisons which will hopefully bring some really helpful messages to the floor. Is there anything else you wanted to say about that one.
CJ: Well, the, the work we do during routine inspection is obviously vital and that looks at the quality of what's been delivered in the curriculum that's on offer. But as you rightly say it's, it's so important, reading, literacy, you know, writing, numeracy. These are essential skills, and we do find that, you know, in a typical prison population. There's a lot of demand for literacy, numeracy, education activity. Sadly, often we don't find enough of that activity going on, or where we do we find that quality isn't, isn't good enough so we're hoping through this review to pinpoint what is working well, so good practice can be shared, but also to really shine a spotlight and say that this is what's needed, and, you know, this is what needs to be done to improve reading literacy seems a really good starting point.
CJ: I want to echo Paul's call to action for the sector, and that the startling need to improve prison education quickly.
AT: Yeah, I definitely agree. And can you just touch on the prison review that we're doing so I think listeners out will be keen to hear a bit more.
CJ: Yeah, of course, so the review will look at various issues in prison education over the next year or so, but it will start with some research visits to prisons over the autumn term to look in particular at reading, we'll be looking at how prisons, assess, prisoners reading ability when they arrive, how they do that throughout their time in prison, and how the whole prison education system works together to improve prisoners reading. What this means in terms of prisoners educational progress, and well being. We know from our work in education, more broadly, that reading is just such a huge part of education being able to read fluently and well, opens up the rest of the educational world; opens up the rest of the curriculum, opens up opportunities and not being able to read, as well as, as well as people can and should is a real barrier to both their education but also work and other aspects of their life.
AT: Thank you Chris as someone who used to be a English teacher, I could not agree more. I promise that not to mention that every podcast by the way, but thank you I think it'd be really timely piece of research and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the findings will be.
AT: Ok, so we’re nearly about the end of our episode for today. One question that we've had from our listeners do schools and colleges have to produce any sort of curriculum map.
CJ: Our that's an easy one, Anna, the answer is a resounding no. Again, the inspection handbooks that we've produced a really clear that curriculum planning doesn't have to be done in any format. Inspectors won't ask for particular documents; inspectors just want to know how leaders design an ambitious and well sequenced curriculum how that prepares children well. For the next stage of their education providers will be asked what they want the children to learn, and how they know they've learnt it and what they do when they haven't. And it's as simple as that there's no kind of curriculum map required no specific documents, it's all about the conversation with the senior leaders and the subject leaders.
AT: Alright that's really helpful. So that does bring to a close. This episode of Officer talks about prison education, thanks so much for listening, and I'm sure there'll be another one soon.
Chris Jones discusses with report author, Anna Trethewey, how the review was carried out and what inspectors discovered about this issue. More than 900 children were interviewed in the course of the review and safeguarding lead Wendy Ghaffar and assistant regional director for London, John Kennedy HMI, join the discussion.
CJ: Chris Jones
AT: Anna Trethewey
WG: Wendy Ghaffar
JK: John Kennedy
M: Millie
Transcript:
CJ: Welcome to this episode of Ofsted Talks. Today we're talking about the sexual abuse review that Ofsted carried out over the last few months. Ofsted undertook the sexual abuse review following testimonies on the 'Everyone's Invited' website which I'm sure listeners will have heard all about. The website got a lot of interest in the media and politics in the general public. And of course, the testimonies on it, were quite distressing and concerning to lots of people. It really highlighted the issue of sexual abuse and harassment, both in schools, and around schools, and had some powerful stories from people of school age and who have recently left schools. Ofsted was asked by the DfE to do a rapid review of the situation in schools, and we'll hear a bit about how we did that and what we found in a couple of minutes. The resulting report that we published was widely covered in the media and is still being discussed, and I hope was important and helpful contribution to the debate and I think it's fair to say it was one of our most significant pieces of work that we've done over the last year.
I'm Chris Jones and Director of Strategy at Ofsted, and I'm presenting this podcast by myself today because Anna Trethewey, who normally presents alongside me is the author of the report we're going to talk about today, Ofsted's report on sexual abuse in schools and colleges.
CJ: Hello Anna. AT: Hello. CJ: Tell us a little bit about why Ofsted did this report. AT: Yeah sure, so we saw it coming through on everyone's invited website, and there was definitely a momentum behind taking a closer look at how this issue plays out for schools and colleges, and we were asked by the government to do a really rapid review to just get under the skin of what we can see so far. CJ: Why did Ofsted kind of think this was an important thing to do, why did Ofsted pick this up and run with it so quickly? AT: I think we've, we have always known that there are issues particular safeguarding issues in the system that we want to pay attention to - one of our core values is to improve the lives of children and learners and it feels like a really critical thing to do to be able to help them as they develop and experience, you know, some of the things that we've seen on the websites, and the discussions that we've had with leaders really just aren't acceptable so we wanted to be able to support them, and the professionals who work with them to be able to address this issue in the round. CJ: So Ofsted didn't have a huge amount of time in which to do this report I think just a couple of months from start to finish, which is not very long to tackle as you said what is hugely important issue.Talk us through kind of the process of conducting the review what actually happened. AT: So it was a little bit of an Avengers Assemble moment, I'm not going to lie there was definitely the moment of pulling in resources from right across the organisation and different regions because we knew it was important and we knew it was going to be incredibly rapid, we didn't want the findings to come out, you know, in a year's time, when things didn't feel as relevant as pertinent. That meant that we were quite tightly defined in the scope of the schools that we could get to. There were a couple of primaries couple of colleges, we picked out some of the schools that had been named on the Everyone's Invited website but also where they've been complaints that have been highlighted that has come already through to Ofsted or ISI, and then there was a bit of a random selection in there of schools as well just to try and create a little bit of balance. It's tricky to do, but we wanted to look broadly at the issue and not solely target schools that have already had concerns highlighted, and then it really was a case of all hands on deck, so you know 32 schools and colleges. Two day inspections. CJ: I'm interested in how the schools, responded to Ofsted turning up and asking these questions in particular some of the schools, from the everyone's invited website some of the prestigious independent schools are not schools that Ofsted would normally inspect so were were we welcomed with open arms? AT: Good question. I mean, as we always are Chris. No, I mean though, there was a point in here where I think particularly schools that had already been either in the limelight, had headlines about this, their schools because they've been named and Everyone's Invited some of them were expecting us anyway. And actually, I think some of them really wanted to showcase the positive work they have been doing saying look, you know, we've we're taking this seriously. We've been speaking to governors we can speak to parents, we've been getting the voices of the children and really proactively addressing this issue. And also here's what else we need to do and here's what else we'd like support with from the government. So, actually, by and large, people were nervous but you know proactive and we really did emphasise that it was a research visit, we weren't going there to inspect so I think that helped to calm any nerves.
CJ: And it struck me that there was a real disconnect between the prevalence, that the girls and boys, were talking about basically saying, this happens all the time to everybody I know, it's, it's so routine that we don't really speak up about it, even though we don't really see much wrong with it and some of the some of the boys were talking a disconnect between that and what the adults would talk about. I know from from talking to adults about this that our findings were a real surprise. AT: And I think that's the thing we knew there was a problem. Did we know how much. No, actually, and it was really quite shocking the level of what just how commonplace and how normalise some of the behaviours were to children, young people so that they would say, well, there's no point in us reporting this because it happens all the time. And I thought that was the bit I think where we started to recommend a cultural shift, even why people don't think this thing is happening in this setting, chances are it's probably happening in some level, act like it is put in place the preventative whole school approach is to shift the culture so that some of the, you know, real incidents of harmful sexual behaviour right at the end of the scale, yes they are dealt with, but ideally you'd nip some of those behaviours in the bud before they become a systemic problem in your school. This review is not representative of all children across England, but it certainly raises alarm bells. Just being able to put that in the context of what it might look like for professionals working in this area that might not really see that there's such a big problem because it doesn't surface - it just means that there's a powerful call to action I think for all of us to do this a bit better.
CJ: Seems to me that one of the big differences between when you and I were at school and school now is, is smartphones and social media - yes only so much trouble you can get into with a Nokia 37 or whatever it was.
That's not the case now is it they're carrying around these incredibly powerful computers in their pockets and they've got access to the internet and all the horrors of of that. Just how much did that come across? AT: So I think you've picked up something really important. I'm definitely going to date myself here and say I got my first phone in sixth form. I'm quite glad that I just wasn't part of that but it does mean there is quite a gulf actually between professionals who are there to work with children, young people, and how much they understand the kind of pressures that are on young people and the online sexual of abuse particularly was the bit that came through, pressure to send nudes, sending out of material that you shouldn't have in the first place but just getting circulated. So I think that is the bit that's run away with, with professionals in the area and the government, you know we did raise a recommendation here for better, the Online Safety Bill I think will go some way to address this and I know the steps are being looked at, but yeah I think it starts to blur the lines between where out of school and in school, incidents happen.
And we can see that that was, that was hard for school leaders, but many of them are really trying to proactively tackle, kind of an educated approach to making sure that children understood what acceptable and unacceptable behaviours were, because sometimes worryingly, they didn't really understand where those lines were. CJ: So hard to keep up, isn't it, I think we saw some of the government guidance referred to 'sexting' AT: Yes, CJ: which I don't know - none of the children we spoke to knew what that was. They didn't use that word, it made everyone feel very out of touch AT: Yeah and I definitely had a couple of Urban Dictionary moments. But, you know, I think we owe it to the children and young people to better understand the kind of language that they are, and frame whatever guidance, in a way that addresses and meets the needs, you know, from their perspective. And you know just a note as well schools generally were following the guidance they needed to where there were incidents, couple of incidents where there wasn't the case but generally, you know, schools are working really hard in this space, but that cultural piece. I think it's time for a step change in that in that area, particularly. CJ: it's difficult, isn't it, when if no one's talking about it is difficult to know what to do, or even know that it's happening so like you say that, that cultural thing about assuming that it's happening and trying to create that culture in which a) you reduce the likelihood of it happening as much as possible but b) that people, when things do go wrong, are able to talk about it to the right people and feel confident that the right resolution will be reached and it will be done sensitively, carefully. AT: and I think that's the bit where schools say they feel quite lonely, actually, and more could be done, and something just to add, you know, I'll wrap this up because we'll obviously hand over to other people who've got experience in the review in this area more broadly, but this review was never meant to solve it all, but it was meant to shine a light, and I really hope that the voices, we have done justice to the voices of children and people who told us in no uncertain terms the kind of things are happening to them frequently. So yes, thank you. CJ: Thanks Anna.
CJ: So I'm joined now by Wendy Ghaffar, Ofsted's specialist advisor for safeguarding. Thank you for taking some time to talk to me, obviously, talking to children was a huge part of this review can be fraught with difficulty. So how did we go about seeking children's views as part of the review? WG: So we felt that the most important aspect of this review was hearing the voices of children hearing about their experiences. And what we did was we designed a focus group for different ages of children, so we had questions and activities that were geared and aimed at different age groups. We brought children together in a focus group in all of the schools that we visited, we decided to have a single sexed focus groups, and that worked really well and we also spoke to some existing groups in schools, for example, groups of LGBTQ plus children. So in all we spoke to 900 children. And we hope that the children's views and experiences are really well represented in the review I think they bring real depth and meaning to this review. They have very strong views about what was happening to them. They were clear about the fact that they felt that adults don't understand their experiences. I think that is a really important learning point because I think some adults might be reluctant to talk to children about these issues. But actually if you do that in the right way and think about how you're going to do that, we found children were eager to discuss what are difficult and sensitive subjects but, but something that's actually affecting their daily lives. CJ: So having, having found the right way to speak to children on the review, and as you say speak to quite a lot of them, what did we find what were children saying about their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse? WG: I think the main finding of the review is that children are experiencing sexual harassment and abuse, especially online abuse, far more frequently than adults, realise, and I think another really important message is that we found this across every school that we visited. And so, 64% of girls said that unwanted touching sexual touching was happening a lot or sometimes. 80% of girls said that unwanted or inappropriate sexual comments were happening a lot or sometimes. And 79% said that sexual assault of any kind, was happening, sometimes or a lot. And the other thing that children said consistently was the adults, including teachers really didn't understand the reality of children's lives, and what they were experiencing on a day to day basis. They describe teachers as being out of date. And generally what we found when we talked to teachers, leaders, staff in schools, was that their perception of what was happening was quite different, generally, to children's experiences. I'm just going to give you one example of what we found in one school. So in this particular school children said that what they termed slut shaming and body shaming so in other words, constant sexualized comments particularly about girls bodies, and talking about other children in a sexualized way was really common, but partiular school said that to us, to inspectors, that that mainly happened outside of the school and one member of staff actually went too far to say there was mutual respect between children in the school. The leaders seem to be much more aware and they described what they called a rugby culture that needed addressing but I think this illustrates that disconnect between what children were saying to us, and what staff were saying was happening. In terms of that sort of sexualized language so terms like slag and slut, children said that was commonplace, as was homophobic language, and many children said that staff, either weren't aware of the language that was happening. Some dismissed it as 'banter' almost minimising it, and others were not prepared to tackle it. We also found that children themselves weren't were generally not prepared to tackle either inappropriate sexualized behaviour or language that they saw - they didn't have the confidence to do that. And in some cases some of the boys tended to refer to use of such language as a joke or banter.
Another issue that was coming to light was the issue of sexual harassment happening in unsupervised spaces in schools, including for example on corridors between lessons. Girls spoke of sexualized touching by boys happening in corridors, which is actually classified within the law as sexual assault, and being fearful for example of walking upstairs because of the fear of upskirting. And so what this exemplifies is that schools really need to take responsibility for the space within the school, and think about places where children might feel unsafe. So one of the exercises we did do, it's an exercise that Bedfordshire University developed, was to provide children with a map of the school and to ask them about where they felt comfortable and where they felt uncomfortable. And that was a really quick way of understanding children's use of space in school, and then being able to talk to them about what made them feel uncomfortable so that that's an example of something that a school could do on a regular basis to keep an overview of what's happening in the different spaces and then to take measures to address the behaviours that are happening in those spaces and change physical spaces so that they're safer for children/
CJ: Here's Millie, speaking about her experiences at school.
M: I actually had a situation in the cafeteria once where boys shouted stuff that's along the lines of slut shaming and I kind of broke down in front of my head of year, and this was kind of the first time I properly opened up to a teacher, okay this is what's going on. At this point I've had quite bad slut-shaming and bullying of that nature for maybe a year and a half, two years, and she, she got the boy to give me a half assed apology. But there was no thought to, Millie looks really upset, maybe she should have sort of a talk with a counsellor at least, or maybe just like a little side conversation to follow up. How are you feeling, and I don't really understand why that was never given a second thought because I think that's kind of basic training, I don't know. And lots of things happen like that. Teachers telling you to, if I wanted to stay after class at all, when they noticed that I wasn't doing homework or being as productive. And that never being followed up.So there's just a lot of missed opportunities, I think, and that's how my school handled my situation was missed opportunities and not really caring.
WG: I think what's most concerning about this is that many children and young people saw this behaviour as so commonplace. They just saw it as part of life, and girls spoke spoke about boys being persistent when asking for images. One child said they wouldn't take no for an answer. And another said that boys would create multiple accounts to harass you, if you don't send them an image. Another child spoke of girls being contacted 10 or 11 times a night by different boys asking for nude images. So there's something about the frequency of this happening, the fact that it seemed to be so common, and the persistence, in terms of pressure being put on children, to share nude images. Some of this activity happened outside of school, but clearly it had a really negative impact on children, and it has a significant impact on the normalisation of harmful sexual behaviour and unhealthy cultures in school, and we saw some of the evidence of this in primary schools, for example, children watching pornography, outside of school, or looking at inappropriate images on social media, and then that problem being brought into the school and having an impact on different children. And girls were frustrated about the lack of teaching about this issue in particular, and they felt they needed real support.
CJ: Some really shocking things you've described, and some really some really vivid examples that were given to us by the children we spoke to, when given the opportunity to talk about these things and given the right environment children will come forward and will talk as they clearly did to to our inspectors when we gave them the opportunity, but in general is it not fair to say that children are reluctant to talk about these issues they choose not to speak out and why do you think that is?
WG: There were a range of reasons. Sometimes it's because they feel nothing will be done. Sometimes they had seen that other children have reported issues and nothing, no action was taken. Some children said that it was so commonplace that they didn't see any point in reporting what was happening. Some children were fearful that they wouldn't be believed, a really strong theme that came out, what would happen to their reputation, their reputation in the school and with their peers, and the social consequences - so there was a real sense that in some peer groups, they might be called a snitch, by talking about their peers that that could lead to them being ostracised or bullied, and there's a quote from, from a child which I think is quite, quite powerful. And this child said, sometimes if you report something in school, everybody quickly knows about it. A teacher takes you out of the lesson, and everyone's like, what's that about, when you come back into the classroom. So that sense that even if you're being assured that this information won't be shared or it will be kept confidential, that was quite difficult to do so in a school environment.
CJ: There's clearly a really complex and difficult set of problems here and issues that are deeply embedded into culture and society and it's incumbent on I think quite a lot of us involved in safeguarding in education, to play our part in in tackling this and we'll come to some of the other partners and the Ofsted inspection role in a bit but let's start with schools. What can schools, specifically do to start to address this?
WG: So, absolutely, in the review we acknowledge that schools can't deal with this issue on their own and that I think that's a really important point. But obviously there are some really significant things that schools can do. We found that schools were tending to deal with incidents of sexual violence for example that come to their attention, as, as we would expect and as required. But many schools seem to have an incident driven approach. So we're asking for a much wider cultural shift in schools and some schools are doing this well but a cultural recognition of what's required to tackle sexual harassment and abuse. So one of one example of that would be identifying inappropriate behaviours, very early on, and preventing them from escalating and ensuring that schools are keeping really good records and analysing patterns and trends and in that way, hopefully they can identify issues early, they can intervene and apply the appropriate approach. Now that might be a behavioural approach, it might be sanctions, and it may be in some situations that children themselves who are perpetrating sexual harassment or abuse have actually experienced that themselves, and a safeguarding approach is required so we have to remember here we're talking about children that have different levels of harmful sexual behaviour, and depending on the particular behaviour the context, details of the incident. There may need to be safeguarding approach.
WG: Schools need to create an environment where talking about relationships, that's healthy relationships, as well as inappropriate relationships is the norm, and that children feel okay and relaxed about talking to teachers about these issues. So engaging with children in small group discussions, we found that works well and we know that some schools are doing this. We did have some girls telling us that teachers made inappropriate comments to them about their appearance. So clearly there needs to be a culture in school where there's clear expectations around staff conduct and behaviour, and also that staff routinely tackle inappropriate behaviour and language and create that culture, where children expect and can be assured they will be safe, and that it's safe to tackle sexual harassment and abuse.
CJ: So there are definite steps that schools can take, and I think there'll be, there'll be no schools anywhere that has got this completely cracked and can't make any improvement so hopefully everyone will be able to take something from what you've just said Wendy. But obviously schools don't operate in isolation, they're part of a wider system of safeguarding and it's incumbent on everybody in that system isn't it to play their part to the full. What did we find out in the review about those safeguarding partners?
WG:So, we decided to speak to local safeguarding partners in 12 local areas. So, as you may well know they, the local safeguarding partners are the key statutory mechanism if you like for agreeing how relevant agencies in each local area work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, including schools, but we found a mixed picture really across local areas, we found that some local safeguarding partners were doing some really good work and I'll come on to talk about that in a minute, but not all of them had oversight of issues of sexual harassment and violence in schools, in their local area. Some of the local safeguarding partners felt that the guidance that the government has put in place doesn't make clear enough the responsibility of schools to engage with local safeguarding partners, but also we found that some schools said to us that it was quite difficult for them to engage with local safeguarding partners so clearly there are some issues here that need addressing. And I think particularly for schools and colleges that take pupils in from different localities different local areas that can be a real challenge because they're dealing with, or having to work with different local safeguarding partners. So we made some recommendations to the government here about making the guidance much clearer about the way in which schools and local safeguarding partners need to work together. And we did see some examples of where this was working well I'll just give you a couple of examples. One was where local safeguarding partners were bringing together, designated safeguarding leads from different schools to talk about safeguarding issues to share practice as well as issues they were attempting to address, and that gave a forum for them to learn from each other, to share information, but it also meant that the local safeguarding partners had a sense of which schools might need some additional support. But I think what's clear, and what we're seeing in the review is there's no single agency that can tackle this issue alone. This is a really wide issue across society, and it needs government, it needs parents and carers, it needs agencies that work with children, including schools to work together really effectively to prevent sexual violence and harassment, and to reduce the risk.
CJ: We've heard from Wendy there, and we're joined now by John Kennedy, our assistant Regional Director in London. So John, you're one of our senior inspectors, tell us a little bit about how we inspect safeguarding. JK: I think it's important to say, at the start that the focus of inspectors is on how well leaders and other staff have created a culture of safeguarding where pupils welfare is promoted and where timely and appropriate safeguarding action is taken, for those who need extra help or are likely to be suffering harm. So I think one of the things that inspectors will always do is to take into account any relevant concerns that have been raised about a school in advance of the inspection. So for example if there had been concerns that had been raised by parents or other members of the public or whoever, about a particular school around the area of sexual violence and harassment, inspectors will have that information in advance of the inspection. But during the inspection itself, inspectors will need to consider and discuss with leaders, for example the records they hold, and any analysis that they've undertaken regarding incidents of sexual violence and harassment. Inspectors will also speak to a range of different people during inspection. I just want to kind of highlight some of them there's always a danger you leave people out but they will talk to leaders, especially the designated safeguarding lead about any pupils who may be in need of help and support because of safeguarding concerns, and they will look at what support has been provided for those pupils, either internally by the school, or through working with other partners such as health, social care or the police. Inspectors will also want to look at examples of how well this has been done by looking at records as well as having discussions with leaders about what action they've taken, they'll also want to speak to governors about their role in ensuring that the school meets its safeguarding duties, inspectors will speak to staff at all levels, about their understanding of what's expected of them. And they'll also want to speak to leaders about aspects of the curriculum that Wendy referred to, which helps pupils learn about healthy and respectful relationships. But the most important group of people that inspectors will speak to are pupils, and they will do that informally, or in groups, and they'll talk about their experiences and learning, how safe they feel and act, what action is taken, if they do have concerns, and what support is in place, where they have raised concerns with staff, that's a fundamental part of our inspection practice. And you can see from the review that that was a key element in the in the evidence that we were able to gather.
CJ: And we've heard during the course of our conversations that children are not usually especially comfortable discussing these issues, and your inspectors come along and they are strangers that are not members of the school community. So how can inspectors tell when something is wrong, when they're speaking to a group of children is it a sixth sense that they have or is it something that they're looking for?
JK: Inspectors do have that sense of when people pupils are uncomfortable having a discussion about something or for that matter when staff are, but I think it's, it's quite important for inspectors to, to have a discussion with pupils where it's somewhat general about concerns that pupils face rather than focusing on a particular pupils experience, you can normally tell if there are issues which may require further exploration when pupils are talking about incidences, or examples where they don't feel safe.
Unknown 30:52 And this, this, you know, sometimes it's about their experience in the school setting. And in that case I think what you've got to do is make sure that if specific concerns are raised, that they are brought to the attention of the designated safeguarding lead. And the same would apply when staff raise concerns, you need to be insured as an inspector, because those concerns are being followed through. The other area where we do often get concerns is through pupil staff or parental surveys, because that's sometimes there's a way of pupils or parents, for example, or staff for that matter, sharing concerns in a quasi confidential way and inspectors, while they won't investigate those concerns, will look at the pattern that's emerging and have discussions with leaders about that. The Department for Education have updated their statutory guidance, keeping children safe in education to reflect the findings of Ofsted's review, and I think it's really important that schools and colleges understand those changes that have been made, because they do take effect from the beginning of September.
CJ: The children involved in these incidents affected by some of the things we've been talking about, presuming this is quite destabilising for them, distressing, and must be a real effort on the part of schools to help them through that, but also to help them with their learning as well and continue concentrating in the classroom. Thanks John. Millie again.
M: In my personal experience, there was a lot of signs like with work I wasn't as productive in class, or with homeworks or outside, and I wasn't myself. I just, I feel like that my teachers never brought up on that, and then also in classes kind of inappropriate touching by boys, and comments that I felt were never really taken seriously. And that I think ties into the whole mental health thing, because it was a very obvious sign, and it was never really approached, or kind of given any second thought, in a classroom setting, which I feel like is half the job of a teacher really. Half is education, but you also have to think about that these kids are growing up in your school, and you want them to leave with the best kind of head on them to go into the adult world. But I think there are, you can't expect your friends to help with an emotional, mental health thing, because they only know what they know and that's basically what you know and you're all the same age.
This has been Ofsted talks you can find those on PodBean, Twitter, or the Ofsted gov.uk page. Thanks to all our contributors to this episode of Ofsted Talks, thanks for listening.
Introducing the new Ofsted podcast, 'Ofsted Talks'. This is the pilot episode.
Chris Jones discusses with Amanda Spielman and Chris Russell the impact of the pandemic on children and schools, as well as Chris Russell's ambitions for his new position as National Director for Education.
Transcript
CJ – Chris Jones
AS – Amanda Spielman
CR – Chris Russell
CJ: Hi everybody and welcome to the Ofsted podcasts ‘Ofsted Talks’. This is the first episode in our new venture and it's one that we're all very excited about. My name is Chris Jones. I'm the Director of Corporate Strategy at Ofsted, and I'll be hosting most of these podcasts, along with Anna Trethewey, our Head of Strategy. Anna couldn't be with us today, but we'll see her in the next episode. I've got with me. Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, Hello Amanda.
AS: Hello Chris.
CJ: And I've also got with me, Chris Russell, who is currently Regional Director for South East region but about to take on a new challenge as National Director of Education. Hello Chris.
CR: Hello Chris.
CJ: Very pleased to have both of you with us on this pilot episode an experiment for all of us, we'll see how it goes.
CJ: We're going to talk a bit about COVID and the impact of the pandemic on children and on schools and other education providers. We're going to talk a bit about both the areas of concern that we've picked up, but also any upsides of lockdown for children and families, and we're also going to talk a bit about inspections, and what inspections might look like post COVID. And why inspection is important post COVID. So, Chris, I'm going to turn to you first, I mentioned your new role as National Director of Education. Tell us a bit about why you wanted to take on that challenge, and what you think you'll be letting yourself in for in the first few months.
CR: Yeah, thanks Chris. I mean, I guess I do know what I'm letting myself in for because I had the opportunity during the pandemic to cover the role for five months when Sean Halford who's our current national director was seconded to the COVID taskforce, so that was obviously a very interesting time that was between September and January so obviously a lot going on in terms of the pandemic, and a big focus at that time was shaping our work to do very different things at that time, in terms of what kind of inspection and wider work. So very interesting time, I really enjoyed it actually; really enjoyed working with the team; excellent colleagues in the, in the directorate. So really looking forward to I mean what's great about the job I think is it sits so centrally in Ofsted as an organisation all that policy work, all that developmental work around our inspection across the education remits, you know you're very much at the centre of that, you know, as I say working with a fantastic bunch of people actually within the Directorate who, who will work on all of those things. So, I'm really looking forward to that. It's obviously a great opportunity to, I think within that role to have external engagement with the sector and I really enjoyed doing that during that period. And that will be a really strong focus for me. But also you know I've been a regional director before that an inspector but a regional director now for I think six or seven years. So, I'll also bring into that, all that sort of experience of kind of inspection delivery working with inspectors who are out there doing the inspection. I'm also looking forward to kind of, you know, drawing on that and keeping those really close links you know with inspection and with inspection delivering, with our inspectors, you know, as I as I go into the role.
CJ: Fantastic, well I'm convinced, you can have the job.
CR: Thanks Chris.
CJ: We'll stick with you, Chris. Our first topic conversation. We're going to talk about what we found when we did visits during the autumn of, 2020 When we did a series of visits to all different types of providers, which were non-judgmental, but which allowed us to report back on what was happening in the sector, and report back to government, to parents, to schools and colleges. Can you tell us a bit about what was going on at that time? What did we find, what were some of the concerns that we highlighted?
CR: Yeah, I mean clearly that was a, you know, a very interesting time where you because we, we just had a number of months where the vast majority of children were out of school and from September obviously schools, largely opened up, although as we all know that there was quite an impact in terms of pupils being sent, sent home, etc. So, you know at that point very much we saw the impact of disruption in schooling from sort of march through to September. And, you know, we were also, you know, looking at the way in which schools were trying to get back to normal and actually get underneath the learning loss that had happened and how they might actually enable pupils to catch up. I think what it showed us more than anything else because, you know, it was a very interesting few months actually enabling us to get underneath all of that which fed into the thematic reports that we produced during that period. And what it did show us if we needed to be shown I think was the absolute importance of, of children being in school. And what children had missed by not being in school during that period. And of course, you know schools had put in place remote learning and I think, you know schools were finding their feet with that during that period from March to September, and what we were seeing there was that, you know, that practice it evolved from very little really to schools actually making a much better job of remote learning where they needed to but, but actually clearly the recognition that it's much better if, if children are in school. So, you know we saw all of that really and it gave us a bit of a window on that kind of learning loss and what, what the effect that been on pupils during that period when they really were out of school. And I think, you know, leaders, then and probably still now, you know, still getting underneath that and still, you know, achieving an understanding of that really but it was certainly, you know, very apparent the impact of that I mean, you know, very broadly to, you know, in the early years, for example we saw some real impact on some of those basic things for younger children around, you know, fine and gross motor skills, some of the things around personal development and socialisation. Clearly, there's been a significant impact on there. And, you know, more broadly in terms of the curriculum, while you know, pupils had made some progress with remote learning. Clearly, there are limitations there really and some pupils respond more positively to it, others find it more challenging and clearly there are elements of the curriculum that are much more difficult to deliver. In that way, and we really saw the impact of that and I've always been very keen musician, it's been very apparent to me during this the impact on music and the difficulties and actually, young people playing together musically. So, you know, some of those broader things we really, really saw the impact of that, I mean more widely as well clearly what we saw there was a real impact on transition that really important transition when pupils move from primary to secondary school. Clearly, that didn't happen in the normal way and you know you really feel for those young people if they've had that schools made the best attempt they could, at supporting people through that transition. But it wasn't the normal process for them. So, we saw a whole range of the impact of that really during those visits at that time, and obviously after that what we did have was a period again of disruption from January onwards where most pupils again were out of school. And while schools had done a lot to develop remote learning. And what we saw in the visits that we did in, in spring, virtual visits actually, in spring. Was that remote learning had moved on, there's clearly no doubt that that's not the same as people as being in school. So, you know there is that ongoing learning loss that peoples have experienced from that period.
CJ: Amanda, Chris has given us a really good summary of what we found on those visits from the autumn. This was at a point when inspections were suspended, and we didn't have that normal flow of information coming through to us. Why did you want us to be out there doing these visits, why did you think that was important?
AS: Ofsted is such a key source of information from the ground, and getting beyond the anecdotal because, yes, there are great many anecdotes that flow through here or there, But our work, setting up a programme that looks at a good balanced sample across the country, people in difficult circumstances; people who are coping well really helps get the national perspective, and helps put all those anecdotes in proportion. So, I really wanted us to be doing that to be that pair of eyes that could help pick up and put together the big the bigger picture that could really help everybody focus on the right things for children.
CJ: And we know that it was, it was hugely helpful to government, for example in planning their policy response to the pandemic to know what was happening in those in those providers.
AS: I think it was, and I think, particularly the fact that we were able to do a series of rapid reports we didn't just save it all up for blockbuster at the end, we really worked on our teams to get as much out of the evidence we collected as quickly as we could to publish a series of monthly commentaries, and I think that was a really flexible and responsive way to approach the task.
CJ: Chris, let's talk about a couple more specifics in terms of what we found as a throughout the period of lockdown. There was rightly quite a lot of concern about children with special educational needs and disabilities around disadvantaged children who perhaps didn't have either the kind of access to education through your online systems or what didn't have the kind of family support structures and family environment that made education work in the home, tell us a bit about what we found, for those groups of vulnerable children.
CR: Yeah, I mean there's no doubt that, you know, clearly there's been an impact there for all children and young people but, but some children young people have been particularly affected by that. And one group of pupils with SEND, with special educational needs, or disabilities. And what we found there was that there was a particular impact in terms of those children missing school; for a range of reasons really some of that around some of those, those young people clearly were shielding so couldn't go to school, others there were problems of transport, in others, the schools we're trying to, were struggling to sort of manage to deal with, with some of those young people's particular needs. So, you know that there is a particular challenge around attendance at school which was particularly affected with that group of pupils. But actually, more broadly than that as well there was a there was an impact on some of those support services which is so crucial for many of those young people. So, a loss of speech and language therapy for example of a loss of occupational therapy or physiotherapy in many cases, those support services were badly disrupted, and even when some of those support services started to go back sometimes, they were some of those services were done virtually which clearly is not as the same, not the same as, as having that face to face. So, we've seen particular impact there. And also, when pupils have returned to school. In some cases, the curriculum that that's been offered or is being offered is not as broad as it previously was so some opportunities have been lost, some opportunities for example for community learning for going out and doing things in the community have been affected by the by the pandemic. And as you also say Chris, you know, that disadvantaged peoples in many cases have been particularly affected by this period, because so much during the period of lockdown and a period of disruption has been dependent on whether it's been remote learning on people's helping young people. And while many of those disadvantaged pupils have been prioritised and have been in school during this period, and actually some of them have benefited from that and the smaller classes and the, the more individual attention. Not all have so many have missed out and maybe have been a bit at home and haven't been able to benefit fully from remote learning, so have particular gaps in their knowledge and understanding.
CJ: Amanda we've been talking recently, haven't we, about the system of support for children with SEND. We've published a couple of reports recently that build on the findings that Chris was talking about from our work doing that during the period of lockdown. What are your impressions of how the system is support children with SEND is at the moment, um, what do you think the government in that SEND review should be thinking about?
AS: SEND; It's so obviously one of the area's that's already suffered during the pandemic and for fairly obvious reasons for many children, it doesn't seem to be impossible to give them the services on which they and their families so depend. So, see seeing so much of the in person support melting away for the duration has been really, really tough for children and their families against that we have heard from a minority of children, perhaps sometimes children with very particular kinds of special needs some social difficulties that it's actually been helpful for them to have the quiet, the peace, of working from home, I'm not saying that this is an absolute universal blanket finding, but it's clear that on balance it's been there's been a really big loss to children and young people with SEND, it has been a big problem. And I think it's focused people's minds, very much on what it is that we actually need to make schoolwork for those children and to help them get as much in the way of education, and as much social development to really make sure it's a good experience all round.
CJ: You've made the point. During the last 12 months so that's the, the pandemic didn't impact purely disadvantaged children, actually there were lots of effects that were perhaps counterintuitive, such as motivation, being a real factor in whether children learned.
AS: It's so interesting because everybody who works in our sectors is so accustomed to thinking about the labels that we all use as shorthand for various kinds of disadvantage, free school meals, Pupil Premium SEND, ESL and so on. And we tend to assume that the various kinds of problem, and disadvantage and underachievement will line up quite well with those labels, and of course what we saw here was something that didn't line up neatly at all. Sometimes, it was about families, it was about whether the parents were working inside or outside the home and the effect that had on the amount of time they could spend with children on remote education. Sometimes it was about things like just like having younger siblings. If you've got a parent at home but you've also got a toddler and a baby in the house, those parents just cannot spend as much time on helping the seven-year-old, as a family where there's just seven-year-old, and the motivation piece came through, so strongly, and few people listen to this can't have heard stories of teenagers just have slumped in their bedrooms, not really able to summon the energy to get out of bed and such depressing stories. And that cuts right across the sexes social class, every dimension, and we heard from so many places about children who just couldn't be motivated and that added up to a substantial minority who really didn't get involved in remote education when we were another, or not to any serious extent so there's a slice of children who, what are some children of motored, we know there's a bigger slice of children who have really struggled.
CJ: We've talked a lot about the concerns that we, that we've reported on over the last 12 months or so. Amanda you mentioned some of the positives for children with SEND, some children with SEND, who will have enjoyed working at home and in relative peace and quiet.
AS: It's clear from every survey and study I've seen that there is a subset of children who enjoyed being at home, whose parents enjoyed teaching with them, I think, I think there are parents out there who have discovered their inner teacher and some of those actually want to carry on with it, carry on home educating indefinitely but I think there's a bigger group of parents who are pretty happy to be handing back to teachers. I know that there are, there are some parents who have decided to carry on through this year who we think we're likely to see the children coming back into school in September, is all a bit uncertain actually quite how many children have shifted to the home education blind for good. It's one of those things we will we're just waiting to see come September.
CJ: It was interesting, wasn't it to see the difference between the first lockdown the kind of spring, summer 2020 lockdown, and the second period of school closure in terms of the impact on parents actually and speaking to the parents in in my team. Whilst in the first lockdown, they were trying to keep the kids entertained but didn't have much schoolwork to give them by the second lockdown, they were kind of inundated with online learning and worksheets and various things to doing it became a full time job in itself being a parent of a, of a child in lockdown, Chris, that was something you mentioned in terms of the difference between the first and the second lockdown in terms of the kind of breadth and depth of the remote learning offer that was out there.
CR: I think that's very true Chris actually I mean; I think we have to remember that we're going back to March, April, you know, suddenly we're in lockdown and school was really pretty much from nowhere where we're, we're kind of inventing their own remote learning in most cases and finding their way with it and sharing what they've learned with it you know other school leaders and so on to develop that practice. And we really saw that I think we went out in spring, and because if you remember there in early January. The schools were again close the majority of pupils and we did some remote monitoring inspection work during that period. And that really enabled us to have a window on what schools are done with remote learning we, we certainly saw that as you say crazy in some cases, that certainly did up the expectation on parents I think some parents realise the challenges of teaching and of managing young people in their learning. But certainly, you know, we really saw, we didn't really see the development of that remote learning practice. I mean while, you know, as we've said we all acknowledge that's not the same as being in school, and actually it's a very personal thing for young people really, those that can engage well and be motivated learning remotely and others that find that really difficult I think that's really, really sort of personal thing. But at least you know, through that development and we hope that schools won't have to close again like that, but I think what schools have learned there will surely be helpful for young people. For example, you might be off ill or whatever, and actually can have a better education when they're not in school, but absolutely, what we found this, you know, whatever schools have done and I think they, they worked really hard to and some did extremely well, to develop that remote learning. It's not the same as having children in school.
AS: Yes, I agree with what Chris has said, and, of course, children don't know what they might have started doing if they'd been in school, and some of the children who were perfectly happy at home may nevertheless have missed out on some plays and football, some new activities that they didn't know they'd be interested in that, they haven't been able to try because school hasn't been it hasn't been open for them to work to offer them. So, it's, I don't think we should get too comfortable this whole the wider development exposing children to things that aren't on the home radar is such an important part of what the education system does.
CR: Yeah and I mean I don't want to get too anecdotal but I mean speaking recently to a piano teacher near to me who does you know after school piano lessons and so he was saying how A) how many pupils dropped out during the pandemic, and B) how few young people have started taking lessons during that period. So I think some of those broader educational experiences and I mentioned music earlier and do so again really you really worried for the kind of legacy of that on what young people have missed out.
AS: I think a lot of parents have really started to admire teachers for what they do. And to understand quite how much skill goes into teaching a teaching a class and getting real educational progress and one mother friend of mine who's got a child at primary school has said that she's not sure that her relationship with her daughter is ever going to recover.
CJ: So, we talked about the fact that despite some heroic efforts on the parts of teachers and also parents and children, of course, there will have been learning time loss and there will have been things that we would have expected children to know and to be able to do. But they can't, as a result of, of the various periods of school closure and remote learning. So, how do you, Amanda, think that children are going to catch up to where they should be.
AS: Catch up is a really difficult concept because, first of all I know it's not a term that everybody is comfortable with, but parents seem to like it, and to find it an easy and understandable way to think about it, so please will listeners who aren't comfortable with the term bear with me. But when we talk about catch up, there's an implication that we know what the baseline is, and of course COVID hit suddenly in the middle of a school year, we don't have a national level, we've got a pretty good handle on where children on average would have been, but that doesn't translate into a good understanding, a really good understanding, at pupil level or even at school level, of where everybody would have been. So it's very important not just to assume that there's a nice of catch up scale that can be imposed on every single child that says, You've caught up, you haven't, it's a much subtler thing than that. But pretty much every child has lost some of the teaching they would have had, and some have with school parent helps managed never that nevertheless to really sort of deeply learn everything we would have done, but for many more, they either haven't got things at all, or there are chunks missing or chunks that they're pretty superficial with. So catch up is actually about picking up and really understanding what are the pieces that haven't been learned to have only been partly learnt, and really making sure that schools work well from that point to consolidate what's in strength and what's there to add the pieces that are to really build a strong foundations for educational progress going forward. It's not something that you can simply point and say, now do catch up. It's about really good diagnosis, teaching from where children are and recognising that the patterns of what children have and don't have will be somewhat different from usual so it's got to be about taking children forward with really clear focus on what they need to get them ready for the next step in a way that that won't leave them with horrible hidden weaknesses that could trip them up in the next stage.
CJ: It sounds like you're talking about things that are fundamental to education in normal times as well, you're really clear and productive use of assessment. Very well thought through sequenced and planned curriculum. Is that Is that what you think that they capture answers about you, Chris.
CR: Yeah, I mean I think this absolutely echo everything that Amanda has said there, and I think this really highlights actually, the importance of unclearly was important before but even more now the importance of having clarity about your curriculum and the structure of your curriculum. And those really key elements that pupils absolutely have got to have, Like I say it was important before but it's even more important now so you know, for schools to have that and have that understanding of, you know where then the pupils because of the impact of the pandemic, I've got gaps in that and to work at ensuring that those, those kind of key curricular building blocks are strong for those young people.
AS: And I think what makes it a bit harder for teachers is probably that, that the pattern of things that children do well on and things that children struggle with is probably a little bit different when so many of missed teaching in the classroom, some of the harder concepts that with, with good teaching you can get all children to grasp and do well on quite quickly are probably things that, that have disproportionately suffered during COVID. So they're probably dealing with slightly different patterns of gaps and difficulty from usual.
CJ: Where does that leave us with tutoring them, So lots of schools will be using tutors in order to help children catch up in fact it's one of the government's aims is to get as many schools as possible using tutors but it sounds like from what from what you're saying, Amanda, it sounds like schools would need to be very careful about how they use tutors in order to make sure that they're teaching the right things.
AS: Very definitely tutoring. Tutoring has some great strengths, but it's got to be well integrated with the curriculum that the children are being taught, and it can be really good for reinforcement and practice for children who just need that extra bit of time to consolidate and strengthen concepts to that to the level of other others in their class, it can be very good for filling in gaps where children have missed chunks of schooling that others. It's obviously used in normal times, a lot where children have got a particular objective, they need to meet; a grade for a university course or an 11 Plus test that a parent wants them to wants them to do well in. But in this context, it really should be about tying in well with curriculum so that all children, even the ones who've come for this to drift get back into the range of the normal teaching in the normal classroom as quickly as possible because that's the most efficient and the most motivating way for most for most children actually is to being in a classroom with their peers with a good teacher, who really knows their subject.
CJ: You mentioned exam grades there. Give us your, your take on the last couple of years in terms of how exam grades have been issued.
AS: What a bumpy ride, it's been for us all. I think what we've really learned going through a second year of an alternative to act two exams is quite how difficult it is to construct an alternative that satisfies young people that they can really show what they can do and that it's fair that people who might have thought that were easy alternatives to exams, probably know that any alternative is just as complicated. But I think a great deal of effort has gone in by teachers and many others to try and make sure that we've got something that's as good as it can be in these very difficult circumstances. It's not perfect. I think it's important that everybody understands it's not perfect, but it is a genuine attempt to give children something that reflects what they've learned what they're capable of learning and sets them up for the next stage.
CJ: Chris the last few things we talked about tutoring and exams, clearly have implications for how we inspect schools once we go back to inspection. In September, what will inspection look like in September when we aren't able to rely on, up to date, exam results and we've got to take account of mass tutoring and all sorts of other catch-up interventions what impact you think that we'll have.
CR: Yeah, I mean, I mean first of all, perhaps just to say something generally about that about that sort of process of returning to, you know fully normal routine inspections on, and it's felt very much like a long journey that because way back from April through the autumn term through the spring term, we totally changed what we're doing, and I think that was absolutely the right thing for the time is actually. What that enabled us to do in Autumn was appropriately given the particular challenges then that schools were facing in reopening up at cetera, was that we visited schools we didn't make that normal evaluation, but we were really able to capture the process that schools had gone through during lockdown and, and as they as they returned back to fit more face-to-face teaching. And then, as we went into spring term, although working virtually we introduced that element of evaluation, back into our work but very much monitoring focused on schools that were weak is going into the pandemic. But we very much, you know, felt and feel that the best thing that we can do as an organisation in terms of supporting the process of recovery is our normal inspection process and that's what we're working through this term in a kind of process of transition to be, to be able to do that fully in September. So, you know we do feel that our normal inspection tools were absolutely right for before the pandemic and they're absolutely right for now. Our education inspection framework we spent a long time developing enormous amount of engagement with the sector, to ensure that we were really getting it right and ensuring that can have the most the most impact. We only did it for about seven months of course and then we were locked down but what we saw during that period was the impact of it, the value of it, the very positive way in which the sector received it and we absolutely you know are finding that as we as we move back to that this term. That doesn't mean we don't need to make tweaks and we have made some tweaks to it to ensure that it reflects COVID and the particular challenges of COVID and actually we've already put our revised handbook for September on our website so people can see that already, but we did feel that we didn't need to make enormous changes to it we did feel that at its core, you know, it absolutely gets underneath education it focuses on the quality of education, there's a strong focus on the curriculum. And we therefore think it's actually the right tool for when you know our schools are returning to normal and are dealing with people who may have lost learning, etc. So, I think the real value of the education inspection framework is that strong focus on quality of education and particularly that strong focus on curriculum planning, which is going to be more important than ever. So, you know we're confident that we've put a lot of thought into this and a lot of piloting. We're confident that our education frameworks framework is absolutely the right thing for now and thought for routine inspection going forward.
CJ: No doubt there'll be some relieved, school leaders annotate inspectors and not having to read an entirely new post COVID inspection handbook.
CR: Absolutely and we we've listed all the changes but as people will see, you know, on the whole, they are really minor tweaks to the framework.
AS: I'll come in here because it's, It's really worth saying I think that the schools and colleges I visited this term, and the people I've talked to; a message that's come, come to me really strongly as you are keeping the EIF, aren't you, people have been wanting that right that reassurance that it's not being tossed out of the window, both because it's good and because it because people have had enough. Enough change going on many fronts that the continuity and clarity is really welcome, I think.
CR: But clearly, really important that we tested it to make sure that we were being fair, and you know we did a lot of piloting to ensure that that was the case. And actually we've although we've particularly focused on our normal monitoring visits to schools, graded requires improvement or inadequate, this term in quite a few cases, we've converted those inspections to full inspections, And you know, improved the grades of those schools and, and really tested out that full inspection methodology and found that it works well and obviously great news for those schools that despite the challenges of COVID, they've still managed to make that improvement, either out of inadequate or from requires improvement to good.
CJ: Yeah, that's great. They've been able to be recognised for that. Amanda, more broadly, we talked about Ofsted being a force for improvement in the system. Some people will say, post COVID Ofsted should just leave us alone, to get on with it talk to us a bit about how you see inspection as being part of how the system improves.
AS: I think there are at least three ways that we really are a force for improvement and getting those back online matters so much. First and foremost, children have just one chance at education. So, the idea of us, not doing our job, not helping to make sure that every child is getting an experience as good as it can be that really matters. But there are two other things I'd like to say on top. The first of which is, we've redesigned inspection, in a way that puts significantly more emphasis on making sure that the process is valuable for the people at the receiving end, that they come away from inspection thinking that conversation, that dialogue was helpful, that it's helped us think through what we should be doing differently, that it's worth the effort involved. And the third piece is that we've thought a lot more about the insights we can give from all the work we do, how we can draw out of inspection, the kinds of insight that help the sector, that help government think differently about what they do make choices that then circle back around and improve and broaden the experience that children get, and at the end of the day it's all about making that experience as good as it can possibly be.
CJ: Thanks very much to Amanda Spielman, Her Majesties Chief Inspector and to Chris Russell, new incoming National Director for Education. This has been ‘Ofsted Talks’ you can find us on Podbean, Twitter, or the Ofsted gov.uk page. In future we hope to have guests from outside Ofsted to have really good thorough intense discussions about issues like exclusions, prison education, social care and many more. And thanks for everyone for listening. Goodbye.
AS: Goodbye
CR: Goodbye.