Paul Brooker HMI, Regional Director, East of England, on how Ofsted and its framework can help to re-imagine learning so that curriculum and outcomes give all pupils opportunities to succeed

1. Re-imagining Learning
How can Ofsted and its framework help to re-imagine learning
so that the curriculum gives all pupils opportunities to succeed?
Paul Brooker HMI
Regional Director, East of England
Ofsted
Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 1

2. History of inspection
 The HMI role first came into force following the 1833 Factory Act to
improve conditions for children working in factories
 HMI’s presence in publicly funded schools began in 1839. HMI were then
part of the government’s education department. Schools were inspected
by them very rarely – typically once in 25 years
 Ofsted was set up in 1992. While the objectives for school inspection have
largely remained the same (a force for educational improvement), much
has changed in the inspectorate over the last 25 years
 Ofsted has taken on responsibility for inspecting initial teacher education
(1998), early years provision (2001), further education provision including
adult learning (2007) and children’s social care (2007).
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3. Proportionate inspection
 Until 2005, schools were inspected on a four- to six-year cycle, received
six weeks’ notice of the inspection and normally featured a team of up to
15 registered inspectors inspecting a school for a week. Reports were
often incredibly detailed and in excess of 50 pages. Schools (and lessons!)
were judged on a seven-point scale from ‘excellent’ (1) to ‘very poor’ (7)
 Post-2005, proportionate inspection was introduced, with small teams over
one to two days. Inspection judgements were reduced to a four-point
scale. Inspectors developed lines of enquiry to follow during the
inspection. Notice periods were slashed to 48 hours
 Reduced-tariff inspections (RTIs) were introduced (briefly) in 2007.
Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 3

4. Recent changes
 2012
 The exemption of outstanding schools from inspection
 The satisfactory judgement replaced with ‘requires improvement’
 A reduction in key graded judgements to four: pupils’ achievement,
teaching quality, the behaviour and safety of pupils, and leadership and
management.
 2015
 Ofsted Inspectors replace Additional Inspectors, as inspection was brought
in-house
 Introduction of the current common inspection framework (CIF) and short
inspections.
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5. What are the four basic requirements for
a school to be judged ‘good’ by Ofsted?
Overall effectiveness is good when:
 The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is at least good
 All other key judgements are likely to be good or outstanding. In
exceptional circumstances, one of the key judgement areas may require
improvement, as long as there is convincing evidence that the school is
improving it rapidly and securely towards good
 Deliberate and effective action is taken to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral,
social and cultural development and their physical well-being
 Safeguarding is effective.
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6. The curriculum in our current framework
Effectiveness of leadership and management
In making this judgement in schools, inspectors will consider:
 The design, implementation and evaluation of the curriculum, ensuring breadth
and balance and its impact on pupils’ outcomes and their personal,
development, behaviour and welfare
 How well the school supports the formal curriculum with extra-curricular
opportunities for pupils to extend their knowledge and understanding and to
improve their skills in a range of artistic, creative and sporting activities.
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7. The curriculum in our current framework
For good leadership and management:
 The broad and balanced curriculum provides a wide range of opportunities for
pupils to learn. The range of subjects and courses helps pupils acquire knowledge,
understanding and skills in all aspects of their education, including the humanities
and linguistic, mathematical, scientific, technical, social, physical and artistic
learning. This supports pupils’ good progress.
 The curriculum also contributes well to pupils’ behaviour and welfare, including
their physical, mental and personal well-being, safety and spiritual, moral, social
and cultural development.
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8. Curriculum:
intent, implementation and impact
Development work for the new inspection framework
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9. Working definition of the curriculum
‘The curriculum is a framework for setting out the aims of a
programme of education, including the knowledge and
understanding to be gained at each stage (intent); for
translating that framework over time into a structure and
narrative, within an institutional context (implementation) and
for evaluating what knowledge and understanding pupils have
gained against expectations (impact/achievement).’
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10. Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 10
Purpose 3: Inform policy making
in the DfE by:
 testing the extent to which the
curriculum at school and
classroom level is influenced by
national policy levers or other
factors
Purpose 2: Inform inspection
policy by:
 understanding the current
impact of inspection policy and
practice on the curriculum in
schools
 understanding the drivers of
strategic decision-making in
schools and how to organise
inspection effectively in this
context
 identifying the characteristics
of an outstanding curriculum
that is underpinned by
evidence of successful
outcomes for pupils
Purpose 1: Influence wider
thinking on the role and
importance of the curriculum in
education by:
 developing a rigorous
evidence base on the relative
importance of the curriculum
in outcomes
 identifying links between the
curriculum and increased
social mobility
Purpose of the curriculum study

11. Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 11

12. Ofsted’s curriculum review
Inspectors visited 40 schools to gather evidence for the first phase of our review. We
held focus groups for headteachers of outstanding schools across five regions. We also
reviewed a large number of inspection reports, undertook desk-based retrieval from
school websites and sought views from our Parents Panel.
The first phases of our research found there is no shared understanding across the
school sector of what curriculum actually means, and a lack of clarity about how to plan
a good curriculum. Our initial concerns are:
 Schools are narrowing the primary curriculum by placing great a focus on sitting
practice SATs rather than learning English and mathematics and encouraging reading
for pleasure
 Schools are often shortening key stage 3 to make more time for GCSEs. This
means that some pupils never study history, geography or a language after the age of
12/13. This is unnecessary because GCSEs are designed to be a two-year qualification
 Low-attaining pupils are often deterred from doing Ebacc subjects at GCSE
in order to take qualifications that score more highly in league tables.
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13. What did we find?
Lack of curriculum knowledge and expertise
Curriculum being confused with assessment and qualifications
Teaching to the test
Curriculum narrowing Social justice issues
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14. Knowledge and expertise
 Some of the language that inspectors and teachers were using was
very ambiguous. Everyone was talking about skills, for example, but
digging down, they often meant very different things
 All the questions asked on the visits were about the curriculum, but
very little of the evidence was about the knowledge children were
actually learning. There was little articulated that was concrete and
specifically related to the business of curriculum design
 Headteachers in focus groups were talking about staff curriculum
capability: ‘You can draw a line in the workforce before and after the
national strategies’
 This evidence suggests that there is a lack of theoretical knowledge
and practical skill in the business of curriculum design and
development.
Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 14

15. Qualifications as curriculum
There appears to be a widespread – probably unintentional – view
that qualifications, and/or the timetable, is the curriculum. We
identified the consequences of this from the evidence:
 Preparation for key stage 2 tests is occupying a considerable
proportion of Year 6 curriculum time.
 Key stage 3 is being reduced without consideration of the impact
of this or proper consideration of what the curriculum should
deliver.
 There is debate about the curriculum for lower-attaining pupils
but this is being fought around equivalency and which
qualifications to pursue, rather than debating what the curriculum
should contain for all pupils.
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16. The new inspection framework
 Build on the curriculum work
 Build on other research work
 Time to develop and engage with the sectors
 Time for sectors to adjust, so…
 …start in September 2019.
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17. In the meantime, schools need to:
 Know their curriculum – design and intent
 Know how their curriculum is being implemented
 Know what impact their curriculum is having on pupils’ knowledge
and understanding.
Need for numbers? That’s up to the school – best way of
‘knowing’ (not ‘demonstrating’) the above?
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18. Curriculum – broad and balanced
 Pupils must acquire competency in English and mathematics to
access and learn well in a range of subjects – important in our
current framework
 But we do focus on whether schools provide a broad and balanced
curriculum. HMCI recently stated the importance of learning in deep,
rich curriculum.
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19. Myth busting
Inspection myths:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-
handbook-from-september-2015/ofsted-inspections-mythbusting
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20. Ofsted on the web and on social media
www.gov.uk/ofsted
https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk
www.linkedin.com/company/ofsted
www.youtube.com/ofstednews
www.slideshare.net/ofstednews
www.twitter.com/ofstednews
Headteacher conference - Bedford Borough Slide 20