Ofsted has published research reviews to inform inspections of subject education under the new Education Inspection Framework (EIF). The reviews summarize research on what constitutes a high-quality education in different subjects. Teams of subject leads, researchers, and editors compiled the reviews using research from sources like EEF, DfE, and international studies. The reviews cover topics like curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment, and progression in subjects. They provide an evidence base to develop conceptions of subject quality that will be used in subject-specific inspection reports. The reviews were published from April to July 2021.

1. Ofsted research reviews
Heather Fearn
Senior Her Majesty’s inspector
ResearchED 21

2. Talk overview
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Why publish
research
reviews?
How
research
reviews
were
compiled
The curriculum
focus of EIF
ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0

3. Ofsted’s role
Ofsted’s role is to make sure that
organisations providing education, training
and care services in England do so to a high
standard for children and students.
ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0

4. The ‘quality of education’ judgement
Consultation on the Education inspection framework 2019 Slide 4
Quality of education
Intent
 Curriculum design, coverage and
appropriateness
Implementation
 Curriculum delivery
 Teaching (pedagogy) – contribution to
delivering the curriculum as intended
 Assessment (formative and summative)
Impact
 Attainment and progress (including
national tests and assessments)
 Reading
 Destinations

5. ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0
Assessment
Desired high level outcomes
and measures of those
outcomes
Curriculum:
WHAT is taught
Pedagogy: Teaching
activities or HOW
curriculum content is
taught
Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework has a
new focus on curriculum

6. Weak outcomes are due to knowledge gaps
A very simple representation…
Pictures from: https://learningspy.co.uk/featured/how-to-explain-schema/
…when compared to the
schema of a child who can
achieve a higher outcome
Schema of a child who would
achieve a lower academic
outcome…

7. How we developed a conception of quality of
education for the new inspection framework
We looked at existing research
and also conducted our own.
We shared all the research
which underpins the
development of Ofsted’s new
inspection framework
Slide 7

8. A school curriculum is made up of subjects
What is meant by ‘curriculum’
for a school?
for a subject?
for a sequence of lessons?
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9. The deep dive:
a way to consider the quality of a
subject education
draws on inspectors’ shared
understanding of a high-quality
subject education
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10. Research reviews
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what published research tells
us about a high-quality
education in each subject
supporting and informing
those leading the thinking on
subject education
not a checklist

11. What explains variation in quality of a subject education?
This question informs the structure of the research reviews
ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0
Curriculum: scope, coherence, components,
sequencing and rigour
Pedagogy Assessment
Systems

12. Research reviews consider forms or ‘pillars’ of
progression in each subject
Aspects/forms/pillars of within
subject progression
EIF 2019 - Developing Curriculum Expertise
• scientific facts, concepts and procedures
• disciplinary e.g. knowledge of how to set up
experiments and understand the role of
error
aims
• grammar
• vocabulary
• phonics etc.
aims
• knowledge of letter sound correspondences
• capacity to blend - decode
• capacity to encode etc.
aims

13. Principles paper
ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0
Explains our approach to
writing the research reviews

14. Selecting research
 as well as academic papers, the research reviews include
information from:
• the Education Endowment Foundation
• the Department for Education
• large-scale international studies, such as the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA)
• our own research and guidance
• secondary evidence, such as teacher-authored blogs
ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0

15. Filters we use to select research
 relevance to inspection
 an understanding that curriculum is different from pedagogy
 how people learn and, in particular, findings from cognitive
science
 subject specificity
 what will achieve the aims of subject education
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16. Teams compiling research reviews
 subject leads
 professional researchers in our research and
evaluation team
 editing and publication team
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17. Publication timeline: summer 2021
Publication and reception May 2021 Slide 17
Science
29 Apr.
Religious education
12 May
Maths
25 May
Languages
14 June
Geography
17 June
Music
12 July
History
14 July

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19. ITE Curriculum Roadshow *ITTO240521A0

20. Navigating the research review
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21. From research review to subject report
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Established
principles
for Quality
of Education
(EIF)
Filter:
subject
education
Conception of
subject quality
(Research
reviews)
Evidence
base
Subject
report

22. 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
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