School Inspection Update: Special Edition January 2019

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School Inspection Update: Special Edition January 2019 School inspection update January 2019 | Special edition Message from the National Director, Education Welcome to this very special edition of our school inspection update (SIU). I hope you all had an enjoyable festive period! This SIU is published at the same time as the launch of our formal consultation for the education inspection framework 2019 (EIF 2019). The proposed framework is an evolutionary change from the current common inspection framework. I believe it is the best-researched, most thoughtfully developed framework that we have ever produced. Part 1 of this SIU explains why we believe there is a need for a new framework at this point in the improvement journey of England’s education sector; it also summarises the theory and evidence underpinning the development of the EIF 2019. Parts 2 and 3 focus on some of the main features that we, as inspectors, will look at within the proposed framework. You will recognise much of this from the inspector training over the last year or so. Part 4 summarises how we propose to go about gathering evidence and reporting to users. Key to this proposed new framework is clarifying that Ofsted’s role is to complement, rather than intensify, the focus on performance data and measures. It is really important that pupils achieve good outcomes and that parents can have confidence that they are doing so. It is a positive thing for an education system to be able to track and publish those outcomes nationally, both for attainment and progress. Outcomes matter for young people, and the impact of a good curriculum, well taught, should be that they achieve great outcomes. But performance measures are not all we should look at and data should not be ‘king’. It should not be allowed to create an environment in schools that has them repeatedly and excessively measuring and recording pupil progress and attainment in ways that are not always valid, reliable or useful to teachers and pupils. Ofsted’s job is to focus on what matters educationally, looking at a wide range of evidence. Inspectors will use published, national performance data as a starting point in inspection, but data is only ever that, a starting point. If pupils achieve well, they will have qualifications to take into later life. But if the learning that underlies those qualifications is not rich and deep, we have done those young people a disservice. So, it is very important that as Ofsted moves towards the EIF 2019, we view performance measures more in the context of the quality of education provided. School inspection update January 2019 |Special edition 1 Apologies in advance: this SIU is a long read but a good one. It should be read in conjunction with the draft inspection handbook1 and the research document2 that sets out in detail the work underpinning the development of the new framework. I hope you will find this helpful context in understanding the aims of this new framework. Of course, commentators are right when they say that the implementation of any inspection framework is only as good as our inspectors and the training that they receive. That is why, we have invested so heavily in focusing your training over the last 18 months on curriculum matters and why we have planned the most extensive inspector training programme ever for the commencement of a new framework. I have every confidence that Her Majesty’s Inspectors and Ofsted Inspectors, trained in this way and with their knowledge and experience, will be fully equipped and able to inspect under the EIF 2019 with rigour, fairness and humility. Through inspection at school level, we want to understand and report accurately on the educational experiences of pupils in this country. I believe the EIF 2019 is the way we can best do this in the coming years. Best wishes Sean Harford HMI National Director, Education 1 Ofsted inspection handbooks: drafts for consultation, Ofsted, 2019; www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-inspection-handbooks-drafts-for-consultation 2 Education inspection framework: overview of research, Ofsted, 2019; www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-inspection-framework-overview-of-research School inspection update January 2019 |Special edition 2 Education inspection framework 2019: our rationale, and how it will work in practice Part 1: the theory and evidence behind the education inspection framework The case for change 1. England’s schools have made real improvements over the past two decades. This is a testament to the hard work of teachers and leaders. The accountability system has played a part in this improvement. However, an accountability system that is overdependent on performance data is a barrier to further improvement. There is ample evidence of the extent to which an accountability system that does not look at what pupils are learning, and why they are learning it, diverts schools from the real substance of education. We have seen a ‘school improvement’ industry develop. The consultants running this industry push approaches to achieving improvements in performance tables in ways that require no improvement in the underlying quality of education. None of this is to say that outcomes do not matter; they matter immensely to young people, and schools should rightly be held to account for them. However, the results that young people achieve are only meaningful if the learning that underpins them is rich and deep. At present, what pupils learn too often comes second to the delivery of improved performance table data. 2. The school culture of defending and managing outcomes has extended into defending against and managing Ofsted inspections. Far too much time, work and energy are spent on preparing everything that Ofsted might possibly expect to see. Over time, the main thrust of the typical inspection conversation has come to be about recent outcomes, assessment of current ‘pupil progress’ and expectations of future progress. Schools have responded to this with workload-intensive management models that focus on data and prediction. Perhaps, most important of all, these distortions have the greatest negative effect on the pupils we should care about most: the most disadvantaged – the poor and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) – and the least able. 3. We accept that developments in our inspection practice over time have contributed to this imbalance in the accountability system. With the introduction of the EIF from September 2019, we intend to return inspection to its proper role, as originally conceived: complementing rather than intensifying the focus on achievement and progress measures. School inspection update January 2019 |Special edition 3 The curriculum 4. Twelve years of education should give children a lot more than a disposition to learn and some ill-defined skills. Yet the evidence from the first phase of our curriculum research last year was that a focus on substance, on the knowledge and skills that we want pupils to acquire, is often lost, with qualifications and test specifications taking the place of real curricular thinking. If pupils’ entire school experience has been designed to push them through mark-scheme hoops, rather than develop a deep body of knowledge, they will struggle in later study. 5. The curriculum is the substance of what is taught. It is a specific plan of what pupils need to know and should be able to do. The curriculum shapes and determines what pupils will get out of their educational experience. It is distinct from pedagogy, which is how the curriculum is taught. And, it is distinct from assessment, which is a means of setting out the desired outcomes we wish pupils to achieve and evaluating whether they have achieved those outcomes. 6. Our extensive curriculum research over the last couple of academic years has used a working definition of the curriculum, which recognises that it passes through different states: how it is conceived, how it is taught and how pupils experience it. That working definition is that the curriculum is: the framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and skills to be gained at each stage (intent) the translation of that framework over time into a structure and narrative, within an institutional context (implementation) the evaluation of what knowledge and understanding pupils have gained against expectations (impact/outcomes). 7. That working definition has informed the development of the quality of education judgement, now set out in the draft framework and inspection handbooks. It is now clear that the curriculum covers the intent and much of the implementation, but is distinct from the impact, which is a measure of how well the curriculum has been learned. The curriculum is, therefore, integral to but not the whole of the judgement on the quality of education. Curriculum and progress 8. Learning has been defined in cognitive psychology as an alteration in long-term memory: ‘If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been School inspection update January 2019 |Special edition 4 learned.’3 Progress, therefore, means knowing more (including knowing how to do more) and remembering more. When new knowledge and existing knowledge connect in pupils’ minds, this gives rise to understanding. As pupils develop unconscious competence and fluency, this will allow them to develop skills, i.e. the capacity to perform complex operations, drawing on what is known. 9. Given the understanding of the curriculum set out above, progress should not be defined primarily by meeting standards or hitting the next data point. Rather, learning the curriculum itself is progress. If pupils attain within a well- sequenced, well-constructed curriculum, they are making progress. Developing knowledge and understanding, not memorising disconnected facts 10. It is unhelpful to think of pupils’ minds as ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be filled with isolated, disconnected pieces of information.
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