Ofsted is responsible for inspecting a range of educational institutions, and although they play a vital role in holding educators and institutions to account, they have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years.

The tragic death of Ruth Perry in 2023 was a major catalyst for change, but the case for change and improvement has been building for much longer. The legacy of the pandemic has had a huge impact on society and a lasting impact on children. Leaders of education and care settings know and understand the importance of accountability, given their daily responsibilities. But, for many years, calls have been made to look again at the burdens created by this accountability.

In this keynote presentation at MATPN Midlands, Kirsty Godfrey, Senior His Majesty’s Inspector at Ofsted, gave an update on Ofsted’s inspection frameworks and its response to feedback from their “Big Listen” initiative.

The Big Listen

Hoping to regain the trust of children, parents and dedicated professionals, Ofsted conducted a consultation to help them reset their priorities, refine their practises and rebuild relationships.

The Big Listen was the largest consultation in Ofsted’s history and was launched in March 2024 to gather feedback from providers, learners, parents and carers to help them discover the main areas for improvement.

The public consultation had over 20,000 responses and included independent research from the National Centre for Social Research, Parent Kind and the IFF, amongst others.

Here are some of the key learnings from the session:

Children’s priorities

Ofsted are always looking to put the interests of children and learners first. During the private consultation, they surveyed 4,300 children to get their feedback and find out what they wanted to hear about after future inspections.

Here are their top five priorities:

1. How happy pupils are at school
2. How well their school safeguards children
3. How well their teachers teach
4. How well pupils behave at school
5. How well pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported at school

By focusing on the wellbeing of the pupils, children can feel safer when studying knowing their needs are cared for.

Parental feedback

When it came to the parents and carers, many believed that Ofsted were a positive force for their children. The independent research commissioned from the National Centre for Social Research found that half of parents and carers believed that they act in the best interest of children, help improve standards of education and are a valuable source of information.

Parent Kind also published some interesting statistics, revealing that:

• 96% of parents said it’s important to have an independent organisation to inspect schools
• Two thirds of parents said they had a positive view of Ofsted
• Only one in eight parents said they had a negative view of Ofsted

However, despite the initial positive reaction, parents and carers also highlighted many areas for improvement. For example, despite taking part in the survey, many believed that their views weren’t taken into consideration, with only 15% of parents and carers believing that their views on inspection were considered ‘a lot’ by Ofsted.

There was also a strong appetite from parents for judgements of grades of how a school performs on a range of different assessment themes and criteria, and mixed views about singled word judgements for overall effectiveness. For example, only four in ten parents told the National Centre for Social Research that they supported a one-word grade for Ofsted judgements, while half of parents opposed it. And three in four parents and carers said they wanted separate judgements for each inspection area.

This led the focus groups of parents and carers to suggest modifying the approach to judgements rather than replacing it.

Professional concerns

Educational professionals shared the biggest concerns about Ofsted.

Although they believed that there should be a strong, fair constructive inspectorate, they believed that Ofsted were not living up to that.

Teachers and leaders told Ofsted that inspections were often negative experiences, with some respondents telling them that they felt inspectors were too punitive, too inconsistent and far too stressful.

This was also echoed in independent research. The anxiety and stress of the inspection process was brought up frequently in focus groups, and there was a common view among school professionals that they wanted to be more constructive and focus on recommending how schools should improve.

IFF research found that over half of school professionals said Ofsted was effective in holding providers to account for the quality of the service they provide. However, about three in ten said that inspections and reports didn’t help schools to improve the quality of education.

The single word judgements for overall effectiveness received significant criticism throughout the consultation in in the open text boxes, and the independent IFF research shed more light on what school professionals thought about that overall effectiveness grade. They found that one in ten respondents from the school sector supported them, and about half of respondents in schools suggested that there should be separate judgements for each area instead.

The seven c’s of change

1. Children and learners should come first: placing outcomes and wellbeing at the centre of inspections
2. Care and wellbeing: enhancing training to focus on mental health and inspector empathy
3. Consistency of inspections: strengthening inspector recruitment and training to ensure fairness and context awareness
4. Content of frameworks: adapting frameworks to suit various educational and care settings
5. Complaints: improving the transparency of the complaints process.
6. Constructive feedback and reporting: offering nuanced reporting with actionable recommendations
7. Consequences of our judgements: moving away from single-word judgments to reduce anxiety and enhance clarity

Resetting relationships

To reset their relationship with the pupils, parents and teaching professionals, Ofsted have committed to reforming their inspection frameworks – creating a reformed inspection framework for schools, early years and further education and skills.

To do this, Ofsted are going to take the best of their current approach, such as the focus on curriculum, but also learn lessons from what they heard from parents, professionals and organisations through the Big Listen. This will include transforming the process of inspection and as far as possible, reducing the anxiety these inspections hold.

Learn more

If you want to learn more about the findings from this initiative, you can read more about the Big Listen on Gov.uk.

Want to take part in future discussions? Register your interest to join us at our MATPN events in 2025!