“You’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no...” It’s unlikely that the introduction of Ofsted’s new common inspection framework was at the forefront of Katy Perry’s mind when she penned her hit Hot n Cold. But the FE sector could be forgiven for feeling similarly confused regarding the inspectorate’s true feelings towards it.

Under Sir Michael Wilshaw’s tenure as chief inspector, the approach could be summarised as “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen”. But under Amanda Spielman, a more emotionally literate approach to relationship-building has led to quite the love-in.

Spielman has championed the sector’s campaigning for better funding, and Ofsted has regularly highlighted the issues that colleges face as a result of the ballooning number of resit entries in GCSE English and maths.

But there’s one aspect of the new framework that has caused many in FE to doubt their feelings for the inspectorate: research. While Ofsted claims that its framework will be the “most researched, evidence-based and tested framework in Ofsted’s history”, a perusal of the documents put out alongside it reveal that the evidence base is somewhat limited.

The “research reviewed here,” one document admits, “is in large part drawn from that done in schools and early years settings”, due to the “relative paucity” of research in FE.

Now there’s no denying that research in FE has some catching up to do. But that’s not to say that it isn’t out there - plenty of it of extremely high quality, too.

The relationship between Ofsted and FE has been through a lot, and it appears to be improving by the day. But, turning from Ms Perry to Aretha Franklin: there are two words the inspectorate would do well to remember if it wants things to work out for the long term: R-E-S-P-E-C-T and R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H.

Stephen Exley is the Tes FE editor