The head of a new taskforce has warned it will be wrong to judge schools as strong on inclusion if they are happy for some local students “to be sent in a taxi elsewhere”.

Geoff Barton, who is leading an IPPR taskforce on inclusion, has raised concerns that, despite Ofsted’s plan to focus on the issue, its new inspections will not look at school admissions.

He told Tes that unless Ofsted takes account of admissions, “any discussion of inclusion will be diluted”.

Inclusion is one of six evaluation areas that schools will be inspected on by Ofsted under its new report card inspections system starting later this term. Overall grades have been scrapped but schools will be graded on a new five-point scale for each of the six main evaluation areas.

‘High profile’ for inclusion

Mr Barton told Tes: “I think it is very welcome that inclusion has such a high profile in the new Ofsted framework. It feels symbolic for inclusion to be a focus at a time when so many of us are worried about the experiences of children with special educational needs,” he said.

However, he raised concern about a lack of focus on admissions.

“Looking at the inclusion toolkit, Ofsted says that it will be looking at schools setting high expectations for all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND,” he said. “This is all very welcome, but what the framework does not do is look at how representative a school is of its local community.

“School admissions is something that the DfE shies away from, and Ofsted’s framework does not take this question head on either.”

Mr Barton added: “When we talk about inclusion I think we need to be moving towards asking if a school is taking on as many local pupils as possible. It would seem wrong for a school to be considered to be strong on inclusion if it was not taking on as many local pupils as possible and was happy for some to be sent in a taxi elsewhere.”

This concern echoes previous warnings from the sector that admissions is a critical element of how inclusive a school is.

Jonny Uttey, CEO of The Education Alliance trust in Yorkshire and fellow of the Centre for Young Lives think tank, said: “The problem with Ofsted’s framework on inclusion is that it is not asking questions about who is on a school’s roll or whether a school is making efforts to ensure it can meet the needs of all local pupils, or whether it is telling parents or sending them a signal that their child might be better off elsewhere.”

Representation ‘the most important context of all’

Ofsted currently does not have a remit to inspect school admissions, but Mr Uttley said it should be pushing for this as part of a drive to achieve an inclusive system.

“In other parts of its framework, it talks about the importance of context, but on the question of inclusion, the steps a school takes to ensure its students are representative of the local community is the most important context of all,” he said.

Mr Uttley said that, as a result, Ofsted will then make judgements about the pupils who are in the school. But he added that “the problem with this approach is that it will be possible to be judged as being strong on inclusion while not taking on pupils with additional needs”.

In a statement, the Headteachers’ Roundtable group raised concerns about Ofsted focusing on inclusion as a separate area.

It said that this “runs counter to the widespread understanding across the system that [inclusion] should be an embedded design principle for schools, not a separate consideration”.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “We want to make sure that schools are ambitious for all their pupils and that every child feels they belong. That’s why we have made inclusion both a specific evaluation area and a golden thread running through all other evaluation areas.

“From leadership to teaching to behaviour, all aspects of education provision should support children who are disadvantaged, who have SEND, or are known to social care.”

Ofsted’s new inspection framework

Tes revealed in 2024 that Ofsted was looking to inspect inclusion.

It is one of the six evaluation areas Ofsted will be grading schools against - along with curriculum and teaching, achievement, attendance and behaviour, personal development and wellbeing, and leadership and governance - in its report cards.

Ofsted will also give schools a binary judgement of standards being “met” or “not met” on safeguarding.

Inspections under the new framework will start from 10 November. Ofsted is looking for schools to volunteer to be among the first inspected.

Union leaders have strongly rejected Ofsted’s new inspection plans, with snap polls carried out earlier this week suggesting that the vast majority of school leaders and teachers are opposed.

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