This week started with both the Department for Education and Ofsted launching major consultations that are set to bring about significant changes to the inspections and interventions schools will face.

The DfE has also announced that it has appointed its first 20 Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence Teams (RISE) advisers, who will shortly be starting to work with what the department has defined as “stuck schools”.

They will also work with schools “causing concern” and having been identified as “requires significant improvement” (RSI) under Ofsted’s new inspection regime for the future.

The launch of such a significant consultation poses a lot of questions. Here are the answers we have from the department so far:

1. How long will it take to start working with ‘stuck schools’?

The DfE has said that its RISE teams will start working with “stuck schools”. These are defined as schools that were rated as “requires improvement” in their most recent Ofsted inspection and less than “good” in the inspection before this.

In its consultation on RISE teams, the DfE said that Ofsted’s latest data for December shows that there are over 600 schools in this position.

The DfE has told Tes it plans to start its RISE team engagement with around 600 schools by March 2026.

• Exclusive: Stuck school plan is ‘complete nonsense’, heads warn
• Report cards: Everything you need to know about Ofsted’s inspection plans
• Need to know: DfE’s RISE team intervention plans

2. How will the £20 million of RISE team funding be spent?

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that the RISE teams would be backed by an initial £20 million investment to work with stuck schools. The government has said that up to £100,000 will be available initially to each school for specialist support.

When Tes asked how the money would be allocated, the department said: ”Schools will receive up to £100,000 worth of bespoke targeted interventions each year, based on their individual circumstances and level of need, so some schools will be able to access more funding than others.

”This funding must be used to fund interventions identified in their school improvement plan.”

The DfE also said that existing programmes funded by the department, such as curriculum hubs, will be used to support these schools “at no additional cost to the school itself”.

3. What will the RISE teams actually do?

When RISE teams were originally announced in November, the DfE said it was looking at having around two or three full-time-equivalent advisers per region for around two days a week, which might equate to four to six people working part time.

When asked what the advisers would do during their two days, the department said the role of the adviser “includes but is not limited to” the following:

• Developing strong professional relationships with schools, trusts, dioceses and local authorities to bring about improvements in schools, drawing on experience of delivering complex change or service transformation.
• Working with local authorities, dioceses, schools and trusts across their region, to contribute to the strategic priorities for the region.
• Facilitating and leading the dissemination of good practice and networking.
• Commissioning bespoke packages of support from high-quality trusts, schools, local authorities or partnerships, to work with and improve schools in need of support. 
• Working closely with schools, local authorities, dioceses and trusts to actively monitor school improvement, to ensure it is rapid, embedded and sustained across the school.

4. How will the DfE decide which schools have had concerning dips in results?

As well as working with stuck schools and those classed by Ofsted as “requires significant improvement”, the DfE’s proposals also set out that advisers will engage with schools with “concerning levels of pupil attainment, including large year-on-year declines”.

However, the DfE has not yet established how this will be done and is now asking for views as part of its consultation.

One question asked is: “What is the appropriate measure and approach for understanding if a school has attainment results of significant concern or shows a sharp decline in year-on-year pupil attainment, and may need external help to address these concerns?”

• Need to know: Ofsted’s plan for inspections
• RISE: How DfE plans to intervene in future
• Linked: First 20 RISE advisers appointed

5. Is the DfE’s intervention plan for ‘stuck schools’ fair?

Headteachers’ leaders have raised concerns that the way the DfE is planning to intervene in stuck schools is unfair.

The concerns relate to the fact that, according to the DfE’s consultation document, a stuck school will be defined as one with an “attention needed” Ofsted rating against leadership and governance, and that was graded below “good” - or equivalent - at its previous Ofsted inspection.

These schools would receive two years of support from RISE teams. After this, once reinspected, if schools have not achieved Ofsted “secure” ratings “in all areas”, then the government’s “default” approach will be to move to structural intervention - meaning academisation or rebrokering an academy to a new trust.

The Association of School and College Leaders and the NAHT school leaders’ union have raised concerns that the stuck school category is therefore easier to fall into than to get out of, and are suggesting that this process is unfair and will be “incredibly high stakes” for schools.

In response, the DfE has said: ”We have high expectations of schools, and ‘secure’ or better in all evaluation areas is the benchmark we think stuck schools should aspire to.”

6. How will the DfE manage the regional imbalance in stuck schools?

The DfE has announced that there are just over 600 schools that have been identified as stuck, having been rated as “requires improvement” in their most recent inspection and less than “good” in the inspection before this.

Although this list has not been published, an analysis by the Lighthouse Data tool set up by London headteacher Andrew O’ Neill has identified 626 schools matching the DfE’s current criteria for stuck schools.

There are big regional variations in the numbers: the North West and South West have 98 such schools, followed by the West Midlands where there are 90; in London there are just 18 and the North East only has 27.

When asked by Tes how it will manage this regional imbalance, the DfE said that RISE advisers will have a home region but can work flexibly around the country.

It added: “We will deploy them flexibly using their skills and experience to support schools across the country and according to the specific challenges those schools face”.

7. Will any schools ‘causing concern’ and with academy orders get a reprieve?

Until this year, schools rated as “inadequate” by Ofsted were automatically issued with academy orders.

Overall single-word judgements have been scrapped, but Ofsted can currently still categorise a school as “causing concern” and put it in either “special measures” or “serious weaknesses”, meaning it would face academisation or rebrokering.

Ofsted’s new report card system is proposing two categories of concern: “special measures” and “requires significant improvement” (RSI) - the latter being a new term for schools, which would previously be classed as having “serious weaknesses”.

The flowchart above shows how Ofsted is planning to categorise schools that are “causing concern” under its new report card inspection system.

The DfE has said that in the first year of report card inspections it will be issuing academy orders for schools in both “special measures” and “requires significant improvement” categories.

However, from September 2026, RSI schools will get 18 months of RISE team support. This means a number of schools “causing concern” will no longer be automatically converted into academies or rebrokered and would first receive a programme of support.

‘Not in pupils’ best interests to disrupt improvement process’

Tes asked if, after September 2026, this meant a reprieve would be given to schools given an academy order and rated as having “serious weaknesses” or RSI.

The department said that this would not be the case.

It added: “Where schools are already subject to structural intervention, they will continue to convert or transfer. It would not be in the best interests of pupils to disrupt the improvement process when it was already underway”.

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