After Ofsted faced extensive criticism about the overall single-word judgements it was handing down to schools being too simplistic and too blunt, the watchdog and its chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver were tasked with coming up with an alternative.
Today it faces its judgement day, as it presents its plans for a report card to the sector and launches a formal consultation. Sir Martyn sat down with Tes to explain his thinking.
Nine categories for judgement of schools
Ofsted is proposing at least nine categories where inspectors will make a judgement about a school, including on attendance, inclusion and how it develops its teachers.
And it is suggesting scrapping its four existing grades, moving instead to a five-point scale ranging from “causing concern” to “exemplary”.
The announcement has already led to concern that such an approach will be “bewildering for teachers and leaders, never mind the parents whose choices these reports are supposedly intended to guide”, as headteachers’ leader Pepe Di’lasio put it.
But Sir Martyn says he believes that the approach will provide better information about schools than ever before.
He tells Tes: “The bit that’s going to be difficult for the profession to get its head around is that you can be both strong and need attention. You can be two things at once.”
On the proposed five-point scale, he expects the vast majority of schools’ grades to fall across the three middle ratings of “needs attention”, “secure” and “strong”.
More on Ofsted’s new inspections:
‘Far more fair and proportionate inspection’
Sir Martyn hopes that when teachers have the details of the plans they will see that the way Ofsted is planning to inspect is “far more fair, far more proportionate, and that what we’re actually inspecting is really clear”.
As Tes revealed last year, the watchdog has developed a set of toolkits that it says will enable schools to see what inspectors will be looking for in each evaluation area.
Sir Martyn hopes this approach will mean the creation of a new inspection framework does not add to school staff workload, because the toolkits have been designed to align with the standards that schools are already working to.
“Take behaviour - you have non-statutory guidance on behaviour, and you have statutory guidance on suspensions and exclusions. So we take those two documents, lean into them and write the toolkit on behaviour.”
Sir Martyn says that, in effect, the toolkits are setting out “what you’re supposed to do anyway”.
When Tes puts to Ofsted’s chief that the creation of new inspection categories - such as attendance, inclusion or developing teaching - could be drivers of workload, in the same way the curriculum shift was when the last framework was introduced, he again stresses that these areas will already be focused on by schools.
“I’d be really concerned if a school was not developing its teachers now - and hugely concerned if there was any school that didn’t make sure that it was delivering for all of the children: the marginalised, the ones who feel disadvantaged or vulnerable, the ones who are high-performing and need stretching.”
Sir Martyn rejects claim process is being rushed
He also pushes back on the notion that launching new inspections is being done in a rush.
In a recent report, the NAHT school leaders’ union urged against working to arbitrary deadlines and suggested that launching new inspections in September 2026 might be more prudent than aiming to launch a new system in 2025-26.
Ofsted has announced today that inspections will be due to start in November of this year and that the first half term will be spent providing training.
Sir Martyn says: “If you go from the day I started right through until November, that’s 22 months it’s been working through my mind the idea of producing a framework that is fair and more proportionate.”
In a press briefing to launch the new plans, he said the November start and the pausing of inspections would afford the system an “unprecedented” amount of time to prepare, meaning that “we can deliver incredible training to the system and to our inspectors with plenty of time.”
‘Paradigm shift’ for school inspection
And he also rejects the criticism that what is being proposed does not deliver sufficient change.
“I think this is a paradigm shift,” Sir Martyn tells Tes.
He says that when he came into the role and started conversations about the report card, he was told that the single-word judgements were too simplistic.
“I had conversations on our inspections not being nuanced enough...I’d be disappointed if people now say [our plans are] too nuanced and too complex.
“People said you need to move fast and reform quickly. Then people say you’re going too fast and you’re reforming too quickly. When you’re in this position across the country running something of this size and this scale, there are always going to be those on both sides of the fence. If I hear those concerns in equal measure, I’m probably doing the right thing”.
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