Ofsted: Past, Present and the Future

What Is Ofsted? Understanding Education Inspection, Early Years, and SEND Oversight

Ofsted - short for the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills is the UK’s independent body responsible for education inspection across schools, nurseries, and Children’s Services. Using the Education Inspection Framework, Ofsted evaluates the quality of education and skills provision from Early Years through to further education, publishes inspection report “report cards,” and can place failing institutions into special measures. Beyond judgments, it also offers guidance on best practice, helping providers improve outcomes for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Key Points

• Education Inspection Framework: Ofsted’s core tool for judging intent, implementation, and impact in Early Years settings, schools, and colleges.
• Inspection Report & Report Cards: Published summaries that rate providers on quality of education, leadership, and welfare - often the first thing parents and local authorities consult.
• Special Measures & SEND Oversight: Where standards fall short, Ofsted can impose special measures and scrutinise provision for vulnerable learners, ensuring children’s safety and progression.

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What does Ofsted stand for?

Ofsted is tasked with raising quality and safeguarding across all learning environments. From large academy chains to small schools, registered early years settings and childminders operating through the local council’s registration process, every provider must meet statutory requirements and submit to regular inspections. Even children’s social care services and initial teacher education providers - whether university faculties, school alliances, or further education colleges - fall within Ofsted’s remit.

What Ofsted Stands For
At its core, Ofsted champions the welfare of young people and the rigour of education. The organisation monitors standards in Early Years settings, scrutinises special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision, and evaluates children’s services ranging from fostering agencies to adoption panels. Its Education Committee in Parliament oversees Ofsted’s accountability, ensuring that inspection frameworks align with national policy goals.

How Ofsted Inspections Work
An Ofsted inspection begins with a familiarisation call - typically the day before the visit - so schools, nurseries or small schools can organise evidence such as their SEND register, behaviour logs, or curriculum plans posted on the school website. Inspectors aim to observe routine practice rather than staged performances. They spend two to three days gathering a rounded picture: observing lessons, interviewing staff and pupils, and reviewing data on attendance, attainment, and safeguarding referrals. This mixed-method approach counterbalances concerns over “gaming the system,” such as off-rolling, by placing greater emphasis on curriculum intent, implementation and impact rather than solely raw numbers.

Beyond Judgements
While headline grades often make local news - especially when a free school or a children’s services unit finds itself in special measures - Ofsted also produces guidance materials, instructional videos, and model policies to help providers improve. Its initial teacher education inspections ensure that trainee teachers emerge equipped to deliver high-quality learning, including tailored support for students with SEND. Through regular dialogue with the local authority and partnerships with external experts, Ofsted helps shape the sector’s evolution, reinforcing that inspection is intended not as a punitive exercise but as a catalyst for sustained improvement.

Key Points

• Comprehensive Scope: Inspects schools, small schools, early years settings, children’s services, and initial teacher education providers under a unified Education Inspection Framework.
• Registration & Accountability: Requires all providers to follow a strict registration process via the local council, report to the Education Committee, and publish key documents—like SEN policies—on their school website.
• Improvement Focus: Balances judgements with support: moving from data metrics to curriculum quality, offering guidance on SEND provision, and sharing best practice across the sector.

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Ofsted roles and responsibilities

Ofsted are very keen at being seen as an evidence-led organisation. For too long in England, the educational workforce has been drip-fed ideas that have not necessarily been empirically researched. Ofsted see themselves as an evidence-informed entity that promotes and monitors best practice. There is a significant move to remove much of the burden associated with an inspection. The organisation wants to decrease unnecessary workload for anyone that encounters an inspection. We recently found some interesting videos published by Ofsted which we included in our blog post, the one below explains how memories are formed:‍

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A key role that Ofsted plays is the publishing of the reports that they carry out. These are public documents and have the capacity to make or break a school system. If a school continually fails then the head teacher is at risk of being dismissed. Many of these dismissals are seen as unlawful and school governors have the power to sack senior leaders at very short notice. Every school has to have their latest report available on their website: http://www.tudorcourtprimary.com/Ofsted-Report‍

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The role of Ofsted is to promote excellent care and education in England. Reporting directly to the government, Ofsted pride themselves on being impartial and independent. The organisation also have the power to regulate any children and young people's service. Having a large workforce across eight different regions, the services Ofsted provide are extensive. They have an estimated 2500 inspectors and around 1800 employees. Many of these inspectors are head teachers of outstanding schools.

Behind the facts and figures are some interesting headlines. Here are a few from last year.

• Multi-Academy Trusts: There are now a whopping 1000 multi-Academy trusts operating in England. This has led to a new breed of CEOs or executive principles who reportedly earn impressive salaries. Ofsted will now be taking a closer look at how MATs are organised and operated.
• Special schools: 45% of children with special educational needs are taught in these types of schools. Inadequate schools: Legally, schools that are deemed to be failing by Ofsted should immediately be taken over by a reputable Academy. Despite these new laws, 65 inadequate schools are still open for business.
• Primary Schools: Only 25% of primary schools have chosen to ‘Academise’. This compares to 70% of secondary schools making the conversion. Ultimately, it is the Department for Education that makes the decision of whether a school should become an academy (forced academisation), Ofsted’s judgement plays a crucial role in this ruling.

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Where is the Ofsted office?

If you are considering a career at Ofsted and do not want to relocate you are in luck. A school inspector is typically required to travel frequently so that they can serve their allocated geographical region. Many of these inspectors balance full-time headships, which is demanding in itself. The job roles range from regulatory inspectors to her Majesty’s Inspectors. Positions are often advertised on civil service job sites and the Ofsted site directly. 

The Main address is:

Ofsted

Clive House

70 Petty France 

London 

SW1H 9EX

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Correspondence should be sent to their business unit:

Ofsted

Piccadilly Gate

Store Street

Manchester

M1 2WD

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If you are ever concerned about the welfare of a child or young person, you can contact Ofsted anonymously and use their whistleblowing policy to report anything suspicious. All schools in the UK will have procedures for dealing with concerns. Report formats are standardised and are fairly easy to understand. You can read the St Lukes School report to understand how the information is presented.

So how big is this organisation and how is it run? Let’s have a look at some key facts.

Key Ofsted Facts

• Budget: £168m
• Chair: Amanda Spielman
• Frequency of Inspections: Every 3 years (on average)
• What grades can Ofsted give: Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate
• The average wage of an Ofsted inspector: £40k - £70k

Ofsted is a relatively new government organisation being formed in 1992. All state-funded schools from this point onwards began being inspected. The agency was firmly established as an organisation that improves the quality of education across England. Over the years, the organisation has seen many leadership changes but its primary function has remained the same. Many of the leadership team have gone on to gain peerages from the Queen such as Sir Michael Wilshaw. 

Notable leaders have included:

• Christine Gilbert
• David Bell
• Mike Tomlinson
• Chris Woodhead
• Stewart Sutherland
• Terry Melia
• Eric Bolton
• Sheila Browne
• Harry French

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What is Ofsted looking for?

This year we have seen significant changes with the Ofsted inspection framework. These changes come into play for the 2019 academic year. It is worth school leaders taking a moment to fully understand the potential implications. We cannot take all of the guesswork out of the changes but we can shed light on certain areas. Following international research, Ofsted has announced that their new framework will come into effect in September. 

The consultation on the current framework came to some powerful conclusions and on the whole, most providers at the receiving end of an inspection have been left nodding their heads in agreement. Here is a non-exhaustive list of their findings:

1. The accountability system has skewed the ways schools operate. School leaders have unintentionally given a higher weighting to Maths and English at the expense of other subjects. This detrimental approach has improved results in core subjects, but experts fear the real substance of education and child development has suffered.
2. Spreadsheets of performance data have become overemphasised and in some contexts, damaging to the mental health of both students and staff. The headlines are filled with stories of senior leaders feeling compelled to leave their posts because of this unintentional problem. For many Head Teachers, real outcomes cannot always be put into an Excel database.
3. The average tenure for a teacher is three years. The biggest reason for staff shortage is workload, and, in many cases, unnecessary workload. Teaching staff work hard and work with purpose. The biggest frustration is being asked to do things purely for reasons relating to accountability when they could be doing something more impactful.
4. Results are important, no one is denying this. What Ofsted noticed was a pattern of ‘teaching for the test’. School teachers felt compelled to front-load shallow short-term knowledge at the expense of deeper expertise that would be useful beyond school. Time pressures were documented a lot and many teachers who were up against exam deadlines felt that they had no choice other than to just deliver facts. Students who were often at the negative receiving end of these practices were disadvantaged learners.

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In review of these public criticisms, Ofsted made a significant change to the inspection framework by creating a new category ‘Quality of Education’. So what does this new focus on curriculum entail? What will Ofsted want to see? Ofsted have been investigating the features of a high-quality curriculum and come up with the following summary:

A high-quality curriculum;

• Is based on proactive thinking (examples of these sorts of practices are available on the Structural Learning website.
• Results from considering the sequence of content necessary for learners to make progress
• Provides learners with the knowledge required for subsequent learning (e.g. vocabulary)

The ‘Quality of Education’ category is made up of the three ‘I’s: Intent, Implementation, Impact. These and interrelated and therefore will be treated as one entity (think of it as a Venn diagram). Let’s spend some time familiarising ourselves with this new area.

You could say that these three I’s could be distilled into 3 basic questions;

1. What do we want to learn? (Intent)
2. What is the best way to learn? (Implementation)
3. How will we know what we have learned? (Impact)

This is best not viewed as a linear curriculum model that ends with the assessment component but rather as illustrating a process that is more finely tuned, whereby all three components are woven together.

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Curriculum Intent

Many experts who have unpicked the changes have interpreted ‘intent’ as a knowledge-rich curriculum. A knowledge-rich curriculum is a well-organised ‘sequence’ of all the information a school wants a child to understand. A national leader of education we know personally stated ‘if you are not knowledge-rich are you knowledge-poor?’. This contentious area has been debated a lot on social media over the last year or so. Indeed the more you look into it, the clearer it becomes that the latest Ofsted developments are heavily influenced by the ideas of E.D. Hirsch.

The British education system would not be the first to adopt his ideas. Many of the common core standards have their origins in his philosophies. Even though one theoretical approach to curriculum seems to dominate, Ofsted still ensures there is room for schools to manoeuvre. In England, schools can have very different approaches to curriculum design and Ofsted will not penalise institutions that take a different angle on curriculum design. Discussions with senior leaders will revolve around endpoints, specific and appropriate content, and the sequencing of the content.

School inspections by Ofsted are an important way to determine the quality of education at a school. Inspections involve on-site visits, observation of practice and interviews with staff, learners and parents. The feedback and recommendations provided by inspectors provide invaluable insight into how well schools are managing their curriculum intent, as well as providing support for schools in need.

Guidance for teachers is available in the form of Ofsted's Curriculum Overview, which can be found on the Ofsted website. The overview provides detailed guidance and advice on planning, delivering and assessing to ensure curriculum intent is being met. In addition, Ofsted's report gives advice regarding appropriate educational activities that are suitable for students at different stages of their education.

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Curriculum Implementation

This section is fundamentally about how teachers and other teaching staff do their job and how leaders support them. In true knowledge-based curriculum style, central considerations will be subject knowledge, presentation of material, assessment, feedback, responsive teaching, and recall of material. Nonetheless, pedagogical approaches to learning are not prescribed, and Ofsted are careful to state ‘Different approaches to teaching can be effective’. Discussions with curriculum leaders and teachers, interviews with learners, work scrutiny, and reviews of long-term planning will all be used by inspectors to evaluate a school.

When school inspectors evaluate a curriculum intent they focus on key aspects such as its ambition, breadth and range. They also look at its goals and objectives, how it is organised, any resources it has to deliver the curriculum effectively, and what delivery methods are included. School inspectors need to be sure that the curriculum being implemented by a school meets the standards expected by Ofsted.

It's also important for school inspectors to verify that the curriculum aims to provide a suitable education which helps children and young people to reach their full potential. In addition, an effective implementation of the curriculum should equip students with the knowledge, understanding, and skills they need to succeed in life. School inspectors will look for evidence that this is happening in their assessment of curriculum implementation.

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Curriculum Impact

All schools should be able to tell a story about how their curriculum has been implemented and the impact it has had on their pupils. This could include an assessment of student progress, in terms of academic achievements, behaviour and well-being. Gathering evidence and creating stories that demonstrate the impact the curriculum has had on each student will help schools to reflect upon and improve their curriculums going into the future.

On paper, the focus isn’t solely on data. Actually the emphasis certainly isn’t merely on academic achievement and there is a recognition that there are more ways of defining success. So, inspectors will not be interested in using schools’ internal assessment data as evidence. Only nationally generated performance data will be taken into account. They will also have discussions with pupils about what they remember about the content. You can also expect observations, work scrutiny and in primary schools, time spent listening to pupils read aloud.

Ofsted have recently introduced short inspections, this is for the schools that are already doing well. Think of these inspections as a spot-checks as opposed to in-depth scrutinisation. Here is your quick guide to short inspections: 

1. Timing of Inspections.

You are only going to get half a day’s notice to get everything organised. Be prepared.

2. Demeanour of inspectors

You can expect them to be challenging but also honest and fair. They will start with the presumption that you are still running a good school.

3. What are inspectors looking for?

Ultimately, they want to validate the senior leadership team’s judgement. This will involve observations, conversations, and an overview of assessments.

4. What happens after the inspection?

You can expect high-quality feedback that will help your school remain good (as well as steps to becoming outstanding).

5. What happens if an inspector sees something negative?

This will be taken into context. For example, if the science department has recently had a series of negative results and there is a clear rationale for this (a member of staff might have left), then this might not necessarily change an Ofsted grading. If the team are aware of the rationale and have a clear way of improving then this might not adversely affect the outcome.

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Quality Of Education Summarised

Schools will need to review their curriculum offerings in terms of the 3 Is. Ofsted will be looking for knowledge-rich curriculums that promote mastery of skills. They’ll also be keen on evidence of tasks that simulate situations pupils are likely to encounter in later life. Of course, inspectors who happen to be fans of Hirsch will be looking for topics being revisited and for principles of cognitive science to be implemented (spaced practice, interleaving etc).

Thinking about this ‘Quality of Education’ section, the implementation phase is of vital importance as it is where the written intentions become active. Anyone who has spent any time in a classroom will tell you that the art of teaching is how you bring that ‘intent’ to life. 

Teachers need to enthuse learners and harness curiosity as a driver for learning. The content needs to be relevant, engaging, challenging and significant, not dry and abstract. Key concepts need to be framed, explored and contextualised. 

Learners need to understand the importance of the content they are learning and develop the agency to take action. In short, a school could have the most coherent, well-sequenced, balanced curriculum in the world on paper, but there is no guarantee that pupils will learn anything meaningful and lasting as a result.

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Is there a risk that this focus on carefully sequenced content knowledge could be interpreted as being in support of a very narrow and scripted education? Could a homogenised approach be adopted with the goal of remembering ‘the best that has been thought and said’? 

We need to be careful we maintain a critical mindset and don’t assume that cognitive science and recall of surface-level knowledge, boiled down to a formula, is seen as ‘the right way’ and is allowed to dominate. Recent fixation with Cognitive Load Theory gives us a good example of how educational discourse can zoom in on one thing whilst ignoring other discoveries and uncertainties.

Will an over-emphasis on a knowledge-rich curriculum and delivery of cultural capital turn out to detract from broader educational considerations?

• If the goal is identified as knowledge acquisition, does this lend itself to ‘ideal’ pedagogical approaches such as Direct Instruction?
• Can learning just be distilled down to a change in long term memory?

Prof. Rose Luckin may well say that our continued focus on knowledge acquisition and recall as benchmarks of academic success may be unhelpful, as forms of Artificial Intelligence as knowledge databases become more sophisticated and widespread.

Many of us, I’m sure, welcome the move away from data. Time will tell how far the new framework will allow teachers to focus on the primary challenge of teaching which comes when the curriculum on paper collides with the often messy reality of a classroom. The teaching profession needs autonomy to motivate, empower and make a tangible difference to the lives of their learners.