CHARTERED COLLEGE COMMENTS ON OFSTED INSPECTION FRAMEWORK

Following the launch of Ofsted’s consultation on its new education inspection framework, the Chartered College of Teaching has issued the following comment. As part of the consultation, the Chartered College will work to collate the views of its members.
Professor Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, said:

“The launch of Ofsted’s framework consultation signals a welcome move to consider all areas of school experience. As Ofsted states, data is only one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, a broader focus on the full curriculum is certainly a positive move.

With Ofsted placing greater emphasis on curriculum and knowledge, the Chartered College of Teaching wants to ensure that school leaders and teachers are confident in making decisions that are informed by evidence. As part of this, we believe that the evidence base underpinning evaluation of the intent, implementation and impact of the curriculum by schools and the inspectorate should include research data from school-aged children as its foundation. We welcome Ofsted’s transparency towards research, but as Ofsted states, “education research is contestable”. We encourage teachers and Ofsted to work with the Chartered College, as the professional body for teaching, to ensure that the evidence base is suitable and applicable for the phase under inspection. We are particularly keen, for example, to ensure that the developmental needs of children in the early years and primary phases are understood and planned for robustly.

We will be engaging with our members to gather their insight and wealth of experience in responding to this consultation. In the future we aim to publish examples from schools where a research informed approach to teaching is achieving high impact, thereby extending approaches and resources that teachers can engage with. We agree that this framework must support fair judgements for all schools and welcome the opportunity for colleagues to focus on curriculum design that gives teachers the confidence to embrace the best possible offer for children and young people.”