Ofsted has sought feedback on its revised inspection framework. In order to inform our response to the consultation, we held a series of roundtables in March, focusing on the areas of inclusion, curriculum and attendance. These roundtables are only part of the work informing our final response and are complemented by an online survey as well as reviews of existing literature and data.

Our online roundtables were attended by Chartered College Fellows and members from a range of schools and settings, representing Early Years to Initial Teacher Training, mainstream schools to specialist provision, as well as some practitioners who are also Ofsted inspectors and Fellows who are His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs).

Each discussion has fed into our response to the current Ofsted and Department for Education (DfE) consultations around the inspection framework and measures proposed. It should be noted that the views summarised here are those of colleagues attending the roundtables and reflect their experiences with and opinions of the inspection system. They are not necessarily representative of the entire teaching profession or the Chartered College of Teaching as an organisation but they are important to share as part of the evidence informing discussions going forward.

In a previous blog post, we shared headline findings from our consultation. In this series, we share more detailed insights on some of the focus areas, which have also been shared with Ofsted.

This blog post discusses Ofsted’s proposals for the ‘personal development and well-being’ focus area in their proposed new framework.

Given the current and ongoing mental health crisis among young people in England, the focus on personal development and well-being is particularly important, especially for disadvantaged students who may have little to no access to extracurricular activities outside schools. The aspiration for all students to have equal access to extracurricular activities is also welcome and important.

However, a school’s context is important to consider. School budgets are tight and schools serving more affluent communities may find it easier to ask parents or local businesses for financial contributions towards certain extracurricular activities than schools serving more deprived communities, which may affect how much they are able to offer. Similarly, larger schools and trusts may find it easier to pool resources to ensure a broader offer for students across a number of schools or year groups. They may also have more specialist staff available to assure a broad extracurricular offer. Schools in urban areas may also find it easier to organise access to cultural activities than more isolated schools. In turn, more rural schools may find it easier to provide access to sporting and outdoor activities than schools located in urban areas. Although neither should be seen as an ‘excuse’ not to offer access to these activities to students, the realities of what is possible within constrained budgets needs to be considered.

Furthermore, schools do not operate in a vacuum but within a complex, under-funded and overly strained social care system and cannot be held accountable for failings within the wider mental health support system.

The following improvement should therefore be envisaged:

• Taking schools’ context and budgets into account, so that expectations about the extracurricular offer are in line with budget allocations, school size and location.
• Clarity on how this focus area aligns with intentions following on from the Curriculum and Assessment review and potential changes resulting from it.
• A recognition that while schools have an important role to play in supporting students’ wellbeing and mental health, they operate within a wider, complex and under-funded system and cannot be held to account for failings in other parts of the system.