Guidance

Schools and early education update: March 2022

Updated 21 December 2022

Applies to England

Message to inspectors from the National Director, Education

Welcome to the spring term edition of the schools and early education update.

As we approach the end of the second term of this academic year, I first want to thank you all for your continued hard work, dedication and professionalism in carrying out your inspection work and ensuring that we meet our full programme of routine inspections during a continued period of challenge for Ofsted, schools and early years providers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the full resumption of routine inspections in September last year, we have been able to bed down further our inspections under the education inspection framework (EIF) which, as you know, were suspended in March 2020 after just 7 months because of COVID-19. We have gathered nearly 2 more terms of evidence on the effectiveness of our new inspection methodology under the framework and its focus on the real substance of education: the curriculum.

Inspection results so far are much in line with what we saw before the pandemic began, if not slightly improved. That will be a reassurance to parents and to providers as well. Our survey results show that our inspections are valued by the vast majority of school leaders who have experienced one this academic year.

As you know, in December 2021 we published the first in our series of briefings exploring the continued impact of the pandemic on learning and how providers are approaching education recovery.

The evidence you capture during inspection is a valuable and unique source of information, which we have analysed to present insight into the experiences of children, pupils and learners, and into how providers are responding in these challenging times. Again, I want to thank you for your ongoing support to our education recovery project, which is continuing throughout the 2021 to 2022 academic year.

In this edition, we include articles on the following:

• updates to the section 5 school inspection handbook and the report writing guidance for section 5 and section 8
• using data for inspection
• Ofsted EIF inspections and the early years foundation stage (EYFS)

Best wishes

Chris

Chris Russell HMI National Director, Education

Updates to the section 5 school inspection handbook and the report writing guidance for section 5 and section 8

Inspectors are reminded that, in February we published updates to the section 5 school inspection handbook, as follows:

Update	Paragraph number(s)
To incorporate changes to Ofsted’s policy on aligned inspections (previously published as separate guidance in October 2021)	39, 106, 111, 148 and 379 to 387
To clarify the frequency of inspection	41 to 44 and 50
Clarifications on what we consider in our risk assessment	47
To clarify Ofsted’s approach to harmful sexual behaviour	67, 236, 252 and 315 to 317
Updates and clarifications on transitional arrangements	230 and 231

At the same time, we also revised the report template guidance for section 5 inspections and for section 8 inspections of good and outstanding schools, as follows:

• to reflect that some schools may now have received more than one inspection since the COVID-19 pandemic began
• to update the example wording for where transitional arrangements have been taken into account

We also amended the standard text that must be used in section 5 reports for formerly exempt academy converter schools.

Using data for inspection

The inspection data summary report (IDSR) is designed to provide inspectors with all the performance information they need to inspect, as well as contextual information about a school. Analysts may also provide inspectors with a briefing for secondary school inspections covering key stage 4 subject entry data and other relevant data. Therefore, inspectors should only refer to the IDSR and analyst briefings and should not use data from other sources.

The IDSR will give an indication of the historic performance of the school but should not lead to detailed conversations about data on inspection. Any national data that is statistically significant and relevant to inspection will be highlighted clearly in the IDSR. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019 data is the latest available results data. Recently, 2021 key stage 4 and 5 subject entries have been included in the IDSR and briefings. As always, inspectors will use the official IDSR as a starting point on inspection (taking into account, for example, the age of the data), but will base their conclusions on what they see first-hand about the quality of education as experienced by pupils.

The IDSR recently moved to HTML (web-based) format. This brings the IDSR in line with other government pages, and is more user-friendly and accessible. Users can still print and download the IDSR so that they can view it offline.

Ofsted EIF inspections and the EYFS

We refreshed our ‘Ofsted EIF inspections and EYFS’ page in December 2021 to reflect new questions about inspections in the early years in schools from the sector.

We’re often asked lots of questions and encounter many misconceptions about our EIF inspections of early years in schools. We hope in time this page will become the go-to place for all information people need, allowing us to dispel unhelpful inspection rumours quickly and efficiently. It answers common inspection queries, ranging from inspections during the pandemic to curriculum mapping, assessment arrangements and how we inspect early reading, so do take a look. We update this page every couple of months, or more should there be a need. We also welcome feedback on any other frequent misunderstandings which would be helpful to address.

While this is primarily a page for schools, we encourage all inspectors to familiarise themselves with its contents to ensure that consistent messages are given, and to let school leaders and staff know it’s there. We also welcome feedback on any other frequent misunderstandings inspectors have come across that would be helpful to address.