Official Statistics

Initial teacher education inspections and outcomes as at 30 June 2016: main messages

Updated 24 November 2016

This release contains:

• provisional data for inspections completed between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016
• most recent inspection outcomes as at 30 June 2016

The proportion of partnerships judged good or outstanding this year is higher than last year

Eighty out of 88 inspections between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016 resulted in the age phase partnership being judged to be good or outstanding, compared to 14 out of 17 in the previous academic year.

6 partnerships were judged to require improvement, but four of these improved to good at their next inspection

Of the 82 age phase partnerships inspected this year, 6 were judged to require improvement. Four of these partnerships provided training for early years teachers. All of the 6 partnerships received a subsequent inspection this year, and 4 improved to good. The two partnerships which continued to require improvement were both providers of early years training.

99% of partnerships were good or outstanding at their most recent inspection

As at 30 June 2016, 99% of all open partnerships inspected by Ofsted were judged to be either good or outstanding. This is an increase of one percentage point on the previous year.

1. How Ofsted inspects initial teacher education

Initial teacher education (ITE) inspections take place over 2 stages. The first stage occurs in the summer term and allows inspectors to observe trainees during training. No inspection judgements are formed during the first stage.

The second stage of inspection takes place in the following autumn and focuses on observing newly qualified teachers or former trainees^{[footnote 1]} in the classroom. Outcomes of inspections are only finalised after the second stage. This release covers the partnerships that had the second stage of their inspection in autumn 2015.

Each provider of initial teacher education can offer training for up to 4 different age ranges. These are called age phase partnerships and cover:

• Early years
• Primary
• Secondary
• Further education

A separate set of inspection judgements is awarded to each age phase partnership within a provider. Different age phase partnerships can be inspected at different times, even those within the same provider.

Any age phase partnership found to be less than good in a two-stage inspection will receive a single-stage follow-up inspection within the same academic year. Where ‘provision is repeatedly of requires improvement or lower quality^{[footnote 2]}, the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) will often withdraw trainee allocations until the partnership has been judged to be good. As a result, some providers close all or part of their provision when judged to be less than good. This is one reason why inspection outcomes are so high: weaker providers often close, and closed providers are excluded from these statistics.

Ofsted began to inspect providers of early years ITE in summer 2015. This is the first statistical release to include inspection outcomes for early years ITE provision.

For more information, see the quality and methodology note, which accompanies this release.

2. Outcomes of ITE partnerships at their most recent inspection

As at 30 June 2016, there were 262 ITE age phase partnerships with an inspection judgement. Ninety partnerships^{[footnote 3]} were judged to be outstanding (34%), 169 were judged to be good (65%) and 3 age phase partnerships were judged to require improvement (1%). There were no inadequate age phase partnerships.

The proportion of ITE partnerships that were good or outstanding is now 99%, up one percentage point compared to the proportion at the end of August 2015. This rise is largely due to the high proportion of partnerships judged to be good or outstanding this year; see ‘inspections between 1 September and 31 August 2016’ for more information.

There are 2 main types of ITE provider: higher education institutes^{[footnote 4]} and school centred initial teacher training establishments (SCITTs). Two thirds of ITE training takes place in higher education institutes (for instance, universities) and 98% of partnerships within these universities were judged to be good or better at their most recent inspection.

SCITTs account for 29%^{[footnote 5]} of all ITE partnerships and all of the 77 SCITT partnerships inspected by Ofsted were graded good or outstanding at their most recent inspection. There has been a rapid rise in the number of providers offering school centred training. There were 173 SCITTs operating at the start of the 2015/16 academic year, twice as many as at the start of the 2012/13 academic year. New providers are only inspected after the second year of operation and so a large number of SCITTs are not yet due for inspection. As fewer than half of all SCITTs have been inspected it is difficult to generalise about the overall quality of school based teacher training nationally.

This is the first year in which inspection outcomes for early years training have been available. Ten early years partnerships have been inspected and all but 2 of these were judged good (chart 1)^{[footnote 6]}. The grade profile therefore appears weaker for early years training compared to other phases. However, the number of inspections is too small to allow conclusions to be drawn about this sector as a whole.

3. Regional inspection outcomes

ITE inspection outcomes are high across the country, with between 95% and 100% of partnerships judged to be good or outstanding at their most recent inspection in each of the 8 Ofsted regions. However, within this overall picture of strong performance, there are regional variations in the proportion of partnerships judged to be outstanding. Across the south and east of the country^{[footnote 7]}, 37% of secondary partnerships were judged outstanding at their most recent inspection compared to 29% in the north and Midlands; a gap of 8 percentage points. This gap is larger for primary partnerships, at 19 percentage points; 53% judged outstanding in the south and east compared to 34% for the north and Midlands.

4. Inspections between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016

Ofsted conducted 53 inspections of 48 different providers of ITE between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016. These inspections resulted in 88 sets of inspection judgements. Eighty (91%) of these partnerships were judged to be good or outstanding^{[footnote 8]}. This is higher than the 82% of good or outstanding partnerships for 2014/15 but lower than the 94% seen in 2013/14 (chart 2).

Six partnerships, covering 5 providers, were judged to require improvement following their two-stage inspection. All of these partnerships received a single-stage follow-up inspection in summer 2016 and 4 improved to good. The early years partnerships of Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Sunderland continued to require improvement (chart 3).

As noted in the previous release^{[footnote 9]}, the introduction of the two-stage inspection process reduced the number of inspections that took place in the 2014/15 academic year. Inspection volumes have returned to typical levels in the 2015/16 academic year, with 53 inspections of 48 different providers.

This academic year, Ofsted inspected Teach First. Teach First is an independent charity where trainees are placed in challenging schools to work as unqualified teachers after a 6-week induction. The charity runs a national programme of teacher training and this training is delivered through 9 regional offices. Because of the unique structure of Teach First, each regional office receives a separate inspection report. Regional offices that provide training for more than one age range will receive a separate set of inspection judgements for each. All of the regional offices are inspected within the same academic year.

Ten of the 12 Teach First partnerships^{[footnote 10]} were judged to be outstanding overall, and the other 2 were judged to be good. These positive outcomes have contributed to the high overall proportion of good or outstanding ITE partnerships this academic year, and in part explain the 9 percentage point rise in inspection outcomes in 2015/16 compared to 2014/15.

1. The term ‘former trainee’ is used to describe recently trained teachers in further education colleges, further education and skills and early years settings. ↩

2. Initial Teacher Training (ITT) accreditation withdrawal process, NCTL, 2014: www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-accreditation-withdrawal-process ↩

3. Across 103 providers. ↩

4. Including ITE provision in providers of further education. ↩

5. Teach First accounts for the remaining 5% of ITE partnerships. ↩

6. Four early years partnerships were judged to require improvement at the end of their two stage inspection this year. Two of these improved to good following a subsequent single stage inspection in the summer term. See the next section for more details. ↩

7. The south and east refers to the South West, South East, East of England and London. The north and Midlands refers to the North West, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands and West Midlands. There are 125 partnerships in the north and the Midlands and 137 in the south and east. ↩

8. Partnerships judged to require improvement are subject to follow up inspections within the same academic year as the inspection which deemed them to require improvement. This is why the number of partnerships that require improvement at the end of the academic year (chart 1) is often lower than the number of partnerships judged requires improvement during the year (chart 3). ↩

9. www.gov.uk/government/statistics/initial-teacher-education-inspection-statistics-september-2014-to-august-2015 ↩

10. Teach First’s local offices in London, Yorkshire and the Humber and the West Midlands received separate judgements for their primary and secondary training. The other 6 regions received a joint primary/secondary judgement. See the accompanying charts and tables file for full details. ↩