Main findings: Initial teacher education inspection outcomes as at 31 August 2021

Q: Glossary

Definitions of terms are within the statistical glossary .

Question 1

Summary

Accepted Answer

This release contains:

data for inspections completed between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021
data for the most recent inspections and outcomes as at 31 August 2021

Ninety-five per cent of age phases are good or outstanding. This is 5 percentage points lower than at 30 June 2020.

Just over half of the initial teacher education (ITE) inspections carried out in 2020/21 found the provider either to require improvement or to be inadequate.

Question 2

Introduction

Accepted Answer

Teaching in England requires specific qualifications, as well as subject knowledge, experience or a previous degree. For example, to teach in a maintained primary or secondary school, you must have achieved qualified teacher status. Early years teacher status (EYTS) is available for those wishing to specialise in working with babies and children from birth to 5 years old. For those working in further education and skills, practitioners can work towards achieving qualified teacher learning and skills status. ITE is the overall term used for the training provided to enable a prospective teacher to gain the required professional status or qualification.

Types of ITE providers

These are the types of ITE providers:

school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) – a consortium of schools, usually in a local area or region, providing graduate training for teachers
further education training – training for those entering the further education and skills sector
higher education institutions (HEIs) – universities or university colleges that provide undergraduate or postgraduate teacher training. An HEI usually offers an academic qualification that includes qualified teacher status
Teach First – a charity that recruits graduates and trains them to teach in deprived areas

Each type of ITE provider can offer training for up to 4 different age ranges. These are called age phases. They cover:

early years
primary
secondary
further education

The new inspection framework and how Ofsted inspects ITE

Ofsted’s current framework for ITE was introduced in September 2020. However, no inspections were carried out under the framework until May 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The framework puts a much greater emphasis on the quality of the ITE curriculum than its predecessor. It is aligned with the education inspection framework (EIF), which launched in 2019 for schools, early years and further education inspections.

Under the ITE framework, there are 2 key judgement areas: ‘The quality of education and training’ and ‘Leadership and management’. These both receive a grade as well as the ‘overall effectiveness’ grade.

The framework uses a 1-stage inspection model, differing from the previous framework’s 2-stage inspections. Another change to the process is that the inspections will only take place in the spring and summer terms each year.

While ITE inspections were suspended during the spring term this year, we carried out thematic research to establish the impact of COVID-19 on ITE provision, including a focus on the quality of ITE curriculums. We carried out remote research visits to over 70 ITE providers. These account for about a third of the sector.

Question 3

Age phases at their most recent inspection

Accepted Answer

Ninety-five per cent of age phases are outstanding or good. This is 5 percentage points lower than the 100% seen at 30 June 2020.

Of the 349 ITE age phases that we have inspected, 332 were judged to be good or outstanding at their most recent inspection. This is lower than at the end of June 2020, when all age phases were good or outstanding. Of the remaining age phases, 12 were judged to require improvement and 5 to be inadequate. The majority (90%) of most recent inspections were carried out under the previous inspection framework.

The current framework intentionally raises the bar on the quality of education and training provided to trainee teachers. We would therefore not expect to find every age phase that we inspect either good or outstanding.

The secondary age phase has the highest proportion of good or outstanding judgements, with 98% of these age phases being graded as such in their most recent inspection. Further education has the highest proportion of less than good judgements, with 6% of the 35 age phases being most recently judged to require improvement as well as 6% judged inadequate.

Figure 1: Most recent overall effectiveness of ITE age phases, by year (percentages)

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Figure 2: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 31 August 2021, by type of provider and age phase (numbers)

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Question 4

Inspections between 1 September 2020 and 31 August 2021

Accepted Answer

Of the inspections this year, 17 resulted in good or outstanding judgements and 19 resulted in requires improvement or inadequate judgements.

We inspected 26 providers covering 36 age phases in 2020/21, with all inspections taking place in the summer term. The current inspection framework was designed to be more rigorous than the previous one and this has resulted in more age phases being judged to require improvement or be inadequate. Figure 3 shows how the proportion of good and outstanding judgements in each year had increased since 2011/12, until this year.

Of the inspections this year, 1 age phase was judged outstanding, 16 good, 12 requires improvement and 7 inadequate. This has made the grade profile for the year lower than in previous years.

As a result of this year’s inspections, the grade profile of all age phases at their most recent inspection is slightly lower now than in previous years (see Figure 1).

Figure 3: Overall effectiveness of ITE age phases, by year (numbers)

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Secondary age phases this year have seen the highest proportion of good or outstanding overall effectiveness judgements (6 good and 3 requires improvement). Primary age phases have seen the lowest proportion of good or outstanding judgements this year (1 good and 5 requires improvement). The age phase that has had the highest number of inspections this year is the combined primary and secondary age phase, which has had 12, with 1 judged outstanding, 6 good, 1 requires improvement and 4 inadequate (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Overall effectiveness judgements of ITE age phases 2020/21

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Most of the inspections this year (25) have been of age phases that have not been previously inspected as part of these providers. This is because some providers were offering new age phases or because they are new providers.

The remaining 11 age phases that had been inspected previously were good or outstanding. The majority of these age phases (7 out of 11) declined; the remaining 4 all stayed good.

These grades may not be representative of the whole sector because it is a small sample and we prioritised new providers not previously inspected and those not inspected for the longest time. This also means that the evidence base is too small to draw any conclusions on the effectiveness by type of provider.

In almost every inspection this year, the underpinning judgements of quality of education and training and also leadership and management have been the same as the overall effectiveness judgement.

Question 5

Revisions to previous release

Accepted Answer

There are no revisions to the previous release.

Question 6

Further information

Accepted Answer

Contacts

If you have any comments or feedback on this publication, you should contact Louise Butler on 03000 131 457 or inspectioninsight@ofsted.gov.uk.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this statistical release: Oli Bayntun, James Jordan, Cheryl Lee and Andy Baker.

Question 7

Glossary

Accepted Answer

Definitions of terms are within the statistical glossary.

Question 8

Annex: data tables for figures

Accepted Answer

This section contains the underlying data in an accessible table format for all figures.

Data for Figure 1: Most recent overall effectiveness of ITE age phases, by year (percentages)

	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
2021 (349)	35	60	3	1
2020 (340)	37	63	0	0
2019 (333)	36	64	0	0
2018 (313)	36	64	1	0
2017 (285)	34	66	1	0
2016 (262)	34	65	1	0
2015 (231)	34	65	1	0
2014 (225)	35	63	2	0

See Figure 1.

Data for Figure 2: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 31 August 2021, by type of provider and age phase (numbers)

Provision type	Age phase	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
Teach First	Secondary (3)	3	0	0	0
Teach First	Primary (3)	2	1	0	0
Teach First	Primary and secondary (5)	4	1	0	0
SCITT	Secondary (56)	18	37	1	0
SCITT	Primary (43)	25	17	1	0
SCITT	Primary and secondary (62)	24	35	1	2
SCITT	Early years ITT (EYTS) (2)	0	2	0	0
ITE in FE	ITE in further education (9)	0	7	2	0
HEI	Secondary (65)	18	45	2	0
HEI	Primary (61)	20	37	4	0
HEI	ITE in further education (26)	5	19	0	2
HEI	Early years ITT (EYTS) (14)	2	10	1	1

See Figure 2.

Data for Figure 3: Overall effectiveness of ITE age phases, by year (numbers)

Academic year	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate	Total
2020/21	1	16	12	7	36
2019/20	5	2	0	0	7
2018/19	29	32	1	0	62
2017/18	26	39	5	0	70
2016/17	12	34	1	1	48
2015/16	33	47	8	0	88
2014/15	1	13	2	1	17
2013/14	16	42	4	0	62
2012/13	12	38	11	0	61
2011/12	8	55	13	0	76

See Figure 3.

Data for Figure 4: Overall effectiveness judgements of ITE age phases 2020/21

Age phase	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate	Total
Early years	0	0	1	1	2
Primary	0	1	5	0	6
Secondary	0	6	3	0	9
Primary and secondary	1	6	1	4	12
Further education	0	3	2	2	7
All ITE providers	1	16	12	7	36

See Figure 4.

Main findings: Initial teacher education inspection outcomes as at 31 August 2021

Applies to England

Summary