Official Statistics

Methodology: Teacher development inspections and outcomes as at 31 August 2024

Published 14 November 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

This document contains methodology and quality information relevant to Ofsted’s annual statistical first release of teacher development inspections and outcomes data.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly on feandskillsdata@ofsted.gov.uk with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Methodology

This statistical first release contains data sourced from all Ofsted inspections of initial teacher education (ITE), providers delivering the early career framework (ECF) and national professional qualifications (NPQ). It reports on the outcomes of ITE, ECF and NPQ inspections completed between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024. This release also includes the most recent inspection outcomes of all open age phases that have been inspected as at the end of that period.

This report includes inspections and outcomes data for:

• all providers of programmes leading to qualified teacher status for maintained schools and academies
• all providers of programmes of further education teacher training validated by higher education institutions
• all providers of programmes leading to early years teacher status
• all providers delivering the ECF
• all providers delivering NPQ courses

Official statistics only include information on published inspection reports. We specify the publication cut-off date in the official statistics publication.

Information on providers, including postcode, regional information and the status of which age phases are active at each provider, is collected from providers annually.

ITE

We inspect ITE providers according to section 18B of the Education Act 1994 and the Education and Inspection Act 2006. Several sections of the Act relate to the inspection of ITE. The ITE inspection handbook contains more information.

The ITE inspection framework was most recently revised on 1 September 2020. Under this framework, each provider can offer training for up to 4 different age ranges. These are called age phases. They cover:

• early years
• primary
• secondary
• further education

Age phases are judged on a 4-point scale:

• outstanding
• good
• requires improvement
• inadequate

If a provider has been inspected more than once, not all age phases may have been inspected each time. Statistics on most recent inspection judgements are based on the most recent judgement of each phase, not the most recent judgement of each provider.

From September 2020, we moved to a 1-stage inspection model, rather than the previous 2-stage model.

From June 2014 to September 2020, an age phase that had been judged as requires improvement or inadequate would have a 1-stage follow-up inspection in the summer term of the same academic year as its 2-stage inspection. If we did not see improvement at the second inspection of primary or secondary provision, the provider was usually subject to the withdrawal of its accreditation by the Department for Education (DfE).

ECF and NPQ

The ECF and NPQ inspection framework and handbook builds on the methodology used in the education inspection framework and the ITE framework.

This publication includes visits to providers of ECF and NPQ courses. These visits include lead provider monitoring visits and full inspections. Lead provider monitoring visits make a single judgement on whether the lead provider is taking effective action towards ensuring that the training is of a high standard. Full inspections have 3 separate judgements:

• overall effectiveness
• the quality of professional development and training
• leadership and management

These are judged on a 4-point scale:

• outstanding
• good
• requires improvement
• inadequate

Quality

This section is broken down by the 5 dimensions of statistical output quality in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics:

• relevance
• coherence and comparability
• accuracy and reliability
• timeliness and punctuality
• accessibility and clarity

There is also additional information on meeting user needs.

Relevance

Information in this release has 5 distinct purposes:

• to give trainees and prospective trainees an expert and independent assessment of how well an age phase is performing, and of the quality of teacher training offered
• to allow users to track movement in the sector and monitor the quality of provision available at a national and local level
• to give an accurate picture of the provision, which influences policy decisions and helps to ensure that provision is available where it is most needed
• to help identify good practice and target areas of weak performance. This informs the development of policy in the DfE to address issues and implementation of strategies to mitigate them
• within Ofsted, to contribute to inspection profiles, which inform inspection framework development and underpin policies to improve standards

Inspection acts in several ways to drive and support improvement in the sector. It:

• raises expectations by setting the standards of performance and effectiveness expected of providers
• provides challenge and the impetus to act where improvement is needed
• clearly identifies strengths and weaknesses
• recommends specific priorities for improvement for providers and, where appropriate, checks on and promotes subsequent progress
• promotes rigour in the way that providers evaluate their own performance, thereby enhancing their capacity to improve
• monitors the progress and performance of providers that are not yet good, providing challenge and support to the senior leaders and managers who are responsible

We welcome feedback about this statistical release. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please contact us.

Coherence and comparability

We have reported on ITE inspections and inspection outcomes as official statistics since 2012 (covering the 2011 to 2012 academic year).

In 2024, we incorporated ECF/NPQ inspections and inspection outcomes into these official statistics and changed the title from ‘ITE official statistics’ to ‘Teacher development official statistics’ to reflect this.

For ITE, there have been a number of framework changes since the first release of statistics, and we have reflected these in the publications.

For ITE inspections after September 2020, the current framework has 2 key judgement areas: ‘The quality of education and training’ and ‘Leadership and management’. There is no longer an ‘Outcomes for trainees’ judgement.

When we have implemented ITE changes, such as releasing a new framework, we have alerted users through updates in the main findings document. When framework changes have made direct comparisons impossible, breaks in time series have been clearly explained in the text. When we have implemented methodological changes to improve the output, we have added guidance to footnotes and the main findings document for easy access.

Where inspection outcomes of this release are concerned, and when statements are made about whether inspection outcomes have declined or improved, we are referring to the most recent relevant outcome.

When an ITE provider offering only primary and secondary training has a small number of trainees, we may inspect both phases simultaneously and produce a combined judgement on the primary and secondary training. This is different from what happens in larger providers, where we make judgements separately for primary and for secondary training. These inspections are marked as ‘primary and secondary’.

Accuracy and reliability

This release does not include the inspection outcomes of maintained schools and academies, independent schools or early years providers. These are included in separate releases. See details of other releases.

Information on inspection outcomes is extracted from Ofsted’s administrative systems. While we aim to produce the highest-quality statistics, there are occasional differences between the data on the administrative system and the final inspection report. This is due, for example, to changes during the quality assurance process. We perform rigorous quality assurance checks, including checking a sample of entries, to ensure the inspection report matches the data on the administrative system. In the event that the data recorded on the system affects reporting, we will provide a note in the release.

See more information on the issues relating to the use of administrative data.

We publish revisions in line with Ofsted’s revisions policy for official statistics.

Timeliness and punctuality

We currently publish data once a year and include details of inspections that have taken place and been published in the relevant period.

We publish data at 9:30am on the date pre-announced in the publication schedule.

You can also find information on any delay in publication on the publication schedule.

The cut-off date for the inspection reports we include is 1 calendar month after the end of the reporting period. This allows time for the majority of inspections that have taken place within the reporting period to be published. The production stage for this release includes extracting and cleaning the data, drafting findings, quality assuring all outputs and uploading the information on to GOV.UK.

We announce publications on Ofsted’s social media channels. We give pre-release access in accordance with the Pre-release to Official Statistics Order (2008).

Accessibility and clarity

We publish in an accessible format on GOV.UK. The information is publicly available and there are no restrictions on access to the published data. Each release includes outcomes from Ofsted inspections that we have subsequently published, as well as accurate numbers of age phases known to Ofsted. The data keeps users informed of the progress of the inspection framework and of changes in the sector.

Underlying data in an accessible format accompanies each release to allow users to perform their own analysis. Users may use and re-use this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

Performance, cost and respondent burden

There is no burden on respondents in relation to these statistics. This is because the data is a by-product of Ofsted’s inspection process. The only cost involved is for the internal resource needed to collate the release.

Confidentiality, transparency and security

When we hold sensitive or personal data, the disclosure control processes we have in place ensure that this data is not published.

All data releases follow Ofsted’s confidentiality and revisions policies.

Glossary

Definitions of terms are within the statistical glossary.