Ofsted


The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training and childcare services in England do so to a high standard for children and students. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting a range of educational institutions, including state schools and some independent schools. It also inspects childcare, adoption and fostering agencies and initial teacher training, and regulates early years childcare facilities and children's social care services.
The chief inspector is appointed by an Order in Council and thus becomes an office holder under the Crown. Sir Martyn Oliver has been HMCI as of 2024; as of 2020 the chair of Ofsted has been Christine Ryan: her [|predecessors] include Julius Weinberg and David Hoare.
Ofsted publish reports on the quality of education and management at a particular school and organisation on a regular basis. His Majesty's Inspectors rank schools based on information gathered in inspections which they undertake. An Ofsted section 5 inspection is called a 'full report' and administered under section 5 of the 2005 Education Act, while a monitoring visit is conducted under the authority given by section 8 of the 2005 Education Act and can also be called an Ofsted section 8 inspection.

History

In 1833, Parliament agreed to an annual grant to the National Society for Promoting Religious Education and the British and Foreign School Society, which respectively provided Church of England and non-denominational elementary schools for poor children. In 1837, two inspectors of schools, Seymour Tremenheere and the Reverend John Allen, were appointed to monitor the effectiveness of the grant. James Kay-Shuttleworth, then Secretary of the Privy Council's Education Committee, ensured that the inspectors were appointed by Order in Council to guard their independence.
The grant and inspection system was extended in 1847 to Roman Catholic elementary schools established by the Catholic Poor School Committee. Inspectors were organised on denominational lines, with the churches having a say in the choice of inspectors, until 1876, when the inspectorate was reorganised by area.
After the Education Act 1902, inspections were expanded to state-funded secondary schools along similar lines. Over time more inspections were carried out by inspectors based in local education authorities, with His Majesty's Inspectorate focusing on reporting to the Secretary of State on education across the country.
The government of John Major, concerned about variable local inspection regimes, decided to introduce a national scheme of inspections through a reconstituted HMI, which became known as the Office for Standards in Education. Under the Education Act 1992, HMI would supervise the inspection of each state-funded school in the country, and would publish its reports for the benefit of schools, parents, and government instead of reporting to the Secretary of State.
In September 2001, HM Chief Inspector of Schools in England became responsible for registration and inspection of day care and childminding in England, and the position was renamed HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills. Previously this was done by 150 local authorities, based on their implementation by 1992 of the Day care Standards provisions of the 1989 Children Act.
Schedule 11 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 changed the way in which Ofsted works without significantly changing the provision. Since 2006 the structure of Ofsted has derived elements from business models, with a chair, an executive board, regional officers, and a formal annual report to Parliament in the light of concerns about schools, and local authority children's services. In April 2007, the former Office for Standards in Education merged with the Adult Learning Inspectorate to provide an inspection service that includes all post-16 government funded education. At the same time it took on responsibility for the registration and inspection of social care services for children, and the welfare inspection of independent and maintained boarding schools from the Commission for Social Care Inspection.

Current state

The services Ofsted inspects or regulates include local services, childminding, child day care, children's centres, children's social care, CAFCASS, state schools, private schools and teacher training providers, colleges, and learning and skills providers in England. It also monitors the work of the Independent Schools Inspectorate. HMI are empowered and required to provide independent advice to His Majesty's Government and Parliament on matters of policy and to publish an annual report for Parliament on the quality of educational provision in England. Ofsted distributes its functions amongst its offices in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cambridge, York, Darlington and Bristol.
Ofsted covers only England; the Education and Training Inspectorate in Northern Ireland, Education Scotland in Scotland, and Estyn in Wales perform similar functions within their education systems.
A new Education Inspection Framework introduced from September 2019 sets out how Ofsted undertakes inspections under section 5 of the Education Act 2005, section 109 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and the Childcare Act 2006.

Inspectors

The current Chief Inspector is Sir Martyn Oliver, who was appointed in January 2024 replacing Amanda Spielman. Ofsted directly employs His Majesty's Inspectors, who are appointed by the King in Council., there were 443 HMIs, of whom 82 were engaged in management, 245 in the inspection of schools, and the rest in the inspection of other areas for which Ofsted in responsible. All HMIs inspecting schools have teaching experience.
When Ofsted was created the original plan was that inspectors would not be drawn from education. the plan was to give parents an independent review of a school untainted by the education establishment. This plan was quickly replaced by a system that existed until 2005. This system was based on schools being inspected by teams containing three types of inspector. Each team was led by a 'registered' inspector. They were accompanied by a number of 'team' inspectors, the number of which depended on the size of the school. Each team also contained 'lay' inspector recruited from outside the world of education. In September 2005 the distinction between registered, team and lay inspectors was removed and all contracted inspectors became 'Ofsted inspectors'.
Most school inspections were carried out by additional Inspectors employed by external companies known as Regional Inspection Service Providers., there were 1,948 AIs, of whom 1,567 inspect schools. Although Ofsted claims that most of these have teaching experience, in 2012 it was forced to admit that it had done no quality control checks on these inspectors, and that a few of them – including lead inspectors – were not qualified teachers as prior to 2005 they had been 'lay' inspectors. In 2015, the chief inspector decided that he wanted more direct control over Ofsted inspectors brought responsibility for their training, deployment and quality 'in-house' and abolished the contracts with the RISPs who are no more. 40% of additional inspectors who wanted to continue working for Ofsted were not re-hired after the contractual change. Although Ofsted insisted that this was part of a quality control process and "should not be seen as an admission that its inspections were substandard", serving headteacher and Times Educational Supplement columnist Geoff Barton commented "dispensing with almost 40 per cent of inspectors on the grounds of quality is hardly an endorsement of standards."
An HMI accompanies an Ofsted inspector on a sample of inspections, including 75% of those of secondary schools. Reports produced by RISPs must be checked and signed off by HMI, sometimes with amendments, before publication. New Additional Inspectors must be monitored and signed off by HMI before working independently.
The number of RISPs contracted to conduct school inspections was reduced in 2009 from five to three:
, seventy per-cent of the inspectors are now headteachers or school leaders.

School inspections

Ofsted publish reports on the quality of education and management at a particular school and organisation on a regular basis. His Majesty's Inspectors rank schools based on information gathered in inspections which they undertake. Inspectors carry out regular inspections of all maintained schools and academies, some independent schools, colleges, apprenticeship providers, prison education and many other educational institutions and programmes outside of higher education. Ofsted aims to improve lives by raising standards in education and children's social care. Ofsted monitors standards in schools, and tells schools what they are doing right and what they must do to improve.
Inspectors publish reports of findings so they can be used to improve the overall quality of education and training. Inspection reports provides important information to parents, carers, learners and employers about the quality of education, training and care. These groups should be able to make informed choices based on the information published in inspection reports. Ofsted monitors standards in schools, and tells schools what they are doing right and what they must do to improve. Before 2005 each school was inspected for a week every six years, with two months' notice to prepare for an inspection.

2005–2012

In September 2005 a new system of short-notice inspections came into being. Under this system the senior leadership of each school were strongly encouraged to complete a Self Evaluation Form on a continual basis, which required them to be aware of strengths and areas for development. Inspections were generally two- or three-day visits every three years, with two days' notice. They focused on the "central nervous system" of the school – examining how well the school was managed, and what processes were in place to ensure standards improve; the school leadership and management were expected to be aware of everything in the SEF. The SEF served as the main document when planning the inspection, and was crucial in evaluating the school's capacity to improve.
After an inspection of a school, Ofsted published a report on the school on its website. In addition to written comments on a number of areas, schools were assessed on each area and overall on a 4-point scale: 1, 2, 3 and 4. Schools rated Outstanding or Good might not be inspected again for five years, while schools judged less favourably were inspected more frequently, and might receive little or no notice of inspection visits. Figures published in March 2010 showed that revised inspection criteria, which were introduced in September 2009, resulted in a reduction from 19% to 9% in the number of schools judged to be Outstanding, and an increase from 4% to 10% in the number of schools judged to be Inadequate.