DfE and Ofsted blogs published today

Posted by: Media Officer

Data collected by the Department for Education showed 90.7% of schools remained open to some or all pupils on Wednesday 1 February during strike action by the NEU (National Education Union). 45.9% were reported to be fully open, 44.7% were open but restricting attendance and less than 10% (9.3%) were closed.

Many parents and pupils will have faced disruption, but we are hugely grateful to head teachers, teachers and support staff who continued to work today, so a significant number of pupils will have not experienced disruption to their education. This is particularly important for vulnerable pupils, children of key workers, and those preparing for important exams.

52.1% of primary schools were fully open and a further 38.7% were restricting attendance, compared to 17.4% of secondary schools fully open, and 73.6% restricting attendance.

This data is based on returns from 77.3% of schools in England - you can access our data here.

Posted by: Yvette Stanley

2022 saw the publication of several reviews looking at the children’s social care sector. The Care Review, the Competition and Markets Authority market study, and the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel all made major recommendations for reform.

In our own Annual Report, which we published at the end of the year, we set out the important backdrop for these calls for reform: the social care sector is under significant pressure due to a combination of workforce issues and wider systemic and social issues.

We also raised specific concerns around unregistered children’s homes, criminal exploitation, care leavers, supported accommodation and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

We did, though, identify some remarkable resilience from providers within the sector. Overall, we found the picture for local authorities’ children’s services has improved in very difficult conditions. And for social care providers, especially children’s homes, there has been little change in overall effectiveness. In many ways, this is notable given the pressures they face.

What next

However, the sustainability of this picture is under question. The pressures on the sector look likely to increase in 2023 as any further increases in the cost of living are likely to increase the number of families living in poverty. Local authorities may in turn see higher numbers of children in need and more child protection cases.

Our report on local authority sufficiency planning found that many are already struggling with a last minute dash to find homes for children coming into care due to the rising demand for places and a lack of suitable accommodation. Any increase in children entering care could overwhelm an already stretched system.

As well as this continuing focus on children entering care, in 2023 we will be increasing our scrutiny of children leaving care. From this month, our inspections of local authority children’s services (ILACS) will include a separate judgement on ‘the experiences and progress of care leavers.’ This follows our recent consultation on changes to the framework, which saw over 90% of respondents support our plans for a specific focus on care leavers.

In April we will begin registering currently unregulated accommodation providers for 16–17-year-olds in care and begin pilot inspections later in the year. Right touch regulation is one of our strategic priorities and we will make sure this applies to this new role. We will be proportionate and risk-based in our approach to get this right for all children in supported accommodation.

Our strategic priorities also include ‘keeping pace with sector changes’ and ‘inspections that raise standards.’ These will also be forefront to us in 2023 as we:

• Advise on and implement regulatory changes
• Support improvement across social care while understanding the strains on the sector and limiting market disruption
• Work with government to improve our ability to tackle illegal and unregistered providers
• Make sure ILACS continue to identify best practice as well as areas for improvement in a time of change
• Disseminate the learning from the joint targeted area inspections including around early help for families
• Continue our programme of making good decisions research focused on creating stability for children with the most complex needs

Posted by: Lee Owston, Acting National Director Education

2023 is already shaping up to be another busy year for schools and further education (FE) and skills providers. While none of us can quite predict what might be around the corner, our Annual Report, published at the end of last year, did identify several challenges that will undoubtedly continue into this year.

We reported on the ongoing issues of the pandemic, including around attendance. Specifically, we highlighted the increasing use by schools of part-time timetables. Schools may be using these with the best of intentions but pupils can too easily move out of sight because they’re absent from education for too much time, and too often it is used to try to avoid the legal requirements around excluding a pupil.

We also warned about the number of children in unregistered schools, as well as children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), many of whom continue to struggle with inconsistent levels of support and a lack of joined-up provision.

Alternative provision (AP) was also an area of focus in the report, particularly unregistered AP, which does not have any direct oversight. It is sometimes used as a shadow SEND system, with pupils referred there indefinitely while they wait for a suitable placement at another school. This is unfair to the child and risks disguising the true level of demand for appropriate SEND support.

In the FE and skills sector, we found great variety in learners and providers’ experiences. We found good examples of ambitious curriculums, skilled teachers, and motivated learners. But we also saw:

• restricted or uncoordinated off-the job training
• not enough thought given to learners’ future employment
• poor overall outcomes for colleges teaching learners with severe or multiple disabilities.

Workforce pressures

There is clearly a lot of work to do to make sure that young people have the opportunities they deserve. But our report also highlighted the significant workforce pressures the sector is facing. Many schools and colleges are struggling to recruit and retain teachers, tutors, and other staff.

We also emphasised the importance of high-quality teacher training and development. It is vital that schools can recruit, train, and retain a highly skilled workforce.

What next?

Our report also included our reviews of T-levels and skills bootcamps. We found that many providers are delivering high-quality training and education, but some are finding it difficult to properly implement these new programmes. We will therefore be inspecting skills bootcamps from April and will be revisiting T-level providers in 2023.

Perhaps our most reported findings from 2022 were those from our inspections of previously exempt outstanding schools. The exemption was lifted during the pandemic, but we have now been able to inspect 370 formerly exempt schools. We found that 83% were no longer outstanding.

However, this may not be representative of all formerly exempt schools. We prioritised the schools that had gone the longest without inspection, an average of 13 years. And very few had been graded under the education inspection framework (EIF), which raised the bar for outstanding. As a result, they are not typical of all exempt schools, and the pattern of inspection outcomes may change later. We will therefore continue this programme and will inspect all previously exempt outstanding schools by the end of July 2025. We will publish a fuller report on previously exempt schools in the coming months.

Our annual report also provided an overview of inspection judgements. The proportion of state-funded schools judged good or outstanding is now 88%. This marks an increase from 86% in 2021.

It’s important to remember that during the pandemic (2020–21 and into 2022), we inspected with no outcomes data more recent than 2018-2019. However, as part of the Annual Report, we wanted to analyse the relationship between performance data and our judgements during this time. This analysis provided some confidence that there continues to be a relationship between statutory outcomes and inspection judgements. This is because of the clear link between a good quality of education and a school’s outcomes. That said, there is often less of a link for inadequate schools, because these are often judged inadequate for safeguarding rather than for quality of education.

Although improvements have been made, pupils’ attendance remains a priority for schools as we recover from the pandemic. Schools that have secured better attendance are characterised by leaders clearly and consistently communicating their high expectations. These leaders analyse any trends carefully to help them target their actions.

We look forward to continuing our curriculum insight work in 2023 by publishing further research reviews and the first of our subject reports. Our science subject report will be available soon and will paint a picture of the teaching of the subject across England. We hope that the findings and recommendations in these reports contribute further towards the growing pool of subject expertise.

At the end of 2022, we published our new area SEND inspection framework jointly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In January, we began carrying out our first inspections. The new framework aims to promote further improvement in the SEND system by strengthening accountability and focusing on the features we know make local area arrangements most effective in improving the lives of children and young people with SEND. We will share the findings and insights from our inspection evidence with government as plans for SEND reform continue to develop.

Finally, we’re developing training for all inspectors to help them understand some of the complexities that small schools face in delivering a broad, well-sequenced curriculum. This will help them when they’re inspecting small schools.