Area SEND inspections to restart

Area SEND inspections, which Ofsted carry out jointly with the Care Quality Commission, are set to begin again. They were paused in March 2020, owing to the impact of COVID-19.

From April 2021, we will start revisiting areas where we had significant concerns about SEND provision when we last inspected them. The timescale for revisiting will be determined by when those are as were required to produce a written statement of action, which set out the significant concerns. The areas will be given 10 working days’ notice ahead of a revisit.

We plan to restart full area SEND inspections from June 2021 at the earliest. These visits will be to areas that have not yet been inspected under the current framework. The precise restart date for full inspections will be kept under review, subject to government guidance and any COVID-19 restrictions in place at the time.

We are currently developing a new area SEND inspection framework. We will continue to engage stakeholders on the framework’s design and we will consult publicly as part of its development.