Ofsted

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Tuesday 3 September.

“As the Government explained in the Written Ministerial Statement that was laid yesterday, and as was outlined in our manifesto, single headline grades will no longer be issued by Ofsted when it inspects state-funded schools. Our landmark reform will drive high and rising standards for children, and will increase transparency for parents.

Today Ofsted published the outcome of its Big Listen consultation exercise, the largest engagement with parents, children and professionals in its history, which, as the right honourable Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) will know, began under the last Government. The Big Listen contains some difficult messages. It is clear that significant change is needed, and Ofsted has responded by committing itself to improvements.

Holding schools accountable for children’s education is vital, but single headline grades are low information for parents and create high stakes for schools, so this Government are acting, making inspections both more powerful and more transparent. For this academic year, parents will continue to see four inspection grades for the existing subcategories, and from September 2025 the introduction of school report cards will provide a more complete picture of a school’s performance. We will develop those over the coming months, working closely with parents and schools.

We want high and rising standards for every child, and we will act decisively when those standards are not being met. We will continue to intervene when performance is a serious concern. Ofsted’s legal duty to identify schools causing concern will remain. It will still be required to notify the Secretary of State of these inspection outcomes, and she will retain her legal duty to issue an academy order to local authority-maintained schools when that is required. However, we will change the way in which schools are supported to help them succeed. From early 2025, we will introduce regional improvement teams, which will partner with struggling schools to drive improvement quickly and directly. This marks the beginning, not the end, of our journey towards an accountability system that is fit for purpose and will help to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child throughout the country”.

12:25:00

The improvement in our schools under the last Conservative Government reflected a combination of high autonomy—we trusted our school and trust leaders to know the answers for their school and their community—and high accountability, so that the interests of children are protected and clear action is taken if a school is underperforming. That action is led by our best school trusts, and that is why our international rankings in England in reading, maths and science have all risen, while in Labour-run Wales they have sunk. It feels like these principles, which have driven success and opportunity for our children, are being eroded, and the changes being proposed to Ofsted inspections require further explanation. I acknowledge that the Government say standards will rise as a result of the changes they are proposing, but school leaders and parents need to know how. Can the Minister explain what will actually be new on the new school report cards? There is an enormous amount of information and publicly available data on schools, and there is obviously a great deal of detail in the existing Ofsted reports. What is the gap that the Government have identified and what is the problem they are trying to solve? What evidence does the Minister have that the regional improvement teams proposed by the Government will be more effective than strong academy trusts in turning around underperforming schools? Finally, how will decisions on interventions in underperforming schools be taken between now and September 2025?

In response to the noble Baroness’s first remarks, I agree that teachers and school leaders deserve enormous congratulation on the improvements that they have made in schools, and this Government are committed to supporting them to achieve even higher standards for all our pupils. The announcement that the Government have made alongside Ofsted is the removal of the single headline grade for Ofsted inspections, something that provided a relatively low level of information but of course had enormously high stakes for schools. In doing that, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that parents have the information they need to be able to make decisions for their children, and that schools have the information to enable them to improve. That is why we will work with schools, parents and young people themselves, and Ofsted will lead this to help to develop the report cards that will provide more useful information. The noble Baroness was, understandably, particularly interested in the impact on intervention. To be absolutely clear, where Ofsted identifies serious concerns with a school, the current situation whereby the Secretary of State can ensure that a maintained school becomes an academy or a failing academy is forced to become part of an academy trust remains. There is no change there but where schools could benefit from improvement, the development of regional improvement teams, apart from an early structural intervention in the management of schools, gives us an additional way to promote improvement in our schools and make sure that all children, wherever they are learning, are gaining the highest standards and schools are being held to account for delivering those.

My Lords, these Benches welcome the changes to Ofsted inspections and applaud the Government for the speedy way they have acted. Following the tragic suicide of Mrs Perry, noble Lords will recall that the review of what happened found that Ofsted had acted in a way that was “defensive and complacent rather than reflective and self-critical”. For us, school improvement is not about wielding a big stick—it is about collaboration, support and valuing schools and helping them to get better. How does the Minister see well-being and mental support of staff being provided during an inspection?

The noble Lord is right to outline the comments made by the coroner in the case of the tragic death of Ruth Perry and by the Education Select Committee in another place about the impact of the single headline grade in those circumstances. That is part of the reason for the Government’s decision to remove that single headline grade, while maintaining a wealth of information from the Ofsted inspection in the report card that is being developed. I will be frank with the noble Lord. Having been on the receiving end of an Ofsted inspection both in schools and children’s social care, I think the inspections will always bring pressure on to schools and other settings, and so they should. The point is whether they are bringing pressure to good effect. During its Big Listen process, Ofsted has also had the opportunity to consider how to maintain that rigorous inspection and accountability process but to do that in a way, as the noble Lord says, that focuses on accountability and improvement but does not put undue stress on to schools and head teachers.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that considerable good practice is available internationally on how best to inspect and evaluate schools and that there is enormous understanding within the profession about how best to improve our schools? On that basis, I congratulate my Government on making this early decision. In response to the noble Baroness opposite about what question the Government are trying to answer with this, I think they are trying to answer that question of unrealistic, unreasonable pressure on individuals in schools from that headline judgment. If it did nothing else other than prevent any other head teacher taking their own life, it would be absolutely worth doing. Having been a teacher myself, I know that all teachers welcome engagement with those authorities which seek to assist them to improve in their practice. I am confident—and I hope the noble Baroness agrees—that a move towards a balanced scorecard, engaging the profession and looking at best practice internationally is absolutely the way to ensure that we have an increasing number of self-improving schools for all our young people.

I strongly agree with my noble friend, particularly on the points about how very good existing school leaders can support school improvement more widely and about learning from international experience. I know that Ofsted, in its consideration of improvement of the education inspection framework, will reflect on that, as will the Government. One reason for saying that it is a good idea to introduce the regional improvement teams in the way in which the Government are suggesting is because that enables us to build on the expertise of leaders in academies and other schools to support those schools which need to improve to be able to do so. In some cases, it will be necessary to change the management arrangements of schools but, short of that, much can be done to bring good practice to bear on those schools that need improvement, and we should make use of that capacity across the system.

Does the Minister agree that sometimes too much information makes it very difficult for people to understand what the situation is? I am not particularly one way or the other about a single word, but I think it is very important for parents to see in very short terms what they can help with. I have to say to the previous questioner that I do not believe that all teachers are always happy about pressure to improve the circumstances. Can the Minister assure me that the reports will now be written in such a way that there will be a couple of lines which emphasise the things that need to be done; otherwise, I fear we will be messed up by too many words?

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and I suspect Members of this House understand the danger of being messed up by too many words. This is the beginning of a process, so the removal of the single headline grade still leaves four subheadings in the important areas of quality of education, behaviour, personal development, and leadership and management. The process for developing the single report card will, as he rightly argues, involve parents alongside teachers and others in determining the information they really need and how it is presented in a digestible and understandable way. I can assure the noble Lord that this will also, as will Ofsted’s broader reports, include areas where the school needs to improve so that everybody can be clear about what needs to happen and there is that maintained accountability for schools to continue improving.