Steve Rollett, Deputy CEO, Confederation of School Trusts
One of the important things for trust boards to understand about the new Ofsted framework is that the new evaluation area judgments don’t map neatly onto the old ones: expected standard isn’t the same as good. Attention needed isn’t the same as requires improvement.
This isn’t just a change of language; it’s a different measurement tool altogether. And when the tool changes, the picture you get will inevitably look different.
That simple idea – that a new tool produces a new kind of picture – is crucial for boards, both in how you govern and in how you support your staff and stakeholders to interpret inspection outcomes.
A different tool, a different picture
Think of it like moving from a traditional bathroom scale to one of the new ‘body analyser’ types. The old set of scales gives you one key message: weight. A body analyser scale, by contrast, gives you a profile – muscle mass, water, and body fat. The new set might highlight strengths and weaknesses that the old scale never showed up, but that doesn’t mean you have suddenly become more or less healthy. It just means the measurement is more multi-faceted.
The new inspection framework is much the same. Under the old system, while there were judgements for discrete areas, focus tended to be on the single, headline grade – outstanding, good, requires improvement, or inadequate. The new model replaces that simplicity with a more detailed profile. Schools will be assessed across six core areas, plus early years and sixth form where appropriate. And there will be a met/not met judgement made in relation to safeguarding. But there will be no ‘overall’ grade.
Boards must resist the temptation to treat the old and new system as interchangeable.
Why this matters for boards
The implications are far-reaching. Inspection outcomes will now present more strengths and weaknesses side by side. A school might be judged Strong Standard in ‘achievement’ and ‘teaching and curriculum’, but Needs Attention in ‘attendance and behaviour’. While a school’s sub-judgements were sometimes different under the previous framework, this wasn’t always common as the pressure to tie all the grades up into a neat and coherent overall judgement often seemed to have the effect of driving alignment between grades.
Philosophically, under the old system we came to understand school quality as being one thing: the overall grade. While we can debate the pros and cons of it, the new system means that sense of one truth about a school has been replaced by several truths. This is a significant change in how we think about school quality.
What does it mean for boards?
Well, for one thing, boards need to know that a new profile of ‘expected standard’ judgements isn’t a “Good” from the past. It’s not better or worse. It’s different.
If a school receives an ‘attention needed’ judgement, for example, that isn’t the same as requires improvement. It clearly signals an area where improvement is needed but boards and leaders will need to think about how they respond to it. Ofsted’s framing of the new approach implies it won’t be especially rare for a school to receive attention needed for an evaluation area – Ofsted do, however, describe ‘urgent improvement’ and ‘exceptional’ as being less frequently awarded.
Boards will want to consider how they communicate internally about Ofsted judgements. For example, some trusts have used Ofsted’s overall effectiveness grades in setting organisational and individual targets. The change to a new way of grading is a good opportunity to review this and, where appropriate, to amend practice. Indeed, some trusts already take the position of not using Ofsted judgements in target setting; it may that the complexity of the new grade profile means more will follow suit.
External communication is also important. There is a risk that parents and local communities may see reports with mixed grades and assume standards are falling, when this may not be the case. For example, how should a parent interpret a previous ‘outstanding’ school that now receives a spread of judgements at the strong standard? We’ve been pushing Ofsted to ensure it communicates effectively with stakeholders to boost understanding and address misconceptions, but trusts can help with this too. Boards may want to explore how the trust will help to support parents and others to interpret inspection outcomes as and when its schools start to be inspected.
The trust as a protective structure
As the new framework rolls out, boards will want to be cognisant of how it interacts with the feel of accountability in schools and trusts. It may be that the new arrangements prove immediately helpful in this regard– this is what Ofsted says it hopes to achieve. But, as with all new initiatives, it may be that, at least in the beginning, change brings anxiety.
Boards can play a role in here by setting the weather within the trust, offering support and reassurance where it’s needed. The evidence shows people perform better when anxiety is low, trust is high and people they feel they belong.
By leaning into this, the board can help to ensure the trust is a protective structure in this period of change.
