Ofsted launches complaints consultation but focuses wider inspection reforms on schools
By Shannon Pite
Ofsted has launched a formal consultation on significant changes to the inspection complaints system. The changes would apply to all education settings, including early years providers.
Key proposals include:
- extending on-site dialogue during inspections to "help address any issues at an early stage"
- introducing a new opportunity for providers to contact a Senior HMI the day after an inspection if they have concerns about the process or outcome
- a new conversation between the complainant and the investigator at the beginning of the process, aimed at making it more responsive to the specific concerns
- new arrangements for formal challenges to inspection outcomes to be considered sooner than is currently possible, so they can be addressed and reports finalised more quickly
- allowing complainants to escalate concerns to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO) at an earlier point in the process
- a new, periodic review of closed complaints by external representatives
The new consultation will run until Friday 15 July 2023. The consultation document, which includes the full proposals, is available .
However, Ofsted has confirmed that a wider package of newly-announced changes will only apply to schools. These include:
- re-inspecting schools that were graded inadequate overall due to ineffective safeguarding, but where all other judgements were good or better, within three months
- giving schools greater clarity about the threshold for effective versus ineffective safeguarding through the inspection handbook
- giving schools more information about the broad timing of their next inspection
- ensuring that inspection reports refer to 鈥榯he school鈥 by default, rather than individuals when discussing areas of weakness as of September
Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the 无码天堂, said:
鈥淥fsted knows all too well that concerns over the impact of inspections are far from limited to schools, with our own research showing that inspections are the greatest cause of stress among those working in nurseries, pre-schools and childminding settings.
鈥淗ow can it be acceptable, therefore, to announce a series of reforms to the way schools are inspected, while completely ignoring the need for change in the early years?
鈥淚t鈥檚 clear that Ofsted has completely underestimated the negative impact of inspections on the early years workforce 鈥 and of course, this is at a time when we should be doing all we can to encourage educators to join, and remain in, the early years. Our sector, and the talented professionals that work within it, deserve so much better.
鈥淚t is absolutely critical, therefore, that as discussions around Ofsted inspections continue, any reforms are applied to all education settings inspected under the Education Inspection Framework 鈥 including early years providers 鈥 and not just schools. The idea that inspections should be a collaborative and positive process focused on supporting high-quality provision is true of the whole education sector, and not just a part of it.鈥
A spokesperson for Ofsted said:
"Our approach to safeguarding, and the timing of inspections, in early years will remain as it is currently. This is in part because of our role as the regulator in the early years sector (where for schools we are just the inspectorate) and the way that inspection timings are set out differently. This means that some of the changes announced yesterday would not be applicable to much of our early years work. For example, we already return to early years providers quickly when safeguarding has been found to be ineffective.
"We know that inspections can be challenging, so we have continued to talk to early years providers to tackle some of the common misconceptions about our work and ensure that the inspection experience is as constructive as possible. We will continue to ensure our guidance and handbooks are clear on our approach to inspecting safeguarding and we encourage all providers and stakeholders to respond to our consultation about the complaints process."