Ofsted launched a consultation in March 2011 on their proposals for the inspection arrangements of both maintained schools and academies. The proposals follow on from the 2011 Education Bill which specified that inspections in future will report on ‘the quality of education provided in the school’ and must give priority to:
- the achievement of pupils at the school
- the quality of teaching in the school
- the quality of the leadership in and management of the school
- the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school.
The Bill proposed changes to the statutory reporting areas for school inspection, as well as removing some of the reporting requirements introduced after 2005 including the duty to inspect well-being and community cohesion.
OFSTED's proposals outline a slimmed down inspection framework which "means in practice is that schools will be judged on a smaller number of core aspects than before, but we will be examining them in greater depth. The changes will result in more streamlined inspections, with fewer judgements and grades, leading to sharper reports on the quality of education provided by schools and the most important aspects of their performance."
The proposals include a focus on examining gaps which exist in educational achievement but regrettably make no reference to EAL. "Persistent low attainment makes it harder for young people to get jobs or access further and higher education, and can have a deep and damaging impact on families and communities. It is therefore important that schools reduce differences in attainment between groups in the school, including those between looked after children, pupils from different social and ethnic groups and between boys and girls. The new inspection framework will pay particular attention to such gaps in attainment and inspectors will look at what is being done to close them."
It is proposed to 'develop value-added information for particular groups of pupils, looking, for example, at how well boys or girls perform, including looked after children, or the comparative achievements of different social or ethnic groups. We intend to ensure that inspectors are enabled to identify learners from particular groups who have done very well or underperformed, to promote more detailed discussion about their performance."
School leaders will have a particular responsibility for narrowing the gap in achievement between potentially vulnerable pupils and their peers. The consultation notes that this 'reflects the raised expectations nationally for schools to address disadvantage, target support to those who need it and have a greater impact on narrowing gaps in outcomes for children and young people. We shall specifically take account of how effectively leaders and managers discharge this fundamental responsibility when considering how well the school promotes equality of opportunity.'
NALDIC is particularly concerned that EAL is not specifically mentioned in the consultation. In the section on contextual value-added measures (p 14) it is noted that 'Contextual value-added (CVA) data have been a key feature of school self evaluation and inspection since 2005. They provide an indication of schools’ performance, taking account of factors such as the numbers of pupils eligible for free school meals, pupils with special educational needs and the proportion of pupils from different minority ethnic groups including those who use English as an additional language. As set out in the recent White Paper, the Government has decided that CVA data will no longer be available from 2011. This will affect the ways in which inspectors analyse the progress made by the pupils in the particular context of the school. In future, we propose to use more straightforward value-added measures that measure the progress of pupils since the time they joined the school. They will help inspectors to assess the impact the school has made on pupils’ progress. We will continue to use any relevant available data about the school’s intake of pupils and judgements about progress will be made in relation to comparisons with similar schools.
Whilst CVA measures had a number of shortcomings, NALDIC considers it to be important that inspectors are supported to look closely at the progress that bilingual pupils make in schools and the effectiveness of provision to support their language and curriculum learning. We are therefore particularly concerned that the consultation makes no reference to bilingual pupils.
In our response we supported the continuing emphasis on the attainment and progress of different groups, but expressed our concern that bilingual pupils are not specifically mentioned in the consultation. We pointed out that the progress and attainment of EAL learners is not the same as the progress and attainment of pupils from ‘different social and ethnic groups’ and we believe it should be recognised as a distinct need which must be met by each school.
In our response we noted the proposal that ‘inspectors are enabled to identify learners from particular groups who have done very well or underperformed, to promote more detailed discussion about their performance’. Whilst we welcomed this we note that ‘particular groups’ must include EAL and bilingual learners. We are also interested in how inspectors will be enabled to identify such groups and their attainment and progress.
We believe that whilst value added and contextual value added measures can flag up areas of performance or progress, what ultimately counts is the detailed discussion about the provision for and the outcomes of specific teaching and learning strategies. Our analyses of inspection reports in a number of regions indicate that although a reference to bilingual pupils is a standard item, the quality of reporting of EAL teaching and learning issues is declining rather than improving. In order to therefore promote effective detailed discussions about the performance of groups of pupils, we urged OFSTED to re-introduce an EAL endorsement which is supported by appropriate training.
Our full response can be found at http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/resources/documents/NALDICResponsetoOfSTEDconsultation2011.pdf
The proposals can be found at
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/content/download/12072/140239/file/Inspection%202012%20-%20consultation%20document.pdf
