“Our intention is to place the curriculum back at the heart of inspection and to view performance measures more in the context of the quality of education”.  This is the clear message from Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector, as she set out Ofsted’s plans for the future of school and college inspection.

The new draft education inspection framework aims to make sure that inspection values and rewards effective education, placing less emphasis on data and more on the curriculum; how are providers deciding what to teach and why, how well are they doing it and is it leading to strong outcomes for young people?

The quality of teaching, learning, test and exam outcomes will still be judged during inspection visits but in the context of the provider’s curriculum as a whole rather than in isolation.

“Outcomes clearly matter” continued Amanda Spielman, “and will of course continue to be considered, in the context of what is being taught. But we all know that too much weight placed on performance measures alone can lead to a degree of distortion, both in what is taught and not taught, and in other aspects of how a provider is managed”.

The draft framework talks of “evolution not revolution”, not expecting providers to design new curriculums from scratch or imposing an ‘Ofsted curriculum’. Ofsted’s aim is to bring the inspection conversation back to the substance of education and training to treat providers as experts in their field and not as data managers.

The current consultation on the draft framework closes on 5 April 2019.  If adopted, the new framework will come into force in September 2019.