School leaders and inspectors must continue to listen to each other during Ofsted visits, as it’s difficult for someone to understand without having first listened, says Stephen Rollett.

We're all ears

The role of listening as a school leader has never been more important. Besides listening to stakeholders, it has become a job in itself just to stay up to date and informed in relation to policy changes over recent years.

Fortunately, it is within such turmoil that we can see that other leaders in our system are also listening. Ofsted has listened. Sean Harford, Ofsted’s National Director for Schools, was right to celebrate the relatively minor changes in this year’s School Inspection Handbook. In 2015, Sean wrote in his blog, “to do a good job, it’s critical that Ofsted listens to the people who use and work in the services we inspect”. Schools’ concerns about the pace of change appear to have been heard and it is to Ofsted’s credit that the inspection framework is being given time to consolidate and embed.

There are, nonetheless, some changes in emphasis in the 2016 update that must not be ignored. ASCL’s recent guidance paper, Key Changes to the Ofsted Section 5 and Section 8 Handbooks from August 2016, provides members with a comprehensive summary of the new inspection handbook and can be downloaded from the website (http://tinyurl.com/hup7wpj).

Key aspects to familiarise yourself with include progress being brought in line with changes to performance measures, the importance of meeting with the right governors/trustees, and a greater emphasis on starting points. On the subject of listening, it is worth noting that inspectors will now listen to more able students read, as well as lower-attaining students.

Lines of enquiry

Anecdotal evidence indicates that dialogue is more of a challenge in the time-pressured short inspections in which inspectors are encouraged to stick to their lines of enquiry. Could the unintended consequence of this be that schools are not given sufficient opportunity to showcase their strengths and press their claim for a conversion to a full inspection and an outstanding judgement? I hope this is reflected upon as Ofsted gains more experience of this new type of inspection.

As ASCL’s newly appointed inspections and accountability specialist, I recognise that inspection is one of the most challenging aspects of school leadership. My role at ASCL is to support members in a variety of ways, such as offering advice or training, as well as working within the sector to secure improvements for school leaders and young people.

Top 10 tips for schools preparing for inspection:

1. Don’t just prepare for the sake of inspection. Prepare so that your school is the best it can be for the benefit of your students. Make this the mindset of your staff.
2. Your self-evaluation framework (SEF) is more than a paper exercise; it’s the DNA of improvement. Thoroughly evaluate the impact of your provision. Ofsted doesn’t have preferred styles and strategies. It does look at the impact of what you do and how effectively you evaluate it in order to move forward.
3. Ensure stretch and challenge for students of all abilities.
4. Be professional but unambiguous in relating your successes. Don’t wait until the end of your inspection to do this. Do it early.
5. Analyse the performance of key groups, such as disadvantaged students, and then go beyond this to look at their starting points. For example, evaluate the performance of your most able disadvantaged students. Where possible, compare this with the national picture.
6. Don’t make excuses but do outline the constraints you’ve grappled with, such as recruitment issues, where appropriate and where you can demonstrate you’ve tried hard to solve them.
7. Cast a critical eye over your assessment practices. Ensure that assessment is rigorous, robust and will stand up to scrutiny. Ofsted will check to see if your assessment policy is being followed. Support your staff to ensure that it is.
8. Look behind the averages in your data. Consider what the average conceals and what else you can find out about your strengths and weaknesses. Use this to drive improvement and tell the untold successes behind the average.
9. Plan for the development of governors as a key part of building capacity for improvement in your school’s leadership.
10. The Ofsted mantra is for inspectors to report ‘without fear or favour’. Do the same. Be realistic in your analysis, professional in your dialogue and, if necessary, raise concerns about the inspection with the lead inspector.

Preparing for Inspection

Stephen is leading ASCL’s seminars on How to Prepare for Inspection – find out more and book your place online at http://tinyurl.com/zxsy49v

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