Curriculum and OFSTED Shake Up?
Blog 37 The Curriculum Review Interim report is out and OFSTED are consulting on major changes to inspection. Education Politics responds.
Curriculum and Assessment Review: Some thoughts on the Interim Report
Jane Coles (Co-Chair of the SEA) questions the received wisdom that the current curriculum is working well and sees the interim report as a huge missed opportunity for radical change
Professor Becky Francis’ Curriculum and Assessment Review represents the first major revision of England’s curriculum since 2013 and consequently has the potential to shape the education of the nation’s young people for the next decade. Not surprisingly, given the controversial nature of Michael Gove’s 2013 reforms, it has attracted over 7000 submissions following its call for evidence in autumn 2024. So, to describe the conclusions of the Interim Report as an anti-climax is putting it mildly: apparently ‘many aspects of the current system are working well’, assessment is ‘broadly working well’, the ‘structural architecture established by the last review’ should be retained and only a ‘cautious’ approach to change is necessary.
Working well?
That this represents an inadequate response to the multiple crises facing schools and young people in England today is an understatement. Our nation has the dubious distinction of producing the unhappiest children across OECD countries according to a recent PISA survey. In its introduction to the 2024 National Parent Survey, Parentkind concludes that ‘too many children don’t enjoy school’, echoing a 2023 international study (Trends in International Maths and Science) suggesting that teens in England are amongst the least likely out of 43 countries to feel a sense of belonging at school.
In my local area, Oxfordshire, a recent research project conducted by Oxford University academics similarly reported that when interviewed 1 in 4 children said they ’don’t feel they belong in school’. We are witnessing shocking pupil absence rates and a rising number of exclusions. Sutton Trust/IOE research identifies key factors behind declining attendance figures as poverty, SEND provision and mental health, the latter including anxiety brought on by punitive culture in some schools and the relentless focus on exam success. Meanwhile, the persistent attainment gap for children with SEND and for those from low-income backgrounds continues to widen. All of these problems are exacerbated by the worst teacher recruitment and retention crisis for decades (with a lack of professional autonomy over curriculum and pedagogy being one of the underlying reasons cited in teacher union surveys). This could never be described as a system that is ‘broadly working well’.
In a very recent discussion of the Interim Report with other members of my local SEA branch, the word ‘complacency’ was used repeatedly – and it seems most apt. While the Review Panel members acknowledges that current provision is not working for all students and they identify the attainment gap as a significant issue to consider for the next stage in the review progress, the parameters for introducing any meaningful and lasting change have already been narrowed by the Panel’s reluctance to countenance a radical systemic overhaul.
The Report also smacks of political cowardice in the face of competing ideological positions amongst what the Report writers refer to as various ‘stakeholders’. Dismissing those calling for radical reform as ‘non-educationalists’ as Becky Francis attempted to do in a recent TES article, really won’t do when even headteacher unions are expressing disappointment at the proposed retention of primary SATs and phonics checks. The Report authors equivocate when it comes to debates about the effect of England’s current emphasis on high stakes testing and children’s well-being. Nevertheless, they are happy to affirm the accountability function of current assessment arrangements, in other words that the interests of learners are not always assessment’s primary purpose. This assumes greater significance when you consider that pupils in England are said to be amongst the most examined in the world.
The language of the Interim Report is often both bland and on occasion internally contradictory. It’s littered with vacuous declarations of intent about ‘high and rising standards’, a phrase that is repeated often but rarely explained (are these ‘standards’ solely measured by means of tests and exams?). The explicit ambition to achieve ‘high standards for all’ would therefore be particularly puzzling in the context of a norm-referenced exam system that guarantees a third of each GCSE cohort will fail. Another key term ‘inclusion’ remains a vague, ill-defined ambition, yet as most readers of this blog will know it’s a concept that is open to a wide range of interpretation.
The Review Panel’s intention to build on the ‘knowledge-rich approach’ much favoured by Gove and Gibb threatens to perpetuate what Ken Jones describes as a ‘focus on knowledge rather than the knower’ (see blog 36). In fact, apart from suggesting that it might be beneficial for young people to see themselves represented in a more diverse set of curriculum materials, elsewhere the Interim Report conveys little sense that pupils’ own histories, experiences and prior knowledge might play any part in the business of knowledge acquisition.
Similarly, it is concerning that the compilers of the Report make reference to ‘mastery’ more than once in relation to learning. The ‘mastery’ approach to learning, another pedagogic innovation from the Gove/Gibb era (and one that has been commercially marketed by more than one academy chain) assumes learning progresses in a linear way, and each foundational concept has to be ‘mastered’ before moving on to the next. This is a controversial proposition, and I would argue one that is certainly not suited to all subject domains, including my own subject English.
Grounds for hope?
Are there any grounds for hope within the pages of the Report? To be welcomed is the move towards greater diversity in curriculum content and materials (although on its own unlikely to be the inclusive panacea it is made out to be); likewise, the promise to address aspects of global change, such as climate science, sustainability and digital media literacy is to be applauded. The suggestion that the EBacc, another relic of the Gove regime, might be phased out is a positive, but small step. Parents’ calls for more applied skills, including financial and improved careers education look as though they are being heeded. The Report writers are aware of the inefficiency of the current English and maths GCSE resit arrangements post-16, along with concerns about provision of appropriate level 1 courses and it is to be hoped that this leads to improvements in the 16-19 offer.
However, there are a number of key omissions, the most glaring of which is any mention of oracy in the wake of the Oracy Commission’s 2024 report which argues that talk for learning, and learning about talk are particularly important in the current climate of online misinformation and increasing polarisation. Given the current worrying levels of pupil disaffection, it is deeply disappointing that learner enjoyment merits so little attention, apart from one passing allusion to ‘foster[ing] a love of learning’ on page 19, a vague aspiration that is never unpicked.
Tellingly, selective use is made of the National Parents’ Survey: figuring high on the list of parents’ priorities are creative thinking and problem-solving, yet these barely register in the Interim Report. Despite some discussion of the importance of arts education, Drama’s place in the National Curriculum remains unclear, presumably meaning that it will continue to exist statutorily only as an adjunct to English.
Questions about parity between vocational and academic qualifications remain unresolved, as is the mess that is the 16-19 educational landscape.
And, ultimately, the authors of the Report do little to restore teachers’ professional autonomy as curriculum makers themselves.
Where to Next?
The second phase of the Review process is to include a deeper analysis of specific subjects, which begs the question as to the level of input that will be invited from well-established subject associations.
But overall, judging by this Interim Report, the final Review document due to be published in September 2025 promises to represent a huge opportunity missed. Yet again, the political will to effect real, progressive change on our beleaguered state education system appears to be lacking. One only has to think of the fate of previous, much respected curriculum and assessment reviews such as the Tomlinson Report into 14-19 education (2004) and the Cambridge Primary Review (2009). Both, of course, have been ignored by the current Review Panel as if no policy memory exists prior to 2013. In comparison to each of these predecessors, the 2025 Review Panel’s lack of ambition appears all the more stark.
Review of Ofsted’s Consultation Document and the School Inspection Toolkit
The proposed new inspection framework is a ‘juggernaut’ which will increase workload and intensify the teacher shortage crisis explains Frank Coffield (Emeritus Professor of Education, UCL Institute of Education, London University.)
On 3 February 2025 Ofsted issued a consultation document called “Improving the way Ofsted inspects education.” It contains some significant changes from previous practice which professionals will welcome such as: there will be no grade for overall effectiveness; no formal lesson observations and no grading of individual lessons; no “deep dives” into specific areas; the context of settings is to be taken more into account; the four-point scale (Outstanding to Inadequate) has been dropped; and inclusion is now added as an area to be inspected.
There are, though, a number of features which are the “cause for serious concern”, to use the language of the report. For example, the Foreword contains three claims of world-beating success in reading, maths and the performance of disadvantaged children. Peter Tymms (2025), however, has debunked these extravagant claims, showing that results from international tests in maths, reading and science have flatlined since 2000, which means that Ofsted has not been raising standards.
Instead of the four-point scale, Ofsted proposes a 5-point scale from “Exemplary” to “Causing Concern,” hardly revolutionary. Each point in the scale is briefly described, but using the same words doesn’t provide a definition. For example, “exemplary” will be applied to a setting with “a feature of practice that could be considered as exemplary.”
Some of the worst features of previous Frameworks are retained: “If inspectors consider any standards...to be ‘causing concern’, then the overall evaluation area will likely be graded ‘causing concern.’ That means, if a setting fails in one of, say, 12 standards in one area, all 12 standards will be deemed to have failed, even if the other 11 are thought “exemplary”. This is contrary to natural justice, and it is exactly the failing that the coroner criticised in her report into the death of the headteacher, Ruth Perry. Her sister, Professor Julie Waters, on Newsnight made the criticism that Ofsted continues to refuse to have any checks on its own behaviour, and operates as a closed culture, unable to learn. That stance even after “the terrible, preventable injustice done to my sister.”
Ofsted needs to be more humble about the abilities of its inspectors. For example, it claims they will build for each setting a picture “of what it is typically like to be a child or learner there”. How will this possible in a large secondary school with 1,200 pupils or an Further Education college with 20,000? Again, “these proposals allow us to highlight poor practice with more precision - pointing laser-like to specific issues.” The document goes on to introduce five toolkits, but none of them contains a laser gun. Such precision is beyond current capacity.
The language used in the document is also inappropriate e.g. it talks of “the mechanics of inspection.” Inspectors are not dealing with machines but human beings. The use of the word “toolkits” raises the expectation that there is a tool for every eventuality, and, if one implement does not work, another tool in the kit will finish the job. The complexities of teaching and learning cannot be solved so simplistically, some of these problems don’t have solutions and so the analogy is misleading.
Similarly, their euphemisms need to be unmasked, for instance “challenging circumstances” mean teachers faced with children in dire poverty, living in substandard accommodation and not having enough to eat. These features are more likely to have a bigger impact on students’ achievement than occasional inspections.
The authors of the document also seem to be unaware of the extensive criticisms of the notion of “best practice,” a term they use approvingly and repeatedly. The “best practice” of an “exemplary” teacher in a setting serving a privileged neighbourhood, with a class of well-behaved and highly motivated students, is not transferable to an inner city setting with a large percentage of deprived and vulnerable students, no matter how “exemplary” the second teacher. The context is all important and bedevils any simple transfer of practices between widely differing sites.
It is, however, with the inspection toolkits that Ofsted reveals that its culture, beliefs, assumptions and practices have not changed. Despite the progressive language in these documents, the expectations are excessive and labyrinthine. Ofsted has produced five separate toolkits for each of the phases: early years, schools, independent schools, further education and skills, and initial teacher education. For reasons of brevity, one toolkit has been selected for examination, that for schools. It covers the 8 areas to be inspected: leadership and governance; curriculum; developing teaching; achievement; behaviour and attitudes; attendance; personal development and well-being; and inclusion.
For each of these 8 areas the toolkit sets out the standards to be met and the performance of professionals in meeting them are then judged according to the 5 levels from “exemplary” to “causing concern.” There are 330 standards in total. The middle level, called “secure” is the point in the scale that most settings are supposed to reach, but there are no less than 100 standards across the 8 areas, all of which have to be met to be judged “secure.”
One of the 8 areas is Developing Teaching. It contains 38 standards across the 5 levels and one of them for the “secure” level reads as follows:
The professional development programme enables all staff to effectively implement, where relevant: the school’s reading (including systematic, synthetic phonics), writing and mathematics curriculums; the demands of each subject curriculum; the necessary adaptations for some pupils with SEND and for pupils who speak English as an additional language.” (2025: 6/7)
Remember that, if just one of those 38 standards is thought to cause concern, the whole area is likely to be labelled as “causing concern”, the lowest grade. Note also that only one method of teaching reading is officially sanctioned, namely phonics; and the lack of explicit mention of science downgrades its importance.
To sum up, this toolkit is a counsel of perfection that, if taken seriously, no professional would ever be able to reach. Put that point the other way, there are 100 standards in the area of teaching for a professional to meet in order to be accorded the middle grade, and so 100 opportunities for an inspector to find fault. That professional has also to meet the page-loads of standards in the other seven areas.
The consultation document talks of “a raft of reforms”, but that raft is most likely to sink under the dead weight of the standards Ofsted will impose on all educational professionals. The overall impression from reading 30 pages of one toolkit and 32 of the consultation document is that a different team of experts wrote the detailed descriptions of the standards for the 8 areas and made sure that nothing of significance was omitted. What was needed, however, was an editor to look at the sheer size and complexity of the toolkit as a whole, and impose some discipline on a document which in its totality is overloaded, immoderate and beyond the capacity of anyone to fulfil, no matter how “exemplary.”
Whoever had responsibility for these documents doesn’t know George Miller’s classic article of 1956, The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two, about the limits on our capacity for processing information. Based on extensive empirical research, it concluded that most people can respond appropriately to 7 external stimuli, with some people managing 5 and others 9. No-one, but no-one can cope with 100.
So what has changed? Ofsted’s language has become more emollient, and some of the most contentious aspects of previous inspection frameworks have been dropped, as summarised in the first paragraph above. But the fundamental belief remains in subjecting professionals to a battery of requirements, a battery so massive that no-one can meet all, or even the majority, of them.
To employ the mechanical metaphor favoured by Ofsted, its new shiny model has had its bodywork washed and polished, but when the bonnet is lifted, the same stuttering engine is in place. Professionals are confronted not with a Formula 1 racing car, but with a juggernaut. If Ofsted’s aim was to produce a framework designed to increase the stress and workloads of staff, to frighten off any new graduates from joining the profession, and to accelerate the flight of senior management, then its new model will do the trick.