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On this podcast, we have Helen Davis, who's Head of National and Joint Inspection from HMI Probation, Lucy Hart, the Deputy Director and Multi-Agency Operations from CQC, Simon Alexander, the Associate Inspector from HMICFRS and Paul DInverno, Ofsted's HMI Specialist Advisor. We’re also joined by Sarah Jones and Tanya Fulcher from Norfolk County Council. Cait Mellow  I'd like to welcome everybody to another episode of Ofsted Talks and this time we are talking about the JTAI, the Joint Targeted Area Inspection. This is a complex inspection where different agencies such as the Care Quality Commission, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation, Ofsted, and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue all arrive in a local area at the same time and work together to inspect lots of different services that are supporting children. The Joint Targeted Area Inspections, JTAIs as we call them, we’ve been holding these for ten years. So do we all do all inspections that are done under this banner or is it sometimes us and CQC or HMICFRS. How does it work? Paul, do you want to talk us through that? Paul DInverno  Yeah, so we've been undertaking joint target area inspections now for 10 years, so it's a good chance for reflection. In terms of, we do two types now. We do thematic inspections, which is Ofsted, of both children’s social care and education and HMI Probation, the Care Quality Commission and HMICFRS. So we all join together for the thematic inspections and they give a very unique insight into multi-agency working. And we also do an inspection of initial need and risk, sometimes known as the ‘front door’. And that's just CQC, HMICFRS and Ofsted to undertake those inspections. Cait Mellow  So when you say the front door, what does that mean? Paul DInverno  Well, we're looking at the initial response when need or risk is first identified for children. And we look at that through the window of individual agencies response. So some aspects of health, the police response and also children's Social Care and what is often referred to as the MASH multi-agency safeguarding hub where that exists and it's about the assessment of risk and need, the appropriate decision making and ultimately whether children and families get the right help at the right time. Cait Mellow   Okay, so Simon, what do you think? Why do they work well? What are they adding in terms of value?   Simon Alexander  They work well because the whole process is looking across the whole system. So it's looking across how multi-agency responses. So as Paul said, you know, we are looking at how the police work together with children's Social Care, with probation, with health, and how those organisations collaborate, to understand, assess and make decisions about their response for those children who are at risk and also their families. Cait Mellow   Okay, so, so...from the CQC's point of view, what do you think, Lucy, about how important it is that we look at health and education and the sort of all the sort of different aspects of children's lives? Lucy Harte  Yeah, thanks. There's no other there's no other inspection activity that looks at it, looks at it collectively and looks at it all together. So we consider how as a multi-agency partnership, those risks are identified and shared and understood. And we know from some of the complexities that we've seen through 10 years of delivering the JTAIs that that's critically important and adds significant value in terms of understanding elements like information sharing, assessment, ut also a cross-sector and multi-agency element of assessment because we know that these things don't happen in isolation. So the value of having the inspectorates work together and understand that together and be on site together, is significantly different and important. Cait Mellow   And Helen, what do you think about it? Are you learning from each other in this process? Helen Davies We absolutely are. So we inspect on our usual inspections, probation services, adult services and children's youth justice services. So for us, it's really important to work together with inspectorates who inspect children's services, who inspect health. Because the probation service, for example, cannot manage children's safeguarding and risks to the public alone. They need to be able to do that with the other agencies. So for us, they give a really clear, joined up picture of what's really happening locally. And most importantly, they highlight issues quickly because we've got, for example, a HMI probation inspector on site at the same time as a HMI CFRS inspector looking at policing. And so if we find issues with information sharing, and we have had examples where we've been able to highlight those issues right away and they've been put right within that week, which is very different to the experience when you go in as a lone inspectorate, just looking more narrowly. Cait Mellow   So I'm getting a strong sense of collaboration and information sharing and working together over these JTAIs. It sounds really, I don't want to say Avengers assemble, but I kind of, that's what I think. Is that true? Helen Davies I think it's really powerful, to be honest, when we're all out there together. So absolutely, and it's that opportunity to raise issues quickly and have impact directly on practice there and then, but also in the longer term. So leaving people with action plans that require them to work together, for example, to improve systems. So it's getting it at both those levels that's a real benefit.   Cait Mellow   So we're not just saying, this looks great, this needs more work. We're sort of suggesting ways in which they can perhaps collaborate more or things that they need to highlight. Is that true? Lucy Harte   Yeah, I think, thanks Cait. I think one of the powerful elements of, or the most powerful elements of the JTAI is the case tracking methodology as well that sits in the thematic JTAIs and the power that that has to bring not only the inspectorates together during the JTAI, but also bring together the inspectorates and the local area partnership. There's a real sense of everybody working together through that methodology because we, it's very difficult to challenge children, young people's and families' experiences of those multi-agency working and how people are collaborating and assessing and information sharing. I think that is a really significant and valued element of the JTAI and creates an element of a shared language, a shared understanding. There's a real time review of those experiences and how that's informing the partnership working across those partners that we've already highlighted and described. And I think that that's really key to the JTAIs and where we are now is as 10 years on, especially in thinking about some of the significant reforms that we're heading into as well. So yeah, I think that that case tracking element is critical. Paul DInverno   Yeah, we've gone on from that, what Lucy just said. We've worked hard to ensure that as inspectorates, we have a very joined up approach to inspection and therefore we're able to have a multi-agency lens in terms of how we evaluate a local area and that really supports practice at a multi-agency level, as well as supporting improvements in strategic working at a multi-agency level as well. And as we know, no agency by itself can protect children. So it's that important message about how important it is for agencies and professionals to work together. And that gives you, as Lucy was saying, that holistic view of the child's experience as well, which is really important. Simon Alexander   I think the other thing as well, just picking up on what Paul and Lucy said is, is we have the opportunity to speak to children and often their families as part of that case tracking. And that really brings to life and allows those people to have a voice as part of that inspection. I think that's really important to help the inspectors as well as the organisations that we're inspecting to understand what the reality is of their experiences and the outcomes of when agencies become involved to try and support and help them. Cait Mellow   We're talking about reforms. I mean, are these publications used across government to inform, perhaps more broadly? Paul DInverno   So what we do in quite a number of the themes is that we have a roundtable where we invite all the government departments and all the agencies so that we present our findings, the areas where there are strengths and improvements and the areas where further improvement is needed to influence government policy and practice and the practice of agencies as well. And so it's a collaborative approach to what we've learned and but importantly, what happens next in terms of taking that learning forward. And we've got probably quite a lot of examples about how we've influenced practice or multi-agency working positively at both a local and a national level. Cait Mellow   Yeah, I was going to ask, do you come back after the JTAI report has been published in a period of time later to see if the, what the impact was? Paul DInverno   I mean, one important part of the process is that after each joint targeted area inspection, the local partnership, the agencies come together to produce an action plan, a multi-agency action plan, that sets out how they're going to respond to the areas that we've identified that need improvement. And that is a really powerful vehicle in terms of driving improvement forward. And we've spoken to quite a lot of local partnerships about how JTAIs have helped them support their improvement journey. And we all do our individual inspections and we can see some of those improvements from JTAIs having happened through the lens of our individual agency inspections. Helen Davies:   We found it really helpf

We want to make sure that Ofsted plays its part in ensuring children and young people in our social care system are happy, safe and able to reach their full potential. Take part by giving us your views: Improving the way Ofsted inspects children’s social care - GOV.UK Transcript:  Tracey Metcalfe My name is Tracey Metcalfe and I'm the Assistant Regional Director for Social Care and Regulation in the North East Yorkshire and Humber. We're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks, the Inspection of Local Authority Children's Services or ILACS for short, and the Social Care Inspection Framework, or SCIFF for short. So I'm here today with my colleagues, Dominic Stevens and Matthew Brazier. I'm going to ask colleagues to introduce themselves. Dominic. Dominic Stevens Hi. So I'm Dominic Stevens. I'm the programme lead for the ILACS Inspection Framework. Matthew Brazier Thanks, Tracy. Yeah, I'm Matthew Brazier and I do a similar job as Dominic, but I'm the programme director for the social care common inspection framework, which I'll explain a little bit more in a minute about what that means. Tracey Metcalfe Thanks so much, Matthew. Thanks both for joining me today. So we're consulting on reforms to our two main social care inspection frameworks. So could you both just briefly explain what these two inspection programmes are for and how they work for children? So I'm going to come to you first, Dominic. Dominic Stevens Thanks. So the ILACS framework, and as you've said, stands for Inspecting Local Authority Children's Services, is the framework we use when Ofsted acts as the inspectorate for all local authority children's services around the country. And we'll say a little bit more in a minute about what that means and how it might develop a little bit in the future. Matthew Brazier Social care common inspection framework, which is a bit of a mouthful, but that's a framework that looks at mainly regulated services. So things like children's homes, fostering services, residential family centres. And I think I probably should say a little bit about what regulated means. In other words, services that must meet certain standards of quality and safety that the organisations that provide these services have to register with Ofsted and follow certain guidelines and procedures. Tracey Metcalfe That's really helpful. And I wonder, Matthew, could we explore what's changing and why we're consultants? So, for example, can you tell me a little bit more about the vision for our revised frameworks in the SCIF, for example? Matthew Brazier We want our inspections to continue to act as a force for good. We want them to encourage the highest quality of practice and provision to ensure the best outcomes for children and their families. We've been working a lot with the government. We're ensuring that our frameworks reflect the reform agenda and to make sure that they align with changes to statutory guidance. We want to strengthen the way that ILACS and SCIFF talks to each other, to encourage providers and commissioners to work together, for example, to secure the right homes for children in the right places and ensure they meet the needs of all children, including especially those with complex lives. And to do this, we'll make the best use of our insights promptly and effectively, and we really need to reflect the shared responsibilities that local authorities and providers have for, after all, are the same children. And enduring relationships with the heart of inspection. And finally, and most importantly, we want to make sure we do all we can to hear the voices of children and their families, to help them participate in inspections. We really want to improve the way we feedback our findings to children and families. We've made some specific proposals in this consultation, but we also have set out an ambition for both the frameworks, what we want our inspections to do. One is that we want to make sure that there are different inspection frameworks talk to each other, that we make the best use of our evidence. But perhaps most importantly, we want to make children's enduring relationships a central focus of both ILACS and SCIF. We want to make sure that children's connections and how that they're helped by services are really one of the most important questions that an inspector can ask. not just for children's relationships now, but also for their future as they approach adulthood. So that will be a real central part. Relationships have always been an important part of our inspection frameworks, but we want to make it front and centre. Tracey Metcalfe Yeah, so what you're talking about is putting children and young people and families right at the centre of our work across both frameworks. Matthew Brazier Another thing that we're we set out in the framework that we really want our inspections to encourage providers that are able to meet the needs of children with the most complex lives. We've been worried, not only us, I think everybody who works with children and families have been worried that some of the most vulnerable children are the most likely to experience instability. And we want to make sure that inspections really promote the work that helps those children. Because if we get it right, for the most disadvantaged the likelihood is that we'll get it right for all children. Tracey Metcalfe I just wonder if we could build on that and kind of briefly outline some of the key changes then we're proposing in the SCIF to do some of those things you're talking about. Matthew Brazier In the SCIF, not only do we want to make it clearer that we'll be taking a closer look at how relationships are promoted, we're proposing to have a separate outcome evaluation area on enduring relationships. So that's new. We're keeping the other evaluation areas that we have already. We're going to keep leadership and the impact on the impact of leaders. We're going to keep looking at making a judgment on the safety of children, but we want to add a new one on enduring relationships. That aligns with the government's ambition, and I think it aligns with the sector's view that this is the enduring relationship is so critical for children. So we hope that will be supported by the sector, but we're really interested in the views from everybody who answers the consultation about how we do that to make sure we're looking at the right things when we look at enduring relationships. Tracey Metcalfe Yeah, can I just take you, Matthew, for a moment to think about the focus on fostering? Because that is obviously something that we are going to be focusing on in the new framework. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Matthew Brazier We're proposing to add an evaluation area on support to foster carers for inspections of independent fostering agencies. Again, everybody listening to this podcast will know that there's a real challenge to recruit enough foster carers for children. And it's really important that local authorities are able to recruit the right number and agents and fostering agencies are able to recruit the right number with the right skills and experience and that they're properly supported and that they stay in fostering. So we're going to look closely about how well agencies recruit foster carers and how well they support them. We hope that one of the changes that we're proposing for SCIFF is how we link more closely to ILACS and how those two frameworks talk to each other. Tracey Metcalfe Well, that brings us really nicely on to Dominic, actually. Dominic Stevens I mean, I think, first of all, I want to echo everything that Matthew has just said. And it's important as we go forward that we really further strengthen the synergy between the two frameworks and how they work together, and indeed with Ofsted's other frameworks. I think I'd also want to start, if it doesn't seem a little bit back to front, with the things that aren't going to change. I think it's really important to say that whatever changes we aspire to make, at their heart, these frameworks are absolutely focused on whether or not children's needs are being met. how well they're being safeguarded, how well they're being helped to keep in touch with people who matter to them. And those things absolutely continue through. And the desire here really is to reflect developing practice, reflect the changes that the DFE are ushering in, you know, and to strengthen even further how we inspect and the extent to which they actually act as a driver and they provide learning for the sector to improve improved services for children, which is the bottom line. So in terms of the specific changes, the DFE are already consulting on changes that would enable Ofsted to look more closely at how local authorities support families at an earlier stage, and in particular targeted early help and how they support families to stay together. We propose to amend our inspection frameworks so that they're much more focused on this, and we're able to target our inspection time on looking at those services at a much earlier stage of intervention for children and their families. We want to make sure that all the judgments really do three things and these echo some of the things that Matthew was just touching on. It's about looking at how effectively local authorities engage children, families and their carers in being central to decision decision making about their lives and indeed to shape the services they receive going forward. It's also about how they help those children to create and maintain enduring relationships with families, friends and professionals who are important to them. And finally, how effectively the local authority works with other agencies to meet children's and families needs. Because as we go forward with this, early help in particular is a real multi-agency area. Other changes that the government are bringing forward inv

Did you know Ofsted inspects out of school care for children under the age of 8? This can include activity-based clubs, wraparound care and holiday activities. Find out more about how we inspect in this podcast with guests Craig Jones from the School-Aged Childcare Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports.  Cait Mellow: Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. This time we're talking about school-age childcare. Did you know we inspect and regulate out-of-school care? I'm here with Wendy Ratcliff, HMI, the Principal Officer for Early Education at Ofsted. Caroline Hearn, the Specialist Advisor for Early Years at Ofsted. Craig Jones from School Age Child Care Association and Dan Super from Super Team Sports. What type of setting does this cover? After school, holiday clubs, wraparound sports? Caroline, talk us through that.    Caroline Hearn: I absolutely can. But before I start, I just want to say we are recording this July 2026. So, we're heading into the summer holidays. And just I think Wendy and I and all at Ofsted would want to say a big thank you to all the wraparound providers who, unlike a lot of sectors who are winding down potentially in schools for the summer, we know the wraparound providers are gearing up to what is very hot summer it's turning out to be. So huge thanks for all the work they do to keep children safe, happy and well educated over the summer. I think that's just a huge importance for us to say that. And then of course I can answer the question. So after school clubs, it's funny, it really depends on the register you're on rather than the type of provision. So the way the Department of Education set up the legislation, you've got the early years register, which is for children from birth to the 31st of August after their 5th birthday. And then you've got the later years registers for 5 to 8 and then the voluntary for older children. So it really depends on the ages of the children that you want to be caring for. And often we find those that offer that the around holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, all of those, that type of care provision, do also register on the early years register because we've got those children who go into school who are before the 31st of August, before their 5th birthday. So they are captured in that age group. And then within that, there's all the different provider types that we have that I've just mentioned. So really, I want to now just ask Wendy, I'm just really interested, and Dan and Craig, just looking at what Ofsted does in our inspection work, how have you found inspections? I've talked about all that wide range of provision that gets inspected. So I'm going to hand over to Wendy and Dan and Craig to talk a bit more about that.  Wendy Ratcliff:  Shall I just talk a little bit about the changes we've made to how we inspect registered early years, if you're on the early years register as out of school providers, then maybe Dan and Craig, you can tell us a little bit about what you're finding?   So if you are a provider that is registered on the early years register but only provide care exclusively to children at the beginning of or and end of the school day or during school holidays, you only need to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the DFE's early years foundation stage. Therefore, our inspectors, when they come to do your inspection, they're not going to grade particular evaluation areas, curriculum and teaching or achievement, because you don't have to meet the learning and development requirements. And that's the same for before and after school settings and holiday provision with children younger than reception age. If you have one of these settings, you must have regard to, but you do not have to meet those learning and development requirements of the EYFS. Inspectors do evaluate though, your safeguarding and welfare arrangements. They will confirm that your setting meets the requirements of the early years register. And if your setting is also on the compulsory or voluntary part of the childcare register, inspectors will need to check it meets those requirements. So inspectors will do a range of things in, you know, gathering that first hand evidence and having those discussions. working with leaders, taking leaders on the journey and working collaboratively throughout that inspection through kind of like shared observations, using the early years toolkit. I could say more, but let's bring Craig down in. What are you finding in terms of our inspections?  Craig Jones:  First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak and meet you guys as well. I guess we're finding that the scorecard, we're big fans of the scorecard and a lot of our providers are, it's something we've requested in relation to having an aspirational workforce. So they're not just looking at met or not met. And now we can have strong standards and if we can exceed them, amazing. So that's something obviously we couldn't get when outstanding good was changed to not met, which is fantastic. So I think that there's no doubt that that's something that we really want to strive for. And I think, again, it's sort of given the fire in providers’ bellies to really raise that quality as well. And I think the cycle of inspection, so clearly, we've obviously, everyone's got deadlines, we can see that. So there's quite a surge of activity to hit that three-year cycle, and we can see lots of inspections coming through at the end of the school term and during the school holiday periods as well, which clearly there's a lot of provisions that sort of register the same time. There's lots of providers start for the summer, so I can imagine Ofsted have got like a spike there. Our providers over our membership had over 100 inspections since November. So hopefully we can give a bit of feedback on that. But yeah, Dan, I think you've had one in Easter?  Dan Super:  We had two at Easter. So yeah, a quick little overview of who Super Sports are. So we only run holiday camps. That's what we do. It's been going nearly nine or 10 years now. Predominantly for years was mainly sports coaching camps. And then in the last two or three years, we've joined the early years register. We start taking children from age 3, as well as then the compulsory and voluntary registers. We run our camps every school holiday in independent schools. So in the kind of the private school facilities when those schools aren't running. Had previous knowledge. So last year had had a voluntary inspection at one of our locations, which was just more of a 45 minute, one hour inspection. Still wouldn't say very easy, but it was definitely easier than the full early years, which we had two this Easter, two weeks in a row back-to-back. And I enjoyed them, to be honest. It was, I was scared, I was nervous. It was, first time we'd been going nearly two years with early years, confident that we were, you know, that we're doing everything we needed to do. Had a lot of advice from, you know, SACA and other organisations that are there to support us. But you just always have that little worry of, until Ofsted are there, you know, to get to really, to really know. And it did, it went really well. We got strong across the board in all the areas. Both of the inspectors went through the toolkit on the day, the call the day before, then arranging a call in the afternoon, that was great. Felt like we knew the inspector before they arrived. Yeah, on the day, really supportive, definitely working together, felt supported all the way through and now confident and looking forward to another one.  Wendy:   And I just liked actually hearing you say about the planning call. That's actually something we are hearing across the sector, that the sector are welcoming it. And also, you know, thinking about that, notice and those telephone calls and the preparation in advance of actually being on site. And as you say, feeling like you've already built that professional relationship with the inspector. I think what's really important as well is something else she was saying there, it's saying about, we're confident we're doing what we're doing for our children is right. And I think that's a really key message for us, isn't it, Caroline, in terms of if you're doing what's right for your children, then you're doing what's right for Ofsted and you shouldn't be needing to do anything that isn't already set out in statutory or non-statutory guidance, which of course for early years is the early years foundation stage. And that's kind of like what the toolkit's based on. So we didn't want the toolkit to add extra workload to providers.  Caroline:  Yeah, it's a really interesting point you're raising there. And I'll just pick up on one thing you said there, Danny, that Les, you know, you were nervous. I think if you're vested in something and you really want to do well for children, which that's what the sector is there for, we want to do well for children, you're going to be invested in it, so you are going to have some nerves. So I think nerves are to be expected, but we need to work with you and help put you at your ease when we arrive and all the things that Wendy just about the planning call should all really help with that. You also talked about the difference in inspections though, it's really interesting. So the early years inspection, we're now moving to a four year window. So it was six, we're now every four. And then the later years, so if you're registered on the later years registers, that's a 10% sample. So you may or may not get an inspection. So you have, so you've had experience of both. But yeah, that's the difference between those registers and tha

We spoke to Dan Tingle from the National Grid about how he found the recent inspection under the renewed framework, Joel Dalhouse the lead inspector, and Denise Olander, Ofsted's Deputy Director of post-16 education, training and skills.   Cait Mellow Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. I'm hosting the podcast this time. My name is Cait Mellow and I'm the Head of Engagement at Ofsted. I'm here today with Denise Olander, who is Ofsted's Deputy Director for FE, Dan Tingle, who's the Head of Development Programmes at the National Grid and Joel Dalhouse, His Majesty's Inspector from the West Midlands FE team. As we've recorded this, we've published reports for about 150 inspections so far under the renewed inspection framework, but let's focus on one in particular. We inspected the National Grid recently. So, Joel, you were the lead inspector. What sort of things did we look at? Joel Dalhouse So, we looked at apprenticeships and we were looking at, especially from a distribution point of view. It's something that there isn't much of in the country, electrical distribution, the apprenticeships organisations that offer that. So, we had a look at that. Cait Mellow Okay, so what sort of things do you look at when you're looking at an apprenticeship inspection? Do you talk to apprentices? Joel Dalhouse Yes, that's quite an important part of our activities, is really trying to understand their experiences. We try to get underneath whether they are developing that knowledge, those skills and those behaviours that would help them to be very successful in the career that they've chosen. Cait Mellow Dan, what did you notice? What sort of experience was it? Dan Tingle It was interesting really because we were inspected against the old framework for another part of our business in July and then inspected in December on the new toolkit. I think that the new toolkit has similarities to the old framework, but there's a much bigger focus on making sure that we're supporting learners that have barriers to learning. Cait Mellow So inclusion is a big part of the new framework. How does that look on inspection? Dan Tingle It's a challenge. It's a challenge because it's first to understand what you mean by inclusion, what you mean by barriers to learning. I think the first thing is for organisations and providers to consider that and what comes into the scope of that. One of the things that we found is having really good data to be able to identify those learners. And then you can really dig into what that means and what supports available at each opportunity. Cait Mellow Denise, what do you think a look into inclusion on an FE inspection? Denise Olander So I think Dan's right, we've always looked at those with SEND and those who have particular barriers to learning. So that was very much a focus under the education inspection framework. But under the renewed framework, we now have inclusion as a whole evaluation area, which we've never had before. So we are, we're grading inclusion as a whole new evaluation area. And within that, it covers a wide range of learners and apprentices. So the toolkit is what we use to identify the criteria and the standards in which we judge the provider against. So we collect evidence against the criteria in the toolkit. And once we've collected that evidence, We then use the picture that we formed through evidence collection against the criteria in our handbook. So we hope that most providers will be at least at the expected standard. It's a really high bar. It's providers doing exactly what we would expect them to do using taxpayers money. and making sure that learners, and in this case apprentices, are receiving high quality education and training. In the inclusion evaluation area, we identify learners with SEND, those who are vulnerable. Quite often that's because of the financial situation that they find themselves in. Maybe they're from low-income families. And then there's a wide range of other factors which could mean that an apprentice or a learner have some barriers to learning, things such as known to social justice, known or previously known to social services, mental health issues. Cait Mellow Help me understand this, Dan. So the National Grid are an employer and a provider. How does that work? Dan Tingle It’s a challenge. At the National Grid, we offer apprenticeships in a range of areas. It may be some really technical, bespoke niche skills that we have into deliver what we do as an organisation, or it may be some of the more support function type roles that we have in the organisation, maybe like a finance role. We will use training providers where they have the expertise, but in areas where we are the experts, and typically that's in sort of high voltage electricity, then we will be the training provider for those programs. And it's a really good model that we've got in place now. So for our transmission business that we have, when we were inspecting in July, outstanding result that we got in that inspection was 20 years of outstanding. Cait Mellow Wow. So do you find that people who you have as apprentices, do they stick around? Is the National Grid one of those places where people just work there forever? Dan Tingle Yeah, so I'm in my 27th year. I started as an apprentice at National Grid. And it's always nice that when we introduce ourselves in meetings internally, I'm never the most experienced in the room. And so, yeah, so people do stay here for a long time. It's nice, I've been at National Bridge Training Centre for 20 years now. The people that I've seen in senior roles in the organisation that started as an apprentice as well, it's really positive to see those people. Cait Mellow Did you get a chance, Joel, to talk to people like that on an inspection? Joel Dalhouse Daniel and myself had a number of conversations about the apprenticeship, how it's been designed, the rationale behind why they offer the apprenticeships they offer, why they feel they're the best place to offer those apprenticeships, what they're hoping that their apprentices get from that. And we also speak to people that the apprentices work with in the work environment just to see and get an understanding of those skills that they're developing and how they really compare to what would be expected and to see if they are really benefiting in that business. So it's really important to speak to people within the organisation just to get that sense of those skills developed. Cait Mellow So I'm getting the feeling that it's not just, oh, we'd better have an apprentice just to sort of tick a box. You're genuinely committing to really seeing that these people or, you know, the young people in your schemes are sort of progressing, they know what's happening, they know where they're going, they're aiming for something that's concrete. Dan Tingle Apprenticeships are embedded right from our strategic workforce planning processes that we have in place. We know one, 3, 5, 10 years out what sort of workforce numbers that we're going to require as an organisation. And apprentices are at the heart of that to make sure that we've got the right level of individual joining the organisation. And linking back to the previous question about do people stay at National Grid? The answer is yes. And one of the reasons is that people know there are opportunities to develop. that may be in the original field that they were recruited against. So I joined as a transmission substation apprentice. There would have been opportunities to progress in that field of expertise. And I chose to move into a training centre and I've been fortunate to move into the roles I've got. And again, Joel's answer about talking to people that have been apprentices, again, it's really easy for us to be able to put senior leaders in front of an inspector during an inspection. And it's just nice that a lot of them were apprentices and they can talk about their experience and why they're still there. And that in itself showcases that people do develop a national grid. Cait Mellow Yeah, I can see how reassuring that would be if you're a young person who's just starting out. Somebody who, you know, was where you are now a long time ago is now got all sorts of opportunities, which is great. Denise Olander The difference between the original education inspection framework and the renewed inspection framework. The key difference is the introduction of the inclusion evaluation area. And when we were thinking about the design of the new toolkit and the methodology, the inspection methodology that sits behind that, we had a very clear vision about inclusion. because that inclusion evaluation area helps us to continue to put learners and apprentices first, because that's what we've always tried to do through our inspection work. But it's really shone a light on the work that providers do. And it's helping us to break down even further the barriers that some learners and apprentices experience. And by breaking down those barriers, we are raising the standards. And it's particularly for the disadvantaged and vulnerable because we want to enable them to thrive in their studies. And our focus on those as part of this renewed framework is really, we're already seeing that that's really helping them to do so. we look at how the provider identifies needs, provides timely support and reduces barriers to learning. What we're finding is the nature of inclusion lends itself really well to further education and skills providers because we can already see some of the great, innovative, dynamic work that providers do and have always done on behalf of their apprentices so that they get that access to the education, training and teaching that they need. We're hearing that they're feeling valued and that they belong and that links very nicely to what Dan was saying about people. people staying with

Want to know more about Ofsted's renewed education inspections? In this episode, Lee Owston (National Director, Education), Lee Elliott (Assistant Regional Director, North East, Yorkshire and Humber), Jayne Coward (Deputy Director, Early Years) and Andrea Dill-Russell (Senior HMI, Further Education and Skills) explore the key changes to education inspections and what Ofsted is hearing on the ground from our pilots and inspections now they have started.    Transcript Jonathan Bennett: Hello and welcome to another episode of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. And today we're going to be talking about our renewed framework for inspection. Inspections started in November, and we're going to explore some of the changes, and also what we're hearing on the ground from our pilot inspections, as well as the actual inspections now that they have started. And who better to talk us through all of this than Lee Owston, Lee Elliott, Andrea Dill-Russell and Jayne Coward. I'll let you all introduce yourselves and your roles, and let's start with you. Lee Owston.   Lee Owston: Hello, great to be here. I'm Lee Owston. I'm one of His Majesty's inspectors, and I'm Ofsted’s National Director of Education.   Lee Elliott: Hi everyone. I'm Lee Elliott. I'm the Assistant Regional Director for Education in the North East, Yorkshire and Humber.   Jayne Coward: Hi everyone. I'm Jayne coward. I am Deputy Director for early years regulatory policy and practice. Nice to be here.   Andrea Dill-Russell: Hello everyone. I'm Andrea Dill-Russell. I'm Senior His Majesty's Inspector in the policy team for further education and skills and teacher development.   Jonathan Bennett: Great. Thank you all. So, as we said, we will talk a bit about what we have seen on the ground as these inspections went through the pilot stages, and now they are live and we're inspecting. But let's just remind ourselves of some of the key changes to this renewed framework with you, Lee.   Lee Owston: Absolutely, and for those of you that have heard me talk before, I normally sum it up by saying the changes are essentially about making inspection look different, but also making it feel different too. So, we reviewed not only what our inspection materials make inspection look at, but also how we go about collecting evidence, because that's the bit that people often remember the most, because that's how we interact with them, that's how we have conversations with them at the point of inspection. And if I was to boil it down to the five key areas, I suppose, we've changed toolkits and the evaluation areas that we look at. We've changed how we report so we've introduced report cards. There's a new five-point grading scale, and of course, we've also more recently published our work around what our monitoring program would look like in schools, further education and skills. So, I just take each of those in turn and give you kind of a snapshot of what those changes mean in practice. And of course, I'm sure all of you will be clicking and downloading and looking at our toolkits, operating guides and inspection information documents to get more detail. But if I start with the toolkits and the evaluation areas, this was a replacement to our kind of framework and our school inspection, further education and skills inspection handbooks, early years inspection handbooks that we had previously. And it all started with the question, you know, what makes great provision? What are the component parts that allow fantastic early years settings, schools in all of their types, or indeed post-16 provision to do the job that they do. And of course, that's where we arrived in terms of the evaluation areas, whether that's around curriculum, teaching and training, whether that's in early years, around welfare and well-being, or indeed in schools, whether that's about attendance and behaviour. So we broke it down into those separate elements, and through our toolkits, exemplified what different grades look like for each of those areas. It therefore is the focal point for inspection. Those inspection toolkits show you what we'll focus on, how we'll evaluate and how we'll grade. And I suppose there's probably not a lot there that surprises people. You know, it is all of the things that you would expect great provision to be doing and to have in place, whether that's around leadership and governance or how well children, learners achieve. But I think the newer element is around inclusion. And of course, if you look at our toolkits, you'll see that there is a new inclusion evaluation area, but also, it's spread right across all of our other evaluation areas. So what does it mean to have an inclusive curriculum or inclusive teaching practices, so on and so forth across all of our remits? And just to give you a snapshot by inclusion, we mean, what is it that leaders are doing to help break down those barriers to learning and well-being, and that might be around children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. It might be those who have special educational needs and or disabilities, or indeed, it might be those known to social care, so something that we've really helped to push to the front. And actually, if you listen to Sir Martyn as our Chief Inspector, you'll hear him talk about inclusion being at the heart of this renewed framework. So that was toolkits and evaluation areas. And as I said, please do download those if you want more detail on our website. Now linked to that is obviously how we report and this is one of the biggest changes, I would say, in probably our 30 plus year history as an organisation, we have fundamentally redesigned how we communicate what we find on inspection to predominantly parents and carers. So, our new report cards combine at a glance grades with the narrative summary of the strengths and the areas for improvement in wherever we've been. And we kind of tested lots of different types with parents and carers. And of course, what we've ended up with is something that allows you as a parent or carer to kind of click on what interests you most, what is of most importance to you in helping you decide where your child goes in terms of their next stage or their next setting. So, when those are published in January - so our first batch will be published in January - I'm sure people will find those far more helpful in terms of providing the detail that they want about their child's education. Now within those report cards, you'll obviously see a very different grading scale. From our testing, our piloting and our early inspections, we know the five-point grading scale and how it differs from what's gone before is something that we really need to help people understand and explain. So, first thing I want to say is the five-point grading scale cannot in any way be compared with the old grades. Can't be compared with the kind of four words that we've known from the past. It's a different approach to inspection. It's a new way of reporting. We wanted to change the culture of inspection, and in doing that, we started by changing the language that we use, and obviously that all came back to the words we used for evaluation and for grading. So, for example, you cannot equate the new exceptional grade with an outstanding grade that perhaps you've received previously, the two are not an automatic crossover. Equally, good in terms of the old system doesn't automatically equate with expected or strong. They are new grades with new standards, and importantly, those standards are aligned to, particularly the expected standard, with everything that providers are expected to do, whether that's written into statute, whether that's professional standards or non-statutory guidance. So everything in the expected standard has been crafted around everything that a provider is expected to do. And it's a high bar, because one of the things we've also introduced is this idea of a secure fit, so you have to, through inspection evidence, gathering, meet every one of the standards before you can be graded as the expected standard. And that's a shift from what we've known before, which was obviously a best fit. And a best fit, it was us learning from the Big Listen around inconsistency, and one of the things we unpicked was that a best fit inevitably allowed some institutions to achieve a grade on having some of the things that we'd written down, but not the others. And equally, the institution down the road could still get the same grade, but have a different mix of criteria, and that led to, you know, inconsistencies we heard through the Big Listen. So we've removed that, and now we've gone with a secure fit, which means you have to have all of the standards before you can be graded that particular standard. And then the other thing just to touch upon is the needs attention grade. And I want to be really clear with everybody that's listening, that needs attention is simply an indication that there's work to be done to reach the expected standard. It's not a fail, but it does highlight where issues need to be addressed before they become even bigger problems that might need urgent improvement in the future. And then the last thing on my list of five was around monitoring. And again, if you want to look at some of our guidance around monitoring for schools and further education and skills in particular, then you can download it from our website, but we've redesigned the system for monitoring and those two remits, particularly where there's a need for where we've perhaps graded needs attention or urgent improvement, we'll design a program and go back and offer, obviously, leaders reassurance that they're on the right track and improvement is happening, but also reassure parents and carers that obviously things are getting better. And where we see those improvements, we'll be able to recognise them more quickly and change a grade on a report card there and then at the point of mo

Thinking about becoming an apprentice? Is someone you know looking to their future? In this episode we look at apprenticeships, focusing on the North West of England and speak to an apprentice at the University Hospitals of Liverpool group.    Hi everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom and this time we're exploring all things apprenticeships. I'm joined here today by Lynn Masterson, who's Vice Principal of commercial and growth at Hugh Baird College in Liverpool, Lisa Daniels, who's currently an apprentice on foundation degree through Hugh Baird but based at University Hospitals of Liverpool group, Fiona O'Shea, also at Hugh Baird, and by Ruth Stammers, one of our senior His Majesty's Inspectors of Further Education and Skills here at Ofsted. Just to set us off, Ruth, we probably think we know, but do we? What is an apprenticeship?   Ruth: Okay, so for those who might not know what an apprenticeship is, essentially it's a job where you learn alongside your job. So, they're open to anybody from the age of sixteen onwards. So we see apprentices, obviously quite young ones coming out of school, and we see apprentices retraining into different careers, well into their sixties, sometimes even their seventies, believe it or not. A kind of standard apprenticeship is usually either one day a week in college and four days a week in work, or with a with a training provider for one day. Or sometimes they're on a block release program, so they might be in work for a number of weeks and then go on a block of training for, say, a week or two at a college or training provider. Apprentices get paid a normal wage, so there is a basic apprenticeship wage, which is quite low, let's be honest. A lot of employers do pay their apprentices more than the standard apprenticeship wage, which is really important. And then there's other apprenticeships that actually are quite highly paid. So we've got apprentices from level two, which can be a lot of the kind of construction trades, automotive, healthcare, early years, those kind of entry level jobs right up to apprenticeships at level seven, which are senior leaders. And solicitors - really high level apprenticeships. There has been a little bit of change to funding recently, so some of those level seven apprenticeships are no longer going to be funded by the government but lots of the lower level ones are. And the reason for that really is, is to try and attract people into some of those entry level jobs, the level two and three apprenticeships, so that those who are out of the job market currently or furthest from the job market through unemployment, have got a route into employment with training as well, and and hopefully a long standing career alongside that. Briony: I mean, Ruth has described an enormous breadth in apprenticeships. So presumably there is no such thing as a typical apprentice. Lynn: No there isn't. Apprentices can come from many different backgrounds, very different circumstances. So, you know, we can sort of have an apprentice who will come from school, who's maybe made the decision that they don't want to pursue an A-level, uh, or they just want to end their time at school, and they're looking to find themselves at a career for life. There'll be opportunities where people will maybe be thinking further forward than just how they can earn money now. So there will also be people who maybe want to retrain, who've been in a job that they feel they'd like to gain a skill in something else so they can be different ages. You can as as Ruth has just said, you can have apprentices that will start at sixteen, and you can have apprentices that will also go up to, um, in the sixties or 70s. So there's no such thing. It's a common misconception that apprentices are young people leaving school. That is not the case. And a lot of people we find now are opting for apprenticeships just so that they don't have a level of debt as they're making their studies, because there's such a variety of apprenticeships now. You've got a big choice.   Briony: So you've mentioned misconceptions there. And I think, you know, do you find that there are some common misconceptions and misunderstandings about what an apprenticeship and therefore what an apprentice is? Lynn: A lot of people have a misconception that when you're an apprentice, you're basically doing jobs like making the tea on a site. That is absolutely not the case because apprenticeships have changed significantly. What most apprenticeships you will find will have they'll be released for usually a day to attend college or a training provider. You can deliver actually in the workplace to an apprentice. You don't have to come in to training. There is a set programme of training and everybody is usually allocated a mentor so that as you're learning, you've got somebody alongside you who can give you that guidance as well as the work. So employers play a large part within apprenticeships just to make sure that that the people who are apprentices are gaining those skills and they're getting the experience they need to enable them to do that job at the end of their apprenticeship and probably an increase in their pay as their skills have increased.   Briony: Yeah, so I'm already fishing out from both what you and Ruth have said some enormous benefits of, um, both being an apprentice and taking on apprentices. What would you say are the key sort of bonuses for an individual to be in, to be an apprentice and take on an apprenticeship?   Lynn: The benefits for being an apprentice would be to earn as you learn, so you immediately start to earn money. You're actually not just learning or gaining skills. When you go into college or your training provider, you are actually gaining those skills every day. And that's set you head and shoulders above anybody who is just coming and doing that and going and going into a training environment. You can demonstrate those skills by the end of your apprenticeship training. And I just think it's, it's an all round better way to gain experience and to be able to actually prove that you can do that, be assured that you can do the job at the end of it.   Briony: Yeah. Proven was what sprang to mind. You're proven in the workplace – Ruth?   Ruth: Yeah. So I was just going to add, I think Lynn might have said earlier, but this one's massive, really is. Um, if you are an apprentice doing a degree apprenticeship as well, you have no student debt at all. So, you know, people coming out of A-levels or BTECs going to university, um, are paying their fees, which I think are nine and a half thousand a year now, aren't they? They've just gone up again. Um, and with an apprenticeship it's entirely free to the individual. So it's completely funded by, by the government and/or the employer. Um, so that that's a massive bonus to anybody rather than someone who's going to a full time university program. And as well as that, they're getting the hands on experience. While any apprentice really, um, at any level, is getting hands on experience and developing, you know, life skills, time management, decision making, increasing confidence, you know, working with others, learning to work in a team, All things that you can put on on your CV that are really valuable moving through your career, which is just huge for young people really, or anybody going into the workplace.   Briony: Huge number. And I'm looking at it from the other side. Um, now. So what would you say, uh, coming to you first Lynn because you must have conversations with employers about this all the time. What are the main what do you picture as the main benefits of taking on an apprentice?   Lynn: You are helping a young person to gain the skills that they need to forge a career for life. You are giving people a chance and opportunity. Some hope that they are going to be able to have a - you're helping them with their lifestyle in the future, and you are supporting them to to gain the skills that they need to to obviously go into employment. What we find with a lot of employers is that a young person will come and they'll be doing their training, and when they come back from training, they they will say, oh, we don't do it like that in college. We do this. Or have you thought about using something digitally? And we find that employers often get some benefit from apprentices. Apprentices making suggestions of things that they've seen whilst they were doing the training that can be used in the workplace. The significant majority of apprentices that we have, ninety eight percent, go on to employment either with the same employer or with another employer. As long as that apprentice has had quality training experience, they have gained the skills. They're head and shoulders above somebody who comes in with with a qualification. And that's not to downplay qualifications because of course they are important. But if you have that qualification alongside the skills, then you you are a real of real benefit to an employer. Briony: Yeah. So I mean, for balance, we should also look at the challenges as well, presumably taking on both an apprenticeship as an individual and an apprentice. Um, both entail a huge amount of work and will come with come with a number of, if not challenges. A number of burdens on the individual or the employer. Um, how to um, I think we'll talk to Lisa in in a little while and find out about any elements of taking on an apprenticeship that you found particularly tough, but from a from a business side, what people find most challenging when taking on an apprentice. Lynn: It's organising the workload sometimes, is difficult. So for example, if you have got a carpentry and joinery apprentice and you mainly fit doors and skirting boards, when you take an apprentice on before they'll be signed up, you have to know that you're going to cover the breadth of skills that need to be covered

In this episode, colleagues from the National Day Nurseries Association join Ofsted to discuss the report into the importance of the first two years of a child's life: Getting it right from the start: how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers - GOV.UK   Briony Balsom   Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Bryony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on early years, on 'Getting it right from the start, how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers.' And indeed, that is the title of our recently released report. So the research explores how early years practitioners understand the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and apply it to the education and care of babies and toddlers. So we're talking up to two years. It draws largely on a series of visits to early years settings, a survey and some inspector focus groups. So joining us today, we have Fiona Bland, who is from the National Day Nurseries Association, Kiran Singh, who's one of Ofsted's Research and Evaluation leads and was involved in writing and producing the report. And we have Wendy Ratcliff, who is Ofsted's lead for early education. Hello, everybody. So Wendy, just to kick us off then, why did we produce the report?  Wendy Ratcliff   Really good question, and there's a bit of history there. So when we were doing our 'Best start in life research review 'series, one of the things that came out from that was that, we're aware that there's very little research out there around babies, around our youngest children. And I think that's you know, that that's really important for us at a time when the government are looking are increasing funding, there'll be more babies in settings from September in in terms of the childcare reforms. The other thing we know that those first two years lay those important foundations for all future learning, and that babies' development just needs to be encouraged, supported, and, you know, monitored by adults. It's so vitally important to get those first two years right.  Briony Balsom   Yeah, so I think the report starts out by saying what we know instinctively to be the case, that those first two years are really crucial to a child's development.  Briony Balsom   Why is it that they're so important? Could you tell us a little bit about what forms in that child in their first two years? Wendy Ratcliff   Yeah, absolutely. So. If we think about we think, well, we think about the EYFS, for example, and we think about those educational programs and the primaries of learning. There's so much that needs to happen. What does happen in those first two years and the importance around you know, personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication and language, we think of those important interactions, and I think one of the key things for us is making sure we get that balance right between care and education, because whatever we do through those interactions, those routines with the youngest children, children are learning something, and that's really important.  Briony Balsom   Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's because we know it's so important that some of the examples in the report are really so wonderful. So there's a really evocative one of the the practitioner talking about sand in a really glorious way. And you can just feel the engagement with the child. Kiran, I'm going to come to you. Can you tell us a little bit about the methodology and what, what you looked at, who you spoke with to formulate the report?  Kiran Singh   Yeah, yeah, of course. It was really important for us, right from the outset of this project to capture as many voices as we could and really try to be as accessible as we could for the early years sector. And we know that not every nursery could take part. We know that not every practitioner could tell us something. So we tried to, we did a lot of different methods. We first of all, we looked at existing studies and literature on the topic, and we found that there wasn't really as much as there, you know, that there should be on babies that is specific to England. We also issued a national survey to all local authorities in England, and they then sent on the survey to all their registered providers. So in effect, we were giving every single practitioner in England a chance to respond to the survey. We didn't get every single practitioner respond, but we did get a large number of responses that we could actually use, so that that was really good. We visited nurseries, not ones that were attached to schools, and we also visited child minders, and we interviewed leaders and practitioners, and we held discussions with our own inspectors about the practice that they saw in the baby rooms. So we had a we had a big data set for this, and all of our findings we triangulated across the board.  Briony Balsom   Yeah, I mean, it's really expansive in the breadth of who you spoke to. So what about findings? What were the key findings? If you could draw those out for us.  Kiran Singh   We had a range of findings from this research, but they were all really underpinned by the notion that qualifications and experience both matter when it comes to high quality practice and the importance of high quality and relevant CPD for babies. So we saw lots of good examples that demonstrated like, really good understanding of the key person role in the baby room. And it was really endearing and encouraging to see that in the baby room, the baby room practitioners really understood how important this was for the babies. It was really important for them to get to know the baby and to get to know the families. And they understood that they were that link that would make that experience really, you know, really meaningful and good for babies. Our findings also supported that that high that the frequency and the quality of interaction between adults and children are are really critical from that for that quality provision from birth. And whilst I did tell you that our survey was national, it wasn't completely representative of the early years workforce or the wider population of England, and that's an important caveat. But alongside our visits data, it did show us both, both the visits data and their survey data did show us that more needs to be done to help practitioners actually understand their role in babies and toddlers physical development. Exactly what can practitioners do that helps to support them in that physical development. And then our survey also helped us to conclude that practitioners holding qualifications at or above level four, they were more likely to demonstrate a higher level of knowledge and understanding about high quality education and care from from birth than those who held a lower qualification. And we know that might be like a really obvious thing, but it's really important for us to actually see the data that shows us that. And you know, we can talk about that confidently. We also found that when we was talking to practitioners, there were some barriers that prevented, or like delayed, practitioners from actually delivering all those high quality interactions and the high quality education and care that we've talked about a lot in the report for babies. And the main barriers were around, like, misconceptions about educating and caring for babies. And those, those misconceptions were held by practitioners, and we and we know that also that there were some challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled and experienced practitioners that that really did affect, like the quality of baby room practice and leaders talked a lot about that a lot to us.  Briony Balsom   Yeah, yeah. And I really want to come back and explore some some of the detail in those key findings in a minute, and we can bring those, bring those to life, a little. But to come to you, Fiona, before we go into them in in great detail, so broadly did the report ring true for you in terms of what you know about the sector and practitioners?  Fiona Bland   It definitely reflects the things that we talk about and hear about through our members. We know that there are fantastic practitioners out there doing wonderful jobs, and it was great to read those lovely examples in the report. And we also hear about the challenges that they're having in terms of recruitment, and, you know, being able to get those high quality staff into the setting. So, yeah.  Briony Balsom   I mean, I suppose one of the questions that that came to me was looking at the report was about, how do we learn from this? How do we then cascade that into training so that we're improving practice? I mean, continuous development is presumably a particular area of challenge. How can we learn from this and build this into CPD and initial training?  Fiona Bland   There are lots of challenges, and CPD doesn't always mean formal training. It can take place in many ways, so providers have to be really creative in how they're doing that. If they're looking at a training course, it's thinking about, what are those skills that they want their staff to achieve, what they're looking for them to get, and then making sure that they do some research, looking at the training and the training company making sure that the course that they're looking for has that theory that underpins that practice, and then it gives them that practical application, so that when they go back to their setting, they're able to put that into their practice and see where, where that fits. If it isn't formal training, then you know, CPD can be done through a professional discussion. It can be done through peer observation, and so leaders need to be thinking about finding that person that can actually lead, that who's got the skills and the knowledge to support that practitioner to develop the skills that they've identified that they need.  Briony Balsom   Yeah, thanks. And presumably, there's som

Would you like to learn more about our proposed new report cards, or how we’ll inspect inclusion? Ofsted is consulting on changes to our education inspections. Host Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks to Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston (National Director, Education) and Claire Stewart (Deputy Director, Inclusive Education) about our consultation proposals, including our new report cards, inclusion grade and education inspection toolkits. Take part in our consultation here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education.   Transcript   Mark Leech: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today we're going to be talking about the consultation that we're currently running looking at improvements to the way we inspect education. So that's education right from early years right through schools and into further education and skills. And I'm joined by Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Lee Owston, the National Director for Education, and Claire Stewart, who is Deputy Director for Inclusive Education. Our consultation began in February, and it runs until the 28th of April. We're recording this in March so we can reflect a little bit on what we're starting to hear back from the consultation. We've been out meeting lots of people from the sectors that we inspect and regulate, and also meeting with parents groups and others, so we can talk a little bit about feedback and what we're hearing and hopefully answer some of the things that maybe people would like to hear us talk about. So, if I could turn to you Martyn first, just around a bit of the background to what we're trying to achieve here. We obviously had a huge consultation exercise last year, the Big Listen, which has shaped a lot of these proposals. What in a nutshell, are we trying to achieve with the changes we're making to education inspection?   Martyn Oliver: Yeah, thanks, Mark, and it's really good to be joined by Lee, and I'm really particularly delighted that we are joined by Claire, because isn't it great that we've now got a Deputy Director who's in charge of just inclusivity, because inclusion is a massive part of our work. And so if I go back to what happened just after I started, I was really clear that I wanted to listen to the system we launched, I think it was last March, the Big Listen, the largest consultation, the largest piece of listening work at Ofsted has ever done. Over 20,000 or so took part in our survey then we had independent surveys looking at parents, what do they think, what providers think, and indeed, children. And in the end, it's about 30,000 people. And they came back with some really strong messages. Some of them are hard for us to hear about a gap in trust. And then some of the messages were really positive about the things that we should do going forward. And some of them were things like, our framework is focusing on the right things currently, with a focus on the curriculum, and that's really important. But our framework is a generic framework across early years, primary, secondary, further education, initial teacher training education, independent schools and people didn't recognise their uniqueness, and so Lee and I were really keen to develop a framework going forward which looked at that uniqueness. We also wanted to pay attention to the context. We heard we weren't spending enough time looking at the context of inspections. The stress and pressure of inspection was a huge part of what we heard. And so, this framework that we're consulting on now isn't just about the actual design of what we will inspect. I think probably even more important than that, to be honest, is how we go about inspecting it. And we've really thought long and hard about that.   Mark Leech: Thank you. So, one of the challenges that we have at Ofsted is how we balance the needs of parents with the people that we inspect. So, we hear different things. And you've spoken about the Big Listen, and we heard different things from parents than we heard perhaps, from leaders in schools or in nurseries. And I suppose the area where this really comes together in the proposals that we've put out for consultation is in the way that we report, which is a really big change, isn't it?   Martyn Oliver: Oh yeah, the way that we're proposing to report now in 2025 going forwards, will be, I think, probably the biggest change since we were developed back in 1992 because predominantly, we've always relied upon a single word to describe the overall effectiveness of a nursery or a childminder or a school or a college. And we heard this in the Big Listen, but we also heard it from the government when they were elected, was that the single word judgment lacked nuance and complexity of the providers, and it was low information and high stakes and high accountability. We did independent research that I mentioned a few moments ago, and the independent research for providers was very clear: Remove the single word judgment, the overall effectiveness grade, and they talked about replacing it with a narrative describing the strengths of schools or bullet points. And I think it was their third option was to say or show some grades for the sub judgments of areas, but not the overall area. That same research independently carried out on parents said, we want clarity of the grades, but we don't want the single word judgment. And so designing this idea of a report card, dropping that single word grade was to try and lean into the nuance, lean into the complexity, provide written forms of strengths and areas for development that the system’s really clearly asked for, but also provide the clarity on sub judgment and grade that parents asked for, and that's where the idea behind the report card came into. And I get that because it's different, it's going to feel like a big challenge and a big change. I mean, one of the things that I think from my early conversations with people is they're struggling to understand that a provider could be both needing to pay attention to something and be strong at something else. You could be both things across that one institution in different areas. And I think that's right, because if I go back to being a head teacher, and I had quite a few outstanding schools. And even in my outstanding schools, I used to think to myself, yeah, but I know it isn't all outstanding. There are some aspects of it that I'm working on, and the idea of the report card is to try to get underneath that and be of more use.   Mark Leech: So I mean, from a parent's point of view as well, I suppose that, you know, they're going to be used to seeing this with their own children, you know, their own children will have things they're really excelling at in other areas where perhaps they're they need a bit more help. So, it's that sort of approach to a school to a nursery to a further education college.   Martyn Oliver: Exactly. It's leaning into that complexity and trying our best to help that provider recognise their strengths, recognise what they're working on, or perhaps sometimes point out to them things that they didn't perhaps know about themselves and be of use on that journey. And it's also, I think, really important alongside our consultation, which you can find on our website, gov.uk, the Department of Education is also running a separate consultation, completely independent of ours about how they might use our information to look at accountability on the system. So, there are two types of consultation out there, and I'd encourage people to go and find them both.   Mark Leech: Yeah, I think that's really important, isn't it? Because I think people do misunderstand that relationship, even people who work in education, the fact that we are the inspectorate. We go out, we inspect a school, we give a series of grades related to what to what we see. We're not responsible for the next step. So, the next step, be it some sort of support for that school, be it some sort of intervention that sits with government, as you say, there's a separate consultation on that. So, on the new report card, we're going to be using a new grading scale, so it's got five points to it, and it runs from causing concern at the lowest end, attention needed, secure, strong and exemplary. So, people have been talking a lot about these, these five grades. Martyn, perhaps if you and Lee could talk us through what those grades mean and how they'd be applied?   Martyn Oliver: Yeah, absolutely. So, the idea is behind the report card, as I said, was to provide more nuanced, more complex information about the wide range of things that providers do, whether you're in a childminder or a nursery or a school or a college. In law, we have to tell the Department for Education if there's an unacceptable standard of education taking place, and so we call that the lowest grade here ‘causing concern’. And if a school or a child model a college falls into that category, that's when we would bring the Department for Education in. And that's why it's important that people look at our consultation, and they also look at the Department for Education's consultation on how they might use our information. So that's the lowest grade causing concern. I'm just going to jump quickly then to ‘secure’. Secure is where we would start all of our inspections at. We would expect everyone to hit the secure standard. It should give parents a great deal of confidence when they see that people are meeting that secure standard. Now, once you've got that secure standard, and you've got that unacceptable standard causing concern, I think it's really important that you've got something in the middle, because if you don't, it's a cliff edge, you're either secure or you fall off and you're unacceptable. And that would be too much pressure on the system. So, I think you need something as a h

What's the picture of local areas and how well they are working to prepare children and young people with special educational needs for adulthood? What support are they offering to allow young people to reach their full potential? Preparation for adulthood arrangements in local areas: a thematic review - GOV.UK   Briony Balsom  0:07   Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time we're focusing on preparing for adulthood. In December 24 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly published a report considering how well children with special needs and or disabilities or send are being supported in their preparation for adulthood. We considered survey responses from more than 2000 children, young people, parents and practitioners, and visited six local area partnerships to explore how children and young people with SEND are being prepared for adulthood. Later, I'm going to be chatting to Jess Taylor Byrne from the CQC, who jointly produced the report with us. But today, firstly, I'm delighted to be joined by guests from Newcastle College. We spoke to practitioners and leaders at Newcastle as part of our visit, and we found some really positive practice in this area. So joining us, we have Rachel Gibson, who's the Assistant Director at Newcastle College. We have Maxine Johnson, who is the SEND manager, Sabarina Logan, who's currently studying for a level three National Diploma in Business at Newcastle college. And also we have Adams Sproston, who is Ofsted senior HMI for SEND. Hello everybody!  To kick us off, I'd really love to hear from you, Adam, about what innovative ideas we came across that are really working at this really key juncture of a young person's life?  Adam Sproston  1:29   Thanks, Briony.  We found lots of positives across the six areas that we visited, typically, professionals in education, health and social care, working in very challenging contexts to meet the needs of children and young people, and they shared with us challenges in the economy, but also after COVID 19 and the impact that that's having on some young people. In particular, we found that providers that give high quality careers, information, education, advice and guidance are able to prepare young people better for adult life. May that be courses that they move to, careers that they want to be interested and and thrive in, or in other aspects. So for some young people with SEND that might be improving their independence or supported living as they become an adult. So that was really important to see where professionals know children and young people really well. They can be best placed to meet their needs and tailor their approaches to work for the child's aspirations. Briony Balsom  2:36   Wonderful. So let's come across to Newcastle and hear a little more about exactly what it is that you're you're doing so well.  Maxine Johnson  2:42   So within our support offer within Newcastle college for our learners with with high needs, so we have a dedicated team of SEND advisors who support our learners with HCPs, transition into college and transitioning with the school, the provider that they're currently with, liaison with any external providers to ensure that we can obviously meet their learners needs and support that kind of smooth transition in a college before they've even started, whether that's coming in on transition visits and doing tastes within the curriculum, or seeing the learners and doing observations in the classroom to see how their learning works and how this how they supported to again, make that transition as smooth as possible. We also do as part of our transition, we have a summer school within our life skills hub, which again, just cements and kind of builds those foundations for our students to be able to know the campus, become familiar with certain spaces that they may access when they're here, which again supports that transition into into college. So we have a dedicated team that specifically work with our learners. With HCPs, in terms of the wider offer. We do have an access hub as well, so that is again, supporting our more complex learners. For us, it's about making our curriculum as inclusive as possible. We have an incredible Assistive Technology Team, and I hope you kind of get from the way that we talk about this, the offer. It's about promoting independence, giving students the tools, strategies to be able to take that to the next level, whether that's the next program of study for us as well, we're lucky. We have a higher education provision here, which a lot of our students aspire to progress on to. We've got, obviously, apprenticeships, supported internships or employment. So it's about how we support the students to be able towards that independence. It's about those independent skills being able to be once you've let College, be able to access and be a well rounded citizen. So much to unpack all day, which is fabulous, and you're clearly so passionate about it. Listen, I'm itching to come to Sabarina and talk, because this is potentially a really exciting time, a time of big decisions as you work out next steps, whether you want to work go into further study. How does that feel? Sabarina Logan  4:55   Feels amazing, but also like quite nerve wracking. And obviously, I'm in my final year of college, and this September, I'm going to be coming back to the uni here, just because I'm so familiar with the support that I get, and I just feel quite comfortable. So I know what's where I can get help, and I know my way around. So yeah, it's, it's going to be a big step. I'm going to do business and a degree, which will be three years. So I'm looking forward to it.  Rachel Gibson  5:29   You know, we don't just focus on the qualification and the life skills club in particular, do a lot of work around independent living skills on a on a social level, as well as a sort of teacher, student or staff student level as well. And all of those sorts of opportunities are really important. And they might seem like really small things to other people, but actually at an individual level, all of those small things, a small thing to me, might be a huge thing for another, for a student, and from having two or three conversations with Sabarina about a couple of other things and more about Sabarina just from having that conversation with us. So what we'll get, what the students get from each other as well, through the through the sort of dedicated hub approach that we have. Briony Balsom  6:11   Adam,  can I come across to you and just see whether that is the kind of thing that we've seen replicated in other places, or is that something that Newcastle college have that's fairly unique? Adam Sproston  6:20   We did. We did see that approach in in many settings that we visited the differences about knowing the children, seems obvious saying it doesn't it, but when you know your children well, you're more able to flex resources and also to meet their needs in a more bespoke way. Something else that we found commonly was, of course, when those relationships are built, it also supports a sense of belonging, and actually that students may stay longer and sustain educational outcomes, or those life skills outcomes that you discuss there, I wanted to pick up also something that we did find at Newcastle, the links to families as well as to the students. Maxine Johnson  7:02   We are trying to incorporate even things like independent travel training with that as well, which I know for a local authorities, is a huge kind of thing with with send transport. So we're using those individual life goals and life skills. Is of being able to access public transport is absolutely huge. So even in incorporating things like that into the work that we're doing with our special school is so important. Already, the students came in last week for the very first time, and it was an absolute pleasure to have them on site, and a lot of them did incredibly well. And we were all asking how it went, and a lot of them were saying, can't wait to go home and tell parents. And for us, that's the main thing that they're going home and telling their families they feel safe. And they really enjoyed the experience, so that they will continue to kind of come in again, become familiar with the setting, become familiar with how we are as a as a college to again, support the students, if, hopefully one day, if we can meet the needs that they they may end up coming and studying here, which is, which would be an absolute pleasure. Rachel Gibson  7:57   I think, as well at a wider level. So we also have a lot of young people with with additional needs who don't have an HCP. So our teams are present at every open event. We're present throughout the whole of enrollment. We have a dedicated support hub in our main library, so it's very accessible, and we know a lot of parents will come along with their students at the on the enrollment and open events and where we will talk to parents at those events and talking about the support we can offer if a student wants to come and meet us, but wants the parent there, or the parent feels they need to be there to ensure that we get all of the information, then we're quite happy to do all of that. Those relationships with parents are absolutely key in terms of ensuring a really strong and positive experience for our students. Briony Balsom  8:38   That's wonderful to hear. I mean, I was going to ask about potential barriers, or perceived barriers. Adam, is there anything you'd want to add to that, in terms of barriers that we've seen, we saw elsewhere in the in the work? Adam Sproston  8:50   you've explained it so clearly, Newcastle, there's a open, open events, where you can show off what you what you offer, and we found those in some other areas. But actually, sometimes parents don't know what's around the corner. You use the w

Ofsted's report into multi-agency responses to serious youth violence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multi-agency-responses-to-serious-youth-violence-working-together-to-support-and-protect-children Safer London's report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-and-families-experiences-of-multi-agency-support-when-impacted-by-serious-youth-violence https://saferlondon.org.uk/   Briony Balsom   Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on serious youth violence and our recently released joint report. We released a joint targeted area inspection report, which we call a JTAI, on serious youth violence on the 20th of November, that report had a lengthy title for a weighty subject. It was called 'Multi agency responses to serious youth violence, working  together to support and protect children'.   Later in the podcast we'll be joined by Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's director of practice, to talk about their work around serious youth violence, but first to explore with reports and findings, we're joined by some of those who contributed to it. We have Helen Davis, who's head of thematic and joint inspection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. Ade Solarin,  the inspection lead for child protection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue services. Hello everyone. Jess Taylor Byrne, who is the Children's Services operations manager at the Care Quality Commission. Hi there. Hi everyone. And Wendy Ghaffar, who is Ofsted specialist advisor on cross remit safeguarding. Wendy, if I could come to you first so we can say a little bit about the scale of the problem. Many might assume it's a city issue, but is that really the case?  Wendy Ghaffar   No, it's definitely not the case. It's not just a city problem. I think we were shocked as a group of inspectorates to find that in all of the areas we visited, there were many children, including children as young as 11, carrying knives for their own protection. And in some of the areas, and for some children, it was absolutely the norm to carry a knife, often, not always, but often that was what children saw as a way of protecting themselves. And if you look at our report, at the beginning of that report, we talk about a very young teenage boy who was chased by a group of older teenagers in his local area, and he knew that those teenagers were carrying knives, and so he started carrying a knife because he saw that as the only way to protect himself. And we heard about children who were too frightened to leave their own homes, children not attending school because they were so fearful. And this is happening in small towns, out in the countryside, and we think that social media plays a role as well. If we look at the work of the youth endowment fund, they surveyed 7500 children last year, and one in four of those children had either been a victim of violence or perpetrated violence, and children also spoke about seeing real life episodes of violence on social media so they might see something that's happened in their locality on social media, and that's feeding into this sense of fear. And we don't think that adults are really sufficiently aware of this problem. And the other thing that came through is the impact that this has not just on children who are directly involved, but on their brothers and sisters, on their friends, on communities, on schools. So there's a kind of ripple effect when there's an incident and it's impacting on children's general well being, their sense of safety. I think we also need to think about the links there are with county lines and criminal exploitation. So some of this, not all of it, is happening in that context of county lines, which, as I'm sure people are aware, often organized crime gangs are forcing children to carry drugs out into the countryside, into smaller towns, and very often forcing children to carry knives. There's some groups of children who are particularly badly effective or more vulnerable, and that includes children with special educational needs and some children from some particular ethnic groups, and particularly with children who've got special educational needs. We know that nationally, there are delays in those children getting assessments, and delays in them getting the support they need, and we think this is actually putting them at increased risk of serious youth violence. Briony Balsom   Thanks, Wendy and you mentioned the wider community impacts as well. I wonder whether anyone would like to come in and talk talk to that a little? Wendy Ghaffar   We saw some very strong examples of where voluntary organizations were kind of harnessing, if you like, capacity within local communities to protect children, to offer other opportunities for children, to provide a venue for children and families, to provide different opportunities for children and families. But we also heard when we went out into those communities, the impact. That serious youth violence had on local communities, particularly on parents, how worried they were about their children, that it was affecting all sort of age ranges within the community, not just children. So it has a sort of really widespread impact. We also heard from schools as well, because we went out to schools, we talk to education leaders about the impact, and this is clearly an issue that they're having to address as well.  Briony Balsom   Jess, did the inspection look at everyone's input and the difference that they especially can make?  Jess Taylor-Beirne   The government has set out the serious violence duty, so which means local area partners all need to work together in these joint targeted area inspections, we really look at how all of those agencies work together. So what's it like to be a child in that area and have all of those different professionals working with you? So we saw children's social care, police, various education settings, Youth Justice Services with probation. We saw lots of different services, including the ambulance emergency department, some universal health services, sexual health services, and of course, like Wendy said, we saw the volunteering community sector as well. And whilst we found some really good work happening in some areas, it wasn't happening everywhere. As an example, one area didn't have a focus at all on serious youth violence as a major concern, and so many of the frontline staff across all of those agencies, hadn't had as much training or support to be able to identify those children at risk of harm. They just didn't know what to look out for and weren't able to recognize the signs that someone might be exploited or impacted by serious youth violence. The strongest work was when senior leaders at the top of organizations, they all understood that serious youth violence had to be a priority in that area. And it wasn't just one person's responsibility or one agency. It was collectively a priority for them all. And in those areas, they were gathering lots of data and information about what was occurring in their local area, and that's what filtered down to the practitioners, and that's when we saw that really good and innovative practice at times, multi agency training, information sharing, professional curiosity and really thorough assessments of children impacted by serious youth violence by all practitioners, there was a much better shared understanding of the experiences of those children, and within those areas, they were actively consulting with children and Families and the wider communities to find out about experiences, what support did they need, what did they want? So they very much understood the local issues. They were really creative with their roles, for example, embedding Speech and Language Therapists. And within Youth Justice Services, there was some really tenacious individual work with children, such as in social care. But like Wendy said, as well, with the community resources, that was where we saw some really interesting work and really impressive work. An example is, I think a couple of areas had their community services linking with the ambulance, and so they were promoting and training on the use of bleed kits, basic first aid, so if, if a young person or anyone was seriously harmed as a result of serious youth violence, the immediate medical attention would lead to much better outcomes for those children and others. Were giving children opportunities to help them develop skills to divert them away from those exploiting them. But I think most importantly, with those projects you know, so many of these children had really complex life experiences. Lots were outside of mainstream school. Lots had scnd, and where those professionals all worked together, they were very much understanding the impact of trauma on a child's experience. They were understanding the impact of abuse as well. And we'd see practitioners all working together on the ground as well. So for example, utilizing psychologists in the youth justice services to really create a good case formulation for that young person. So there was really creative use of practitioners already there, and that communication between them all just just led to much better outcomes. Where that happened Briony Balsom   Ade, did you want to come in on that?  Ade Solarin   What we didn't always see was evaluation of some of those approaches to just get a sense from from the area of the local partnerships just how well they understood what was working well and what evaluation that they had considered. So it's really, it's really, really important that local partnerships do do more evaluate approaches to addressing serious youth violence and and use some of the available research that's out there, some of the learning that's out there, and also learn from each other as well as local partners. We did see a level of

Here's the report discussed in this episode of the podcast: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thematic-review-of-the-quality-of-education-in-young-offender-institutions-yois   Mark Leech  0:03   Hello. Welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today I'm hosting a conversation about young offender institutions, or  YOIs for short. I'm very pleased to be joined by not one, but two of His Majesty's chief inspectors. We have Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector here at Ofsted, and we have Charlie Taylor, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. Now both are here because the inspection of young offender institutions involves both His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, HMIP and Ofsted. Also with us from Ofsted is Maria Navarro, one of Ofsted specialists in this area, and heavily involved in the report we're going to be talking about today. Welcome everyone. We'll get on to the report I mentioned in a moment. But first, let's talk a bit about young offender institutions and how they work. Charlie, before you joined HMIP, you were Chair of the Youth Justice Board, so this is an area you know really well. Could you give us a bit of a background, please, about YOIs and the children who they cater for?  Charlie Taylor  1:05   Yes, certainly there are four YOIs in the country. One is private sector,  the other three are public sector. They house about around 400 children at the moment, which is a dramatic reduction from when I did my review in 2016 when there are about 1500 and an even more dramatic reduction from the the early 2000s when there are about three and a half thousand children locked up in England and Wales. The age of kids who end up in a YOI is 15 to 18, but the vast majority of them are about 16 and 17, with most being 17 at the moment, because of the prison population crisis, they're also housing more 18 year olds than they would have done in the past. So in the past, unless you had a very short time to serve, you would move on into an adult prison. But they're now hanging on to 18 year olds for longer as well, which represents a challenge.  Mark Leech  1:57   And YOIs do they cater for boys as well as girls? Or is it all boys?  Charlie Taylor  2:02   Well, there are a few girls in YOIs due to some anomalies, because of the closure of parts of the youth custody sector, particularly secure training centers. And what that meant is that provision had to be made for a small amount of very vulnerable girls who who were unable to be placed either in secure children's homes or or into secure training centers. So Weatherby YOI, up in Yorkshire, has a handful of girls there, and certainly that's an issue we've raised many concerns about during our inspection reports over the last couple of years, and in terms of the sort of the way YOIS operate.   Mark Leech  2:43   Obviously, you've mentioned secure training centers, then and secure children's homes. What's different about the YOIs, would it be more recognizable as a sort of prison environment, or is it more of a children's home environment?  Charlie Taylor  2:54   No, certainly it's much more of a prison environment. So the populations are higher, around 150 or so in somewhere like Weatherby, around 120 in someone like Wellington and in Feltham in West London, again, around 120 something like that. So they have a much more prisony feel, unfortunately, than than secure children's homes, the secure school, or even, indeed, secure, secure training centers. And I think that's been one of the criticisms for many years, is actually that they often appear to do a better job of preparing kids for a life in prison, rather than a life on the outside going on and being successful when they leave.  Mark Leech  3:36   That's probably a good point to bring in Martyn from Ofsted. Our involvement might come as a bit of a surprise to many people. Obviously, we do have that role in in adult prisons as well. Could you tell us a bit more about why and how Ofsted are involved in YOI inspections?   Sir Martyn Oliver  3:49   Well, Ofsted works with a number of providers across the 92,000 people that we inspect and regulate and in YOIs, and indeed in prisons. We're really grateful to work with Charlie and his team at HMIP and we look very specifically at the education that children receive in these settings. So for example, in YOIs, we've just done a thematic joint review with Charlie's team, and we've looked very specifically at leadership and the quality of education, and it's actually quite a damning report, where between the two of us, we find that there's been a decade long decline in the quality of education for our most vulnerable children, and when you think about the very need for rehabilitation, clearly education has a massively important role. And the fact that we find that there are systemic failings, it's a really concerning moment that I think Charlie and I now say, this needs to say, enough is enough. This now must improve.  Mark Leech  4:52   So you've mentioned our report there, which is published this month. It's called, as you say, 'A decade of declining quality of education in Young Offender Institutions.' So it is quite a quite a bleak picture. Maria, could you just pull out some of the headlines from that report for us please?  Maria Navarro  5:09   Yes. Certainly. There are two bubbles that we have looked at together with our colleagues in HMIP. The one is the leadership of the YOIs and and the other one, which is of particular interest to all of us here today, and certainly Ofsted, the bubble of the quality of education that the children receive. So if I start with with the leadership band, there are a number of recommendations that we have picked up in in this thematic review for the leaders at each local YOI and also centrally at the Youth Custody Service. The absence of continuous and prolonged leadership in these YOIs, we will have identified that the governance of these YOIs get moved rapidly and very quickly, often before they have an opportunity to create improvement and bring about better quality of provision for the children. There appears to be in the work we have done, in analyzing 10 years worth of inspection, evidence that there has been a breakdown in the staff and child relationships in the YOIs, again, which hasn't been led and managed well internally. As a consequence, both staff officers and managers are displaying an inability to manage behavior and challenging behavior of the children. From our colleagues in HMIP, we also learned throughout the review that this has led to increased segregation of these children, and as a consequence, has reduced their time out of cell and they remain locked up for far too long. There has been a vacuum of investment in infrastructure and learning resources. For example, the YOIs are very poorly suited and equipped to deliver ICT and technology and digital skills to the children. There has been a lack of expert teaching staff, staff who are really good at a particular academic or vocational subject, both the children accessing the YOI in terms of education and vocational training is nowadays incredibly narrow and not good enough for meeting their needs.  Mark Leech  7:27   Thanks, Maria. So, Martin just picking up on the education part there that Maria ended on, what in an ideal world would we be looking for in terms of the education provision in a YOI?  Sir Martyn Oliver  7:40   Well, certainly we need just children to have good access to education, starting format formally, with reading. It's hugely important that the literacy levels then numeracy levels of children. And let's remember we're not talking about prisoners here. We're talking about children who are in custody. So let's just use the term children, that children have access to a good, broad and balanced education, starting with reading, then the basic skills of numeracy and mathematics, and then, of course, access to regular teaching and learning. So that's not being locked in the cell, as we find in this report, for some children up to 23 hours in a day, but actually accessing full time education like their like their counterparts are in the school setting. And of course, we're not naive. Some of the behaviors are challenging. And we talk in the report about on on wing support. That's where education can be delivered to support the children in their in their cell on the wing for that period. But we want to see children in good, regular, broad, balanced curriculum with expert staff who can assess the needs, the differential needs, of children, where the starting points that they've got, and then work towards giving them a really good education, and also work experience. Because we want the prison experience, the custody to result in rehabilitation, and without a good education, then I think we're really going to struggle to ever achieve that aim. Mark Leech  9:09   Thank you and Charlie, we we've talked a bit about behavior. The report picks up on the part about needing to separate groups of children, and that making it difficult, just in practical sense, to get children to a place where they can, you know, engage in education and learn, learn stuff really. What if you could expand a bit on some of the challenges that are facing these institutions?  Charlie Taylor  9:35   I think it's worth just saying to begin with that from a HMIP point of view, we really value the relationship that we have with Ofsted, and I think what is particularly strong is the fact that Ofsted maintain incredibly high standards. Their expectations are as high for children in custody as for children out of custody. And I think that is incredibly important in terms of behavior. This is often something that gets in the way of learning, and it also affects the education as well. So, so what we find is that because of what are called keep-apart lists, so because various children have be

Host Mark Leech listens in to Lisa Pascoe, deputy director (regulation and social care policy), Helen Humphries (specialist adviser for residential care) and Jenny Bird (research lead) as they discuss the findings from our recent research report ‘Good decisions: children with complex needs in children’s homes’. Read the report 'Good decisions: children with complex needs in children's homes' Read the blogs: Providing good experiences for children with complex needs Children with complex needs in children's homes   Transcript Mark: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and in this episode, we're going to be hearing about children with complex needs and what that means to local authorities, children's services and those working with children who live in children's homes. Earlier this year, we published a research report called good decisions children with complex needs in children's homes, and I listened in to colleagues from our social care policy and research teams as they discussed the findings. Lisa: I'm Lisa Pascoe. I'm the Deputy Director here at Ofsted with responsibility for regulation and social care policy and I'm joined today by Helen, our specialist advisor for residential care, and Jenny, our research lead.  Jenny, let's start with you. It would be really helpful to set out for people why we did this research. Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So, it follows on really from a piece we'd done previously, which was looking at local authorities plans for sufficiency. And from that piece of work, we could see that local authorities were really struggling to find supportive homes for children who have complex needs. So we wanted to look at that even more. We knew as well that stakeholders were concerned about children's homes not accepting referrals for children with complex needs. We'd heard some things about them holding out for children who present fewer risks and, sort of preferring to take referrals for those children. And we heard as well about some concerns around the potential impact it could have on Ofsted inspections. So we really wanted this research to look into that further and to highlight good practice that was already out there, as well as the challenges that still exist, and what action could potentially be taken, either across the sector or by ourselves. Lisa: So how did we make it work? Jenny, what did we actually do? Jenny: So we used a two-phase design in this research. We started off at the start of 2023 with a survey that went out to all local authority Children's Services and all registered children's homes, and we asked them things like what they think complex needs means, what happens when they try to find places or are approached with a referral, and what the facilitators and the barriers are to finding good homes for children. Lisa: If I remember rightly, Jenny, didn't we publish something after phase one? Jenny: We did, yeah. We published a blog in around May time to highlight the findings of that survey in more detail. Lisa: And then we moved into phase two. Jenny: We did, yeah. So that built on phase one, and it was made up of two parts. The main bulk of the work was case studies. We'd completed 10 case studies, which we identified through working with three different local authorities across two regions. And in those we spoke to people who were involved in making decisions about children's care or in providing the care itself, as well as children. To supplement those, we also ran some focus groups with other groups of professionals who are involved in the care of children with complex needs. So that was people from the Association for Virtual School Heads, as well as staff who work in local authority commissioning. And we also held a focus group with some of our own Ofsted inspectors as well to talk about how they experience inspections when they're going to homes where children with complex needs are living. Lisa: I think one of the things, Helen, was about this use of the phrase complex needs, wasn't it? I mean, it camouflages what's actually happening for children. Helen: Yes, it's a global term that I think is on unhelpful and categorizes children into this uncertainty which is complex needs, instead of actually saying this child's particular need is related to their mental health, or, because of that this is what happens and this is how their behaviour is demonstrated.  It just draws children into a classification that actually isn't helpful and we'd really prefer not to have that phrase bandied about and used so much. Lisa: Yeah, I mean, I think there was some common themes. Weren't there. There were certainly children who needed help from a variety of professionals. They needed specialist help from, you know, from health services. They needed specialist input and there was certainly some common kind of characteristics of the children Jenny, as well wasn't there in terms of children, particularly children with serious mental health needs, but also children who had needs that led to behaviours that were placing either themselves or others at risk? There was certainly some commonality there, but I think as an umbrella, it certainly masked what was actually happening for children, rather than thinking about them as individuals. Helen: Yes, I think it stops professionals looking any further. And I would imagine that if a children's home received a referral that just described the child as having complex needs, that might be straight away, this isn't a child we can help, rather than actually looking underneath that and saying, well, actually, what are these children's needs? Is there something here that we can provide some help and support to? Lisa: one of the things we weren't surprised at, sadly, was that there was 91% I think it was Jenny of local authorities that had difficulty finding the right homes for children. Helen: Because of that, some children are waiting months, or in one of the examples given, they were waiting years to find that placement that could actually meet their needs, which meant that they were then moved through a variety of placements, and to a large extent, that could have made the situation and the challenges even worse. Lisa: absolutely, and we certainly found that these were the children who were most likely to be placed out of area weren't they? As you say, Helen, experienced those unplanned moves. You're absolutely right. When children's homes were looking at those referrals, the fact they'd had those unplanned moves sort of became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and how difficult it then became to find the right place for them. Helen: yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can't imagine what it must be like for a child living in a children's home knowing that any day, any moment, they could receive the information that they are then moving again and how that, you know, how that must make them feel. Lisa : And, we certainly heard quite a lot from commissioners, didn't we, about how challenging it was for them to negotiate what they needed.  We heard examples of bidding wars with other local authorities, about having to purchase beds in advance, sometimes buying more beds than they needed to try and secure a placement. There was a whole range of experiences from commissioners about the difficulties that they felt. But I think we must sort of counteract that with the other side as well, in terms of what the managers were telling us about the quality of the information that they got. Helen: That's right. And when we started to look at the things and some of the factors that means that placements work? Well, it was definitely around honest communication between the local authority and the home, and with providers saying that if it was an honest referral, that actually was far better.  And, that children's homes and commissioners who had built up honest, trusting relationships so that a manager of a children's home could read a referral and be confident that this was all the information that they needed, and that none of it had been exaggerated or none of it had been redacted, meant they had confidence in accepting that referral.  But, also the commissioner had confidence in making that referral, that there was a likelihood that the children's home would be able to say yes, and would be honestly, be able to say yes we think we can possibly care for this child. So there was definitely, definitely something about building up honest and trusting relationships Lisa: And as well as the referrals, it was really clear how the statement of purpose was quite important to commissioners as well, wasn't it? Helen: Absolutely and the statement of purpose needs to clearly set out what a home can do so that the commissioners can place confidently and that placements are less likely to break down. And the and the other thing that became clear was that building on the notion of the positive and trusting relationship is that children's homes felt more confident in taking children who had a range of difficulties that they then weren't going to be sort of left with the child.  That the local authority would continue to be involved in the child's life, that they would support partnership working, that they would they would support the placement, perhaps by adding in things and putting them in touch with other professionals who could support the placement.  So that it really was a true partnership, and not a feeling that, well, you've got the child now, you just need to get on with it, and so that it was far more positive, far more positive outcomes. Lisa: And that right educational placement was something else that supported stability, wasn't it? Helen: Absolutely so that children feel more settled because they're going to school, but also that the school feels that they're working again, in partnership with the children's home and with the local authority as well.  And there was also something about how the child

In this episode, Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks with Wendy Ratcliff (HMI, Early Education), Dan Lambert (SHMI, Schools) and His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, about Ofsted's Big Listen.  Ofsted's Big Listen closes on 31st May and we want to hear from everyone we work with and work for. Take part here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ofsted-big-listen.    Transcript: Mark: Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. Actually, this episode, could be renamed Ofsted listens because we're going to be talking about our Big Listen, the huge consultation that we kicked off at the beginning of March. We're now recording this in early May. So there's still a few weeks left for people to give us their views. We want to hear from parents, we want to hear from all of the providers across the different sectors that we work with. So if you haven't given your views yet, please go to gov.uk/ofstedbiglisten. So today we're going to talk to a couple of colleagues who have been part of the Big Listen - they've been out and about meeting with the public, meeting with people in the sectors that we work with and hearing what people are saying. So we're joined by Wendy Ratcliff, who is one of our HMI. Wendy works in early education. And we're joined as well by Dan Lambert, who is a senior HMI for the East of England region at Ofsted so welcome Wendy and Dan. Wendy, I’ll start with you, what's been your take as you've been going out and about? Where have you been and what have you been hearing? Wendy: So we've been out and about in early education, as we usually do. And we've been out on some of our curriculum roadshows at the moment, which are focusing in on the key messages from our best start in life research review. And so we've been speaking with early years practitioners, we've been speaking with managers, we've been speaking with those who provide early years in schools and childminders as well. So we've been hearing things around that fear factor of Ofsted. And we've also been hearing things around notice periods, childminders, for example, one of the things that makes them more anxious is the fact we phone them five days before their inspection and then they're not certain which day we're going to go. So actually, that makes that anxiety worse. And the other thing I guess, is nursery managers, we make that call around midday the day before the inspection. And again, thinking about is that the right time, our inspectors are really good at saying is this a good time to have that conversation, but actually calling a day nursery at lunchtime, the day before the inspection is due, is that the best time for us to be making that notification call? So there's some of the things that people are telling us that they'd like to put forward in the Big Listen. Mark: That's really interesting, because we're getting straight into the really meaty issues, aren't we and we’re trying to capture as much from people through the consultation online. But I think it is important that people understand that as well as that we are out listening to people on the ground and we've also commissioned some external organisations, some independent organisations to do some further work with the sectors that we work with. And to do some further surveys and some focus groups to hear from different groups of people that perhaps it's a bit harder to reach. So it's really interesting the notice period thing, because there's a lot of talk about that in schools and people talk about whether we're giving enough notice to teachers and to school leaders that we're going to be in. We normally give them a call the day before. As you say it’s slightly different with childminders, it’s different, again with further education providers. Dan, are you hearing much about notice periods? What else are you picking up more in the school sector? Dan: Yeah, I've had some really great meetings with big and small groups of head teachers, senior leaders, governors and staff in schools as well. And notice periods, it's something that I think lots of us struggle to put our finger on. I was a head teacher a while back, and I certainly had the phone call the day before. And I couldn't quite say whether a little bit more notice, or a little bit less notice would be right for me if I put my hand on my heart and think about that. The message from leaders is they really want to be in their schools when Ofsted inspect, they feel that that allows them to put their best foot forward. But they also don't want that extended period, where they think actually, this will only raise my anxiety if I have more time to think about that. Incidentally, a lot of my work is in the independent sector, where much of our work is carried out with no notice. And I think you'd be amazed just at how calm that is. And it's been fascinating discussing that with head teachers and school leaders who've acknowledged actually that may be a nicer way of doing things. But as I say, always with that, that opportunity to make sure that they're on site during the day. Mark: I think you've both been talking, they're really about the sort of anxieties that build up around Ofsted. And obviously, a big part of the Big Listen is us sort of reflecting on what we can do to reduce that because, you know, we want to be going into schools, nurseries, colleges, we don't want to be winding those institutions up. We want to see them as they are and be able to judge them fairly. There's been a lot of talk about whether people can comment about our judgments, our gradings. There is a section of the Big Listen about reporting. People I think understand that the grading system is not something that we can wave a wand and change it's a part of a bigger government machinery. But are we hearing a lot around the way we report back to parents but also to the to the schools themselves, the institutions themselves? Dan: Yeah, I've certainly found that governors that I've spoken to have said they really valued that external validation of the work that's happening in the school. They're committed to helping to improve their schools and governors up and down the land, trustees up and down the land are hugely selfless and giving with their time, but they also want the very best for children in their schools. The feedback that Ofsted give them is invaluable to what they do. And I've heard that, but they also worry about their head teachers, and they worry about the impact that inspection may have on the leadership team and the staff in the school. Lots of head teachers and school leaders have talked to us about the one-word judgments. And there were some really strong feelings on this particular subject. Lots and lots of colleagues in schools have told us this through the Big Listen. And as some have commented, there isn't a direct question about that, but you can tell us about that in the free text box in the survey, and there are several of them, but particularly the one at the end asking, is there anything else you'd like us to know. However, there needs to be a balance here, because there are some people that have said it helps them to understand how a school is performing without having to read an in depth report. So we need to consider all of that, of course, before we come to a conclusion. Wendy: And of course, in early years, some of our providers have told us that actually, that one word judgement links to the funding that's available to them. So again, there's lots of views out there, and it'd be good to capture all of them. We've been doing a lot in early education to try and put straight some of the inspection misconceptions that are out there. Because ultimately, we're charged with finding out what it's like to be a child in this place, and actually then report that back to parents. So that parents have got that understanding of what it's like for their child when they're in their preschool with their childminder, or in their out of school provider. And, with some of those changes we have already made, we are hearing, for those who have had a recent inspection, they're saying that they are finding that our inspectors very much are taking those messages on board and taking account of wellbeing and treating people with courtesy respect and empathy. Mark: That is really, really good to hear because that has been a big focus of work over the last few months. I think like everything, it takes an awfully long time sometimes to get these messages across and, and perhaps around the fear factor we've been talking about, it is about people seeing that, people seeing a change on the ground, perhaps but also getting to know over time about the changes that we've made, the changes that will come out of the Big Listen too. I mean another way obviously is bringing more people into Ofsted and some people who are listening might not be aware of just how many of our inspectors don't work for us full time, actually are out there running schools, running nurseries, they come and give us some of their time to take part in inspections. Have you been meeting with some of our, we call them Ofsted inspectors, so that the staff that come in temporarily? Wendy: Yeah, we are Mark actually we are just in the throes of doing our conferences. We have two conferences a year for our early years workforce and I was in Cobham in Surrey and was sitting with a group of our Ofsted inspectors. And it was a really positive day. And there was lots of opportunity for them to talk about some of those issues that they're facing when they're back in their settings. But also some of those messages and changes we've made, we've been able to cover some of those off in our conferences. Dan: I was an Ofsted inspector before I was one of His Majesty's inspectors. I think our professional colleagues, those colleagues that come out of their setting for that short time to help to lead and team our inspection w

Briony Balsom   Hello, welcome to Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom, and today we're talking about alternative provision. Firstly, let me welcome our guests, here today with us we have Mark Vickers who's chair of the National MAT CEO network for alternative provision and special educational needs and disabilities and CEO of Olive Academies, we have Grace who attends the Olive Academy in Cambridge. Jo Fisher the Chair of the ADCS, that's the Association of Directors of Children's Services education committee, and we have Steve Shaw, who's one of Ofsted's Senior His Majesty's inspectors for SEND - special educational needs and disabilities. So, alternative provision or AP settings are places that provide education for children who can't go into a mainstream school. In January last year, we launched our new AP framework for Ofsted. Until then, there wasn't much of a coherent overview of how commissioning and oversight practices worked at a local level or of the mix of AP that local area partners were using. So that's why Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission now inspect local areas' approach to commissioning and overseeing AP as part of our joint area SEND inspections. And in February this year, we published a report into our findings about six local areas. We wanted to find out whether AAP is meeting the health, educational and care needs of young people how it's being used, what's helping, and indeed, What's hindering local partners from working together. Mark, can I come across to you to set the scene around what exactly AP is why we need it, who's it for? Mark Vickers   Alternative provision plays a really important part within the broader education offer for children and young people. At its best, its purpose is to help pupils to reengage with their education generally, often through short term interventions before returning to mainstream school for a fresh start in a new setting, can also be providing more long term placements and support for young people, particularly at Key Stage four.  And increasingly AP settings are providing upstream early intervention and preventative support through outreach to avoid the need for exclusions in the first place.  Briony Balsom   Grace, can you talk to us a little bit about your experience? Grace   So I started last March. And coming into it, I was very, very scared like, because obviously, at the start of my school, I was didn't always feel 100%. I never wanted to go in and my attendance dropped down to about 6%. So it got to the point where they didn't really want me in school anymore, because it it wasn't working for me. So now I got managed move to three different other schools. But that didn't work for me either. So the last opportunity was coming to Olive. So I started here, and at first I was very wary, because I didn't know no one here. But from the first week, I literally just went straight in everyone was so lovely. The teachers are amazing here with like English and maths and that like they sit you down and you just get that one to one. Like in a normal school, you don't get that one to one. It's like, okay, I'll tell you the answer, then it's like you still don't understand, as well here, they'll like repeat it 100 times over and over again until you're like, Okay, I get that now, with like, anxiety wise, I just feel so much more like myself now. And so much more happier than where I was a year ago. I feel like this school is just bring out such like a new person of who I am. Briony Balsom   What Grace has described sounds like an incredibly special environment for her to be able to develop in how how do you make that work?  Mark Vickers   It's effectively drawing on the very best practice of mainstream in terms of the same expectations. So we don't lower our expectations at all. But what we do is that we do it slightly differently. So the experience for those young people, we're not trying, we're not trying to recreate a small version of the mainstream school because clearly that hasn't been successful. For those young people, they found that a challenge, but we want to not lose the importance of a really strong education in terms of thinking about those educational outcomes as well in terms of qualification so so we have really strong teaching all levels. And that will be you know, a big focus on core to English, maths, science, particularly, but we have a much broader curriculum, and that's based on understanding the needs of young people. So we have a, you know, a therapeutic offer in terms of supporting those young people with a range of therapeutic professionals who are part of our staff group at Olive academies. And we also have a very broad and we think interesting and Grace could tell me otherwise if not outdoor learning curriculum and that's broad and layered again and as personalised and as bespoke as we can make it within confines of budgets to the needs of the young people. And the idea of, of our outdoor learning curriculum, which has been around with Olive Academy, since we started as a MAT nine years ago, is to really build build up pupils confidence through improving their resilience, they come to us with some real challenges around that Grace, obviously, has just articulated doubt in terms of how she felt transitioning coming out of the mainstream school into AP.  But one of the things I'm very proud of is hearing Grace, talk about how she's been able to sort of move on quickly in her learning, and engagement at Olive. And that's because, you know, we provide those opportunities to take young pupils slightly out of their comfort zone, but in a very careful managed way, through a range of, we hoped, quite creative, interesting activities. And it just changes the dynamic, I think. Grace   With off site is it's nice because you have your days on site where you are doing your work, but then you have them days where you do go off site, and you do learn new things. And it is really good, like learning new communication skills, and from doing stuff that you've never done before, by getting out there and doing bold new things that you wouldn't do in your everyday life. It is a great experience. Briony Balsom   Thanks so much for sharing with us, Steve. So having heard that from Grace, can I come across to you? Just to say a little bit about why Ofsted decided to look into AP commissioning? Steve Shaw   I think it's probably fair to say that for quite a while, it's had some concerns. You know, we were concerned around for example, where a P wasn't necessarily being commissioned in the best interests of children and young people, some variety around the the quality of AP and the monitoring of pupils progress when they're in AP. And I think we've we've been worried about what the outcomes look like for children in AP. And are the commissioners really clear on what they hope the AP outcomes will look like for those young people. And if you then add into that mix, the challenge around the use of unregistered AP, the multiple routes into AP, from schools through LA's, that has meant that some of the quality of the oversight for children and young people in AP is variable.  Briony Balsom   Thanks Steven, You took the words right out of my mouth. It's just such a complex and fragmented picture with so many different routes and variables that and pathways that young people can take through it. It's incredibly complex. So I wonder whether I could bring you in here just to say a little bit about what the backgrounds of challenges looks like against which I'm we're putting this fragmented AP picture?  Jo Fisher   Before the pandemic, but especially since the pandemic, the the number of exclusions, both permanent and fixed term exclusions is really increasing. And alongside that, we know that so many of our children, young people just aren't attending school consistently in the way we'd want. We've seen the persistent absent rates for the current academic year stand something close to the region of 20%, which is well above pre pandemic levels, we know that there are far too many children who are now not in school or not in any form of education that we really do need to support and, and be clear that actually being you talk to yourself about what's in a child's best interests, we know that being out of school is rarely in a child's best interest. And it's really important that we all work together to build an inclusive education system that puts children I think back in back in the classroom and back where they should be because every day counts. That said, you know, it's really good to hear Grace, talk and, and to recognise, I think that alternative provision does have a really important part to play in all of this. And it's really important, I guess, that it's seen as part of an inclusive education system, it shouldn't be about exclusion. This is about, as Mark said, helping children, young people really engage in learning, but not just that I was smiling as Grace talked, it's about building people's confidence, self esteem and aspirations as well. It's that wider thing. And, and I know when I go out and visit children in the alternative provision, where I work in Hertfordshire, you know, that's when I see the really best practice, it's when I see children, or young people like Grace, not just getting on a learning and, and being interested in, in learning, but also talking about how much better they feel in themselves to so that really holistic picture. And there are 1000s of children every day in some form of alternative provision. Steve talked about the, you know, the fragmented picture that we're seeing, and that, you know, we've got over 25,000 pupils in any time and the sort of state funded alternative provision, so we call them pupil referral units or where I work, we call them education support centres, but also alternative provision academies and free schools. And there's about that number, again, in school arranged alt

In this episode Mark Leech, Deputy Director of Communications, talks to Kirsty Godfrey, Senior HMI, and Zoe Enser, HMI, about Ofsted's recently published English Subject report.    Transcript   Mark Leech  02:02 Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leach and today we're going to be talking about English. We've recently published our subject report looking at the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools and I'm joined today by Kirsty Godfrey and Zoe Enser. Hello, nice to have you with us.  Hello.  Hi, Mark.  So we've published this report. It has quite a lot to say about the different components of of English teaching right across across the age groups. Should we start by just talking through some of the main findings of of the report?   Kirsty Godfrey  02:40 Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really good news stories is about reading. We found that the teaching of reading has improved. And that is really to do with all of those things that have happened over perhaps the last 10 years. So we've had the phonics screening check. We've got systematic synthetic phonics that's been put into the national curriculum. We've had our focus in Ofsted are looking at reading so in every inspection with primary age pupils, we're doing an early reading Deep Dive. And there's also the English absolve, they work so lots of policy government changes and our autofocus have really turned schools attention to the importance of teaching reading, and we know that that's been a real success story. Obviously, there's more to do. And particularly when children get to that point of finishing phonics and moving on. We know this sometimes can be less well understood really about how that curriculum is developed, their fluency is considered. And sometimes there's a rush towards going straight to reading comprehension and what those tests might look like at the end of key stage. So that's an area for further improvement, as is that teaching for those children who might be behind with their reading when they enter key stage two, sometimes they don't get sufficient practice to really embed that knowledge or the right sort of practice to make sure that that they quickly catch up.   Mark Leech  03:59 And we see that strength in reading taken through into into secondary school Zoe because I'm interested as well, we talked about sort of the mechanics of how do you how do you teach children to read but there's, there's part of how do you then use that to access the rest of the curriculum, but also how do they learn to love reading with pleasure? Is that something that we're seeing carried through into secondary school?   Zoe Enser  04:24 Well, there's two very different strands there and what we're talking about when we think about the text that pupils encounter in their engagement with reading, you're absolutely right. That access to reading and the mechanics of reading is going to make a huge difference to how they can then access the curriculum more widely. But we've got that reading culture that development of that interest in reading that habit of reading, that is being strongly developed in secondary schools. There are lots of opportunities in Tutor Time where teachers have really thought about what is it that we want our pupils to encounter what kinds of texts nonfiction short stories, poems, that's all being pulled? together as part of that? And then the separate strand around that is what texts do we study for literature? And it was really pleasing to see that there had been a lot of thought that had taken place around what were the most appropriate texts for pupils. To then use as a vehicle for that literary analysis, analysis, sorry, literary analysis, that understanding of the kind of critical approach that we take to text because they they serve different purposes. We've got the text that we enjoy and share and talk about, and then we've got the text that we also study as part of that. And that had been a real shift. And they've really thought about the concepts that they wanted people to understand, and which texts were going to be allowed, allowing them to think about things like themes, different genres, and considering aspects like kind of authorial intent, and how that we've been preparing them for GCSE and beyond.   Mark Leech  06:02 Okay, so that's, that's a really positive picture around around reading and reading. The other key component, of course, is, is writing and it's quite interesting. Children today have a sort of different way of engaging with the world and certainly I had many, many years ago. And I wonder whether whether that does impact on basic writing skills? Because you're looking at looking at primary school looking at the teaching of handwriting, for example. Yeah, something I was never any good at.   Kirsty Godfrey  06:30 We didn't see. We didn't tend to see schools giving enough teaching and practice to help pupils get a high level of fluency with spelling and their handwriting. So that transcription element of the curriculum is something that is perhaps underdeveloped. In schools. For example, teachers are rarely using dictation as a way to help people to practice their spelling and handwriting. And sometimes instead, what pupils are asked to do is do an extended piece of writing well before they've actually been given that knowledge and skills through the teaching that they've received. So as an example, you might have children being asked to write about their weekend or write a story or character description. But in actual fact, they aren't able to form the letters yet, or spell words that they want to write. So that can be that tendency to rush straight into things that are much more an advanced level. So so the main message really is about providing enough practice. So that for teaching first but then sufficient practice so that she'll become fluent with the transcription just like they need to become fluent with their reading. Because of course, it avoids that working memory overload then and they can really focus on what it is that they want to communicate through their writing, when they're not having to think about how to form those letters and spell those words.   Zoe Enser  07:47 I was going to agree from a secondary school point of view because though a lot of pupils are coming up to secondary and they've mastered that and they have got that ability to use that transcription. Well, there are still some pupils, particularly post COVID, who arrive at secondary school where they really struggle with that. Just Kirsty said that places that increase their working memory, and it's then really difficult for them to tackle those even more challenging tasks, is making sure they are getting the most purposeful practice at that point to be able to, again, access that word curriculum to be able to make use of that. And the other thing I would say with writing, particularly in secondary is to, you know, the strongest schools are really thinking about giving them those wider opportunities to write as well once they're ready to do so once they've got that knowledge. And that includes knowledge of the topic, to be able to then write exciting things, stories and poems and descriptions that are not constrained necessarily by the GCSE requirements that are broadening that out and giving them that opportunity, but equally, giving them the tools, the knowledge, the skills that they'll be able to do that with.   Mark Leech  09:02 It's really interesting that you you mentioned COVID there and it's a fairly obvious point that I hadn't really thought of it but remote education not being able to essentially you know, if you're practising writing your book to your teacher, and have them work with you on how you improve your handwriting. Have we seen that as a kind of a widespread issue right across across the country? Following   Kirsty Godfrey  09:27 COVID? Yeah, writing was something that schools really reported to us that had become much more of a challenge for them. You know, just in the amount that children could write and their speed just because they hadn't had that practice. They'd often been working on keyboards and computers and, and not having, you know, that writing with a pencil or a pen. So yeah, it's something that but actually, I think it's also about schools. If not, perhaps thought about what that curriculum needs to look like in those small steps to gain that really important foundational knowledge to be able to become fluent, so that their working memory isn't overloaded.   Mark Leech  10:03 I think I think that's really, really interesting. I mean, is there a bigger shift because people are so used to working on on keyboards, obviously, there's something there about developing as you say, the kind of muscle skills required to write with a pen, but also spelling as well. Everything's automated. Everything's checked for you. Is that that must be a challenge for for teachers where children are used to that sort of way of growing up.   Zoe Enser  10:30 I think I've just come in there from the secondary point of view, because again, I think there can be an assumption that with young people, they are using keyboards, but what they tended to be using more likely is telephones and the and the apps on the phone. So when it comes to then switching and saying okay, so you've got a handwriting, difficulty here, you're finding that difficult to do that speed. Many of those same pupils will still be finding it really difficult to pick up that other touch typing approach. And that places a different kind of load on their working memory for them to then be thinking about all of the other component parts of writing, they've got to think about the vocabulary they'll use, they'll say, I've got to think about the content. They've got to think about the syntax or the grammar, and now they're using a keyboard as well.