DfE use of “expert groups” and Ofsted: a sketch of recent events in initial teacher education policy, and questions

My recent work on goings-on in and around Ofsted and the DfE in relation to teacher education, and in other related fields, has provoked many questions, as I reflect on what might be happening and how it compares to policymaking in my experience of covering education since 1997.

Thinking on this, I sketched out one current strand of policymaking, with some observations, and sent it to a contact.

These observations, set out below, are tentative, and written quickly. But I thought I’d share them with readers now, to provoke discussion.

That sketch

My thoughts were provoked after receiving Ofsted’s response to my Freedom of Information request which had asked for data behind its statement that “some” initial teacher education providers had curricula which are “underpinned by outdated or discredited theories of education,” which had then been mentioned in the current controversial DfE review of the sector. Ofsted was unable to provide figures.

(There is another strand of recent work by Ofsted which is prompting similar questions about the inspectorate’s independence from ministers, which also has me investing time and thought on this, and which is likely to be the subject of new reporting on Education Uncovered shortly. But ITE is the specific focus of the policy development sketch as set out below.)

So, the current “market review” of initial teacher education has provoked a large row, amid widespread concern that key proposals, such as forcing providers to apply and re-apply for “accreditation,” risk the supply of future teachers, and widespread questions as to why this is being put forward on a very short timetable during a pandemic. Oxford and Cambridge have threatened to pull out of the sector altogether.

A central element of criticism has been unhappiness among providers of over-centralised control by the DfE. And a key part of that has been concern about the “Core Content Framework” (CCF) – the DfE’s specification of what all trainee teachers should be taught as a “minimum entitlement”. In their consultation responses, both Oxford and Cambridge described the CCF as part of what was now essentially a national curriculum for teacher education*.

In 2019, the DfE published the core content framework, based on advice from an “expert group”. The CCF document itself stated that it was “developed in consultation” with this group, “and in collaboration with a wide range of teachers, school leaders, academics and experts”.

There were eight members** of this group. As far as I can see, they were not subject to any formal appointments process. Providers are under a duty to start providing the “minimum entitlement” for all trainees, as set out in the CCF, from September 2020.

From May 2021, Ofsted then started inspecting initial teacher education providers, despite the pandemic being ongoing. The first reports were more critical of providers than Ofsted have been in the past. Individual inspection reports showed inspectors focusing on whether providers were implementing the CCF.

Also in May 2021, Ofsted then published a report on teacher education “Training teachers during COVID-19,” which, the report itself states, had come because “Ofsted and the Secretary of State for Education agreed to use research methods to evaluate how ITE partnerships have responded to COVID-19 and how the ITE curriculum has been developed”. It is unclear from this statement whether this was a formal request from the Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, to Ofsted; something more informal; or an initiative Ofsted had driven.

Ofsted’s report then found fault with the work of many ITE providers on the curriculum.

In July 2021, the DfE then published its “market review” on the future of teacher education, setting out radical changes. The review report was a DfE publication, but with a clear authorship: the DfE had appointed another “expert group” to produce it, and the report features a foreword from its chair, Ian Bauckham. Bauckham is a traditionalist academy chief executive with views which seem close to those of Nick Gibb, schools minister at the time. Gibb’s ministerial responsibilities included initial teacher education, and, as the DfE puts it rather mysteriously in the post’s official web page, “links with Ofsted”.  

The four other members of this “expert group” had also served on the CCF “expert group”. Again, as far as I know there was no appointment process. The “market review” emphasised the central importance of the CCF, stating: “The central aim of the review and our recommendations is to enable the provision of consistently high-quality training, in line with the CCF, in a more efficient and effective market”.

The questions that have arisen for me, following this, have included: what is the legitimacy of the CCF’s creation? I have worked with some of those on this group, and have respect for them. But is any small group of external advisers, appointed without any formal process, qualified to enact policy which is so influential across a large publicly-funded service?

Contrast with schools national curriculum, and advisory bodies of the past?

If the CCF is indeed part of a “national curriculum” for teacher education, or at least forming a baseline for what could be a national curriculum for the sector, then there would appear to be a contrast with the way policy is made through the national curriculum for schools.

The latest iteration of the schools national curriculum was informed by the work of an advisory group, although, in a now-unheard-of development which may have influenced events since, three of that group’s four members ended up resigning, such was their concern with the direction policymaking was heading in this field, under the Secretary of State at the time, Michael Gove. However, this group did not actually write the curriculum. Draft proposals emerged but in at least one prominent case - the history curriculum -  ministers were forced into a rewrite following extensive criticism. This seems very different from much more tightly-controlled developments as described above.

My hunch is that policy development, as above and as we have seen in recent years, is very different from what went on in the past, principally through the lack of any sense of procedure around the appointment and deployment of advisory groups under this government.

In the first decade or so of my education reporting career, there was, for example, a statutory advisory body, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. This was accountable to Parliament, with its officials subject to appointment processes. It would also occasionally disagree with government. In the specific field of teacher education, there was the Teacher Training Agency, which was responsible for all aspects of teacher education. This was then merged into the National College, before being abolished. Again, the chair of the Teacher Training Agency was accountable to Parliament.

It is debateable, in all of this, the extent to which Ofsted has retained independence: an ability to set out a position regardless of what a minister might think, despite such a “need for independence” having been described as important for the inspectorate, as set out in recent years by the Cabinet Office, no less.

It is notable not only that Ofsted has been intervening in aspects of education which have been of great interest to Gibb, but also that individuals serving frequently on DfE advisory groups have also performed advisory functions for the inspectorate. In a profession of approaching half a million teachers, there would seem to be little objective need for such an overlap. So why has this happened?

Gove himself talked about the need to move away from “unaccountable quangos,” which could include the above, with power then to be routed via “accountable” politicians, such as himself.

But what seems to happen with “expert groups” is that individuals are appointed by ministers with little transparent process, often with opinions seemingly very close to those of ministers, where the sense that there might be any formal need to represent or interact with the wider views of the profession in which they work seems not to feature, and where true independence of advice seems non-existent. In this analysis, what were once much more formally-constituted institutions, influential in the formulation of policy and where a degree of distance from a ministerial perspective was seen as a system strength, have been replaced by policy actors seemingly being set up to implement ministerial objectives with the minimum of resistance.

For anyone concerned about checks and balances in a modern democracy, that’s something to think about – and to continue to investigate.

*Oxford said such a “national curriculum” also comprised the government’s Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications. Cambridge described the DfE’s “market review” proposals as a whole as “the equivalent of a national curriculum for teacher education”.

**This group’s members were Sam Twiselton, the chair, of Sheffield Hallam University; John Blake, of the education reform charity ARK; Becky Francis, then of UCL Institute of Education; Richard Gill of the Teaching Schools Council: Marie Hamer, of the Ambition Institute (linked to Ark and Teach First); Emma Hollis of the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers; Reuben Moore of Teach First (linked to Ambition Institute); and James Noble-Rogers of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.