The gossip: week of April 16th

“The gossip” is a new reporting strand on Education Uncovered, and at the moment a bit of an experiment. I am getting so many interesting tip-offs, I need a format for processing and reporting on them which is perhaps less detailed/multi-sourced than you might find in a conventional news story on the site, or even in our diary column.

Instead, here you will find snippets of information, sometimes with the institution concerned anonymised to reflect the slightly more provisional nature of the story. But I suspect readers are going to find it interesting, so let’s get going with it….

Tuesday, April 17^th

Ofsted “planning new inspection framework for multi-academy trusts”

A new “multi-academy trust-specific inspection framework” is in the “advanced stage of preparation” at Ofsted, Education Uncovered has been told.

The inspectorate has been skirmishing with ministers for years on this issue, with Ofsted wanting powers to visit, and pronounce on the effectiveness of, academy chain headquarters operations but with the government insisting that it follows the current, different, approach.

This can see inspectors visiting a batch of individual schools within a chain, and then writing a report on their conclusions about its overall effectiveness, but not inspecting its central functions specifically.

But we understand that Ofsted has been working on a new approach since at least the start of the year, with “a lot of activity” at the inspectorate and “a number of senior level meetings over the next couple of months” planned. Changes could be finalised by the summer.

It is not clear whether Ofsted’s new plans do involve it being able to inspect trust central operations specifically. But we were told that the new model would be one designed specifically with chains in mind, and that it would be “better suited to looking at the effectiveness of the trust” than Ofsted’s current approach.

“What I can’t find out yet is if there will be a ‘financial competency’ component that in effect might look at [exorbitant] salary payments to senior trust staff. It would be the smart move by the government if it did,” says our mole, who is close to the academies sector.

Our source adds that this may not be the end of the dispute between Ofsted and the DfE. They said: “It is not difficult to envisage disputes arising over the needs for rigorous inspection of MATs (including their head office infrastructure) and the potential for those findings to give potentially embarrassing political implications.

“The academy project is too far gone to be rolled back [an interesting point to debate, perhaps, Ed]– but the flaws in it (and not just financial ones in the current public sector funding climate) are becoming more and more evident.”

Ofsted report challenged on interesting grounds

Still on the Ofsted front, a teacher relays the story of a school in the south of England, recently inspected, which was provisionally given a grade 4 – “inadequate”.

Our source continues: “The headteacher was advised to appeal against it. He did appeal on several counts and most of them were upheld. Including the inclusion of data about attendance. Apparently one of the inspectors had taken some data home with her and forgot to return it for the following day. She failed to inform the lead inspector (despite being told to). The new Ofsted report will grade the school as a 2.”