Ofsted held no selection process for recruitment to influential curriculum advisory group, FOI confirms

Ofsted held no “formal selection process” to recruit individuals to join the curriculum advisory group whose work is feeding into its reform of school inspections, the inspectorate has confirmed to Education Uncovered.

Instead, people were simply “approached to join the curriculum advisory group because of their expertise in particular subjects,”though it appears that few of them have any obvious links with any of England’s long-established subject associations.

Ofsted has also refused to release any agendas, minutes or background papers for the group, whose work is influencing the process of changing its inspection framework. This is being reformed for introduction next year and will place more emphasis on the curriculum.

Responding to a freedom of information request, the inspectorate said that to release this information would “disrupt Ofsted’s preparations for publicly consulting on these matters during the next few months”.

The news will continue the controversy surrounding Ofsted’s curriculum work. I wrote in a blog published six weeks ago that the inspectorate had questions to answer about whether particular individuals and viewpoints were especially influential in the curriculum review.