AoC response to Ofsted consultation announcement

Gemma Baker, Area Director (SE) & Senior Policy Lead (Ofsted Inspection) said: "The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) consultation on future inspection arrangements represents a major change in approach for colleges and the education system as a whole.

"Association of Colleges (AoC) welcomes the fact that Ofsted have given a full 12 weeks for responses and has scheduled six weeks in autumn term for pre-launch preparations. We encourage colleges to engage with the consultation and we will be working with them, with Ofsted and Department for Education (DfE) to identify key issues in the proposals.

"Our view on the overall plan remains that it is right for Ofsted to move towards a balanced set of judgements, to make staff wellbeing, curriculum planning and inclusion bigger priorities and to include contextual information in the new report cards. We are also pleased that Ofsted plans to retain some good features in the existing framework such as the role of the college nominee and the skills judgement.

"However, we do have concerns that the proposals will double the number of judgements made in a single inspection. This inevitably creates a greater risk of error which will make the post-inspection and complaints processes even more important. We are also concerned that the school and Further Education/Skills categories have diverged more in a way that could obscure proper judgements about 16-19 education quality.

"One solution to this issue may be for DfE to take a more robust and coherent approach in its oversight and intervention approach for all types of 16-19 providers, including school sixth forms as well as colleges. Government could be getting better value from the £8.5 billion a year spent on the education and training of 1.2 million young people.

"Our final initial worry is that these changes will be implemented at a time when colleges anticipate tighter education budgets but when the work they do to improve the skills of people in growth-driving sectors, health and construction is more important than ever. Government needs colleges to innovate and take risks and it will be important to ensure that Ofsted's new inspection approach does not hold this back."