GovWire

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you all today. Im nearly at the end of my first year as Chief Inspector and Im absolutely delighted to be giving my first speech at this national conference.

But while it is my first speech here, it is far from my first time speaking to and hearing from many of you. Im frequently in touch with the Association of Directors of Childrens Services and others in the room and Ann Graham, your next vice president, is on one of Ofsteds external reference groups.

Ive also already had the privilege of speaking to 60 or 70 directors of childrens services around England. Thats probably the highest percentage of any of the key jobs Ofsted works with. But in many ways, thats unsurprising.

After all, you have the very same broad portfolio early years; schools; further education and skills and all children as I do nationally.

On top of that, Ive spoken to thousands of practitioners and professionals working in every type of care and education up and down the country.

And many more thousands of you kindly gave up your precious time to respond to our Big Listen. If you did, thank you so much.

Your voice was heard, and hopefully youve seen that we are taking real action to respond to your ideas and to your concerns, and to your criticisms and to your suggestions.

We want to do better, and with your continued help and input, we will.

In our response to the Big Listen, we set out 132 actions we will take to reform and improve what we do. To make sure that we continue to hold up the highest standards for children, but to do so in a way which supports and works with you, the people that actually make the difference in the lives of, often very vulnerable, young people.

Because Ofsted is not and should never be above or separate from you, the sectors we inspect and regulate. We are of the sectors that we oversee.

Our inspection workforce is made up of experienced and talented individuals from the sectors we inspect. Many of our education workforce continue to work in schools alongside their work for us and we have a small but growing team of serving practitioners in social care.

Their expertise and insights are invaluable, but thats not enough on its own. We need to hear from everyone working for children. It needs to be a continuous and open dialogue between us as fellow professionals and always in the best interests of children.

So, while the Big Listen has finished, please dont think that were done listening.

Ive got about 1,500 days left in this job and if the last year is anything to go by, Im going to spend every single one of those listening and learning and making changes for children and young people.

As you may know, before joining Ofsted, I spent nearly 30 years working in schools, so I know what Im talking about when I say that every single day is going to be a school day!

Changes were making now

But as Ive said, we are making changes now. Changes that I believe will make a real difference to Ofsted, to you, and most importantly to the children and families we all serve.

These changes are not changes for changes sake. I want to maintain and build on all that is great and works well. But I also want to make sure were always striving to do even better.

To make sure we continue to bring proper scrutiny and rigour where it is needed. To support you in what you do, not get in your way. And to uphold the highest standards for children.

And I do mean all children. And in particular, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Because, and I say this all the time, if we get it right for them, I believe we get it right for everyone.

Im sure youre already aware of at least some of the changes were making. Certainly, the removal of the overall effectiveness judgment and the move to report cards has drawn quite a lot of attention.

And as you probably know, the government made the decision to start with schools. But we will extend that to all education remits for September 2025 and expect to do the same for inspecting local authority childrens services (ILACS) in 2026.

Obviously, we already dont have an overall grade for our social care common inspection framework (SCCIF) inspections, but we will look at how we can adopt a more evaluative and supportive approach and language.

I know some of you would like to see these changes happening sooner, but we need to make sure we get them right. Right for government, right for you, and right for children and families. And you know that there are complications that we need to consider too.

For further education, for early years, and for our ILACS and SCCIF inspections, the Department for Education (DfE) takes actions based on our reports. They need time to redesign that system and ensure continuity.

In sectors including the early years, there are also funding and commissioning consequences based on our grades. Many of you will make those decisions. So, you too will need that time to consider new criteria to support you in making them.

It is probably more complex in SCCIF where we dont have an overall effectiveness grade and where we would want to maintain our strong focus on the overall progress and experiences of children.

So, the DfE has set the pace of reform so that all that follows from our inspections continues to work and to support you, children, and families. Getting this done right is going to be vital.

Because I believe, if we get it right, this is a great opportunity to add more nuance to our reports. To offer a clear picture of the quality of provision beyond a single headline and to frame our findings with important contextual data and information.

Were developing the outline of a new approach now and we are going to share that with you as soon as possible through a consultation on the education remits in the new year.

We expect your insights will help us refine and improve our education report cards and help us start to develop something equally useful for the social care remits.

As I said, you have as broad an interest as we do in all the services children and families use. So please do take part.

Following social cares lead

Whilst these changes are happening first in the education space, many of the reforms were making for schools, for skills providers, for the early years, theyre inspired by you and the way we work with you through ILACS and SCCIF.

That is perhaps not surprising when you look at the responses to the Big Listen. Social care respondents to an independent research survey that we commissioned were consistently the most positive about our inspections.

Three quarters of those surveyed agreed with the coverage of what we inspect, the feedback we gather, and how they are informed about findings. They also said inspections minimised disruption.

But 25% not agreeing is not good enough. I want agreement from everyone we inspect and regulate.

Our aim is for all of our work to be based around professional dialogue and ongoing communication. To be collaborative and understanding of the context in which youre working. And to have a clear shared definition of the practice that makes the most difference for children and learners.

In so many ways, social care with your annual engagement meetings, suite of inspection tools and joint targeted area inspections (JTAIs) is the model for this.

So, you will also see some big changes from us, but I hope you will find it to be an evolution, not a revolution. Building on what works and finding new approaches for what doesnt.

Other changes

For example, we also plan to refresh our inspections of area SEND. Our inspections rightly identify that there are significant and often systemic weaknesses. But I want them to do more to identify exactly what needs to improve and who needs to lead that change, including at a national level.

Where you are mitigating some of these deficits in your area, I want to be able to share that good practice. And when there are improvements to be made, I want to get the right support and realistic timeframes in which you can deliver.

We have also established the Ofsted Academy to strengthen our inspector training, to better enable you to share your good practice with us, and to ensure we are transparent about what we look for on inspections.

We know we need to do better to induct and support our SEND inspectors. And we want to recruit a broader range of SEND specialists to strengthen our teams. I want ever

View the original news story