This week I report on a new government taskforce established to tackle teacher workload, the DfE’s response to the Commons Education Select Committee report on CEIAG, as well as the publication of Ofsted subject reports for Geography, PE and Music.

New taskforce established to tackle teacher workload
The government has set up a taskforce consisting of unions, teachers and sector leaders, with the aim of reducing teachers’ working hours by five hours per week within three years. The wider plan includes additional proposals such as the release of a new toolkit later this month to help school leaders implement flexible working practices in their schools.

Careers: Schools will be expected to report Gatsby progress
The DfE has responded to the Commons Education Select Committee’s report on careers education, information, advice and guidance, announcing that secondary schools will be expected to report their progress against the Gatsby Benchmarks for careers provision at least once a year under planned changes to the statutory guidance.

The department has also revealed that the government will publish a Strategic Action Plan for Careers in 2024 and create a digital “front door” this autumn to make it easier “to navigate and source information and advice on careers and opportunities”.

Ofsted publishes subject reports for Geography, PE and Music
The reports draw on sample visits to primary and secondary schools as follows:

• Geography – the report shows how the teaching of geography in England’s schools has improved since the previous report 12 years ago. Inspectors found that knowledge was better sequenced compared to the previous report, but that opportunities to learn via fieldwork was still lacking overall.
• PE – the report sets out recommendations to improve PE provision in schools. Overall, it was found that most schools have time to provide a broad and ambitious PE curriculum, and many pupils understood the social and mental health benefits associated with physical exercise.
• Music – the report found that leaders in most primary schools ensured that pupils had adequate time to learn music but that the curriculum time allocated to music in KS3 was more varied.

This week I report on NASUWT industrial action short of a strike which will commence from Monday next week, confirmation of a series of Language hubs across the country to help boost languages in schools and the endorsement of Sir Martyn Oliver as Ofsted’s next chief inspector.

NASUWT industrial action short of a strike starts next week
Many members of the NASUWT will be commencing industrial action short of strike action in schools in England from Monday 18 September. The action includes refusal to undertake certain activities, such as undertaking any work-related tasks outside of contracted working hours. The NASUWT has published details on what the industrial action will entail alongside a searchable database to find out each school’s result from the ballot.

Language hubs confirmed as part of new programme to boost languages in schools across the country
The government has named the first 19 schools that will run its new network of language hubs across England. Ministers last year announced a £14.9 million expansion of their previous language hubs pilot. It aims to spread best practice in language teaching to other schools and boost exam entries.

The scheme will be managed by the National Consortium for Languages Education, a consortium of UCL, the British Council and the Goethe-Institut.

Nineteen schools will work together on the first 15 hubs, four of which are led by two schools. A further 10 lead schools will be selected in a second recruitment round in January, meaning there will be 25 in total. Each hub is expected to work with up to seven secondary schools, meaning the scheme will reach a maximum of 175 schools (5% of those nationally) and the first language hub in the North East is Cardinal Hume Catholic school in Gateshead.

The Education Select Committee endorses the appointment of Ofsted’s next Chief Inspector
Following a hearing, the Education Select Committee has endorsed the appointment of Sir Martyn Oliver as Ofsted’s next chief inspector and will commence in his role on 1 January 2024 subject to ratification.

Welcome back to a new academic year.  This week I highlight updated Prevent duty guidance and a DfE toolkit and example letters for communicating with parents around attendance.

DfE updates Prevent duty guidance
A number of DfE pages have been updated to reflect changes to the Prevent duty guidance by the Home Office for England, Scotland and Wales. This includes the following:

• The Prevent duty: safeguarding learners vulnerable to radicalisation
• Making a referral to Prevent
• Regional Prevent coordinators

The Home Office’s updated Prevent duty guidance will come into force on 31 December 2023, subject to Parliamentary approval. In addition, the DfE has published new Prevent duty risk assessment templates for early years, schools and FE providers. The use of these templates is not mandatory, but they do refer to statutory requirements of the Prevent duty.

Tackling poor attendance
Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, has written to schools alongside other health professionals to provide a public health perspective on illness and school attendance. The letter says that it is usually appropriate for pupils to attend school with mild respiratory illnesses, including general cold symptoms. Schools are encouraged to share NHS guidance with parents. The letter also says that attending school can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety, and that prolonged absences are likely to heighten anxiety about attending.

The DfE has published a toolkit and example letters for communicating with parents to support attendance alongside example attendance letters and emails to parents, as part of its ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance.

Photo by George Hiles on Unsplash

In my final bumper briefing of this academic year I report on the publication of updated Inspection handbooks and Ofsted’s commentary on deep dives, as well as the DfE’s announcement of their preferred candidate for Chief Inspector of Ofsted. There has been confirmation that the expectation for schools to deliver a 32½ hour week has been delayed until September 2024, the refreshed School Sport and Activity Action Plan and updated guidance for primary schools has been published and the Education Secretary has confirmed a delay to publishing transgender guidance for schools. Have a great summer break and see you all in September!

Updated Ofsted Inspection Handbooks
At the end of last week Ofsted published updates to its Inspection Handbooks. The new handbooks will come into effect from September 2023 and links are provided below:

• Education inspection framework
• School inspection handbook
• Early years inspection handbook

Changes to the Inspection handbook include adding a new section on conduct during inspections and providing confirmation of when schools are likely to undergo their next inspection.

Ofsted publishes commentary on deep dives
The commentary provides key insights into Ofsted’s deep dives, including the most common subjects for deep dives. Besides reading, the most common subjects for deep dives in primary schools are maths, history, geography and science. In secondary schools, the most common subjects for deep dives are English, maths, science, history and languages.

Sir Martyn Oliver recommended as new Chief Inspector of Ofsted
The Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan, has confirmed that Sir Martyn has been selected as the DfE’s preferred candidate for Chief Inspector of Ofsted. He is currently the Chief Executive of Outwood Grange Academies Trust and Ms Keegan said: “Sir Martyn has been selected as the preferred candidate because he is an accomplished school and trust leader with a track record of driving up standards in areas with high levels of disadvantage.” He will appear before the education committee in September and if approved, will begin his initial five-year term on 1 January 2024.

DfE delays the expectation for schools to offer a 32½ hour week to September 2024
This week the DfE published guidance on the Length of the school week, providing information on the expectation for all state-funded mainstream schools to deliver a school week of at least 32½ hours. As set out in the 2022 schools white paper, schools were going to be expected to offer 32½ hours per week by this September; however, this has been pushed back to September 2024.

Government publishes refreshed ‘School Sport and Activity Action Plan’ and updated guidance
The government pledged to refresh the plan earlier this year when they also announced new targets for schools to offer at least two hours of PE and sport per week and to provide equal opportunities to girls and boys. The guidance was updated alongside the release of the sport plan. It now includes additional advice on how to use the funding more effectively and highlights the importance of sustainability and equal access for all pupils. The guidance also confirms that schools must spend the premium in the academic year it has been allocated for and includes a new section on an upcoming digital reporting tool.

Education Secretary confirms delay to transgender guidance for schools
In a Parliamentary statement the Education Secretary has officially announced the delay to publishing transgender guidance for schools. Ms Keegan said the decision to delay the guidance has been made to “allow more time – to speak to teachers, parents, lawyers and other stakeholders – in order to ensure this guidance meets the high expectations that these groups rightly have for it”. No indication has been given of when the guidance will be published.

This week I report on the DfE’s offer of a 6.5% pay increase for teachers and confirmation that primary school pupil progress data won’t be published in 2024 or 2025.

The DfE offers a 6.5% pay increase for teachers for 2023/24
The government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation for a 6.5% pay increase across all pay scales for next academic year, as outlined in its 33rd report. However it will only provide extra funding for 3% of this rise and the remaining 3.5% will need to be funded from schools’ own budgets. The DfE has indicated that the pay award will be reflected in salaries from September 2023 and will be backdated; however the department has not yet clarified when the pay award will be backdated to.

In a joint statement, the general secretaries of the ASCL, the NAHT, the NEU and NASUWT confirmed that they will now put the pay deal to their members, recommending they accept the 6.5% pay increase in order to prevent any further industrial action.

DfE won’t publish primary progress data in 2024 or 2025
Yesterday the DfE published guidance confirming it won’t publish data on primary school pupil progress next year or in 2025 because there are no Key Stage 1 SATs results to provide a baseline. Progress is normally based on a comparison between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 SATs results, but Key Stage 1 SATs were cancelled along with all other school tests in 2020 and 2021. However, the DfE has said it intends to return to producing progress measures using Key Stage 1 assessments in 2025/26 and 2026/27, ahead of the introduction of Reception baseline assessment-Key Stage 2 progress measures from 2027/28.

The guidance also confirms that the DfE will resume publishing primary test data at school level on the performance measures website for this academic year. Because of the pandemic, no school-level data has been published since 2019.

This week I report on the publication of the Labour Party’s five national missions (focusing on the education mission), the announcement of free flu vaccinations for secondary school pupils next academic year and DfE guidance on the new SENCO qualification which will begin to be taught in the autumn of 2024.

Labour Party’s national education mission
Yesterday the Leader of the Labour Party set out five national missions that his Party will build its manifesto around and, if elected, drive everything they do in government. It’s fifth mission is to break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage for every child, by reforming the childcare and education systems, raising standards everywhere, and preparing young people for work and life. Their plan to achieve this mission sets three long-term, measurable goals that they will work towards and be held accountable for and I have briefly summarised their key actions around those goals below:

• To boost child development with half a million more children hitting the early learning goals by 2030 – that means 90% of children hitting this metric by 2030 and every school given funding to deliver evidence-based early language interventions. Tackling the availability of childcare through an increase in the number of places and workforce reform and improving coordination between education, social care and the wider services that support families by piloting the expansion of a children’s number (like the NHS number) that stays with children for their whole childhoods, ensuring that their needs are better met, and any issues are addressed early.
• To see a sustained rise in young people’s school outcomes over the next decade, building young people’s life skills – carrying out a Curriculum and Assessment Review and ensuring a broad and balanced curriculum through one of the non-EBacc subjects included in pupil’s Progress and Attainment 8 being a creative or vocational subject. Improving oracy skills. Replacing headline Ofsted grades with a new system of school report cards and establishing a new set of regional improvement teams, to work as partners with schools in responding to areas of weakness identified in the new Ofsted school report cards. Introducing a new annual review of safeguarding, health and safety, attendance and off-rolling.
• To expand high quality education, employment and training routes so more people than ever are on pathways with good prospects by 2035 – establishing Skills England, bringing together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions. Turning the Apprenticeships Levy into a Growth and Skills Levy so it can be used on the greater range of training courses that businesses say they need so that adults can gain new skills and businesses can grow. Combining and devolving adult education budgets to current and future Mayors and combined authorities and reforming Jobcentre Plus ensuring greater local involvement in the delivery and design of Jobcentre arranged employment support, coaching and training.

Free flu vaccination for secondary school pupils
This week the DfE has confirmed that next academic year all secondary school pupils will be eligible for a free flu vaccine in line with a long-standing recommendation from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Pupils will be offered the vaccine as a nasal spray through the schools vaccination programme during the autumn term. Consent letters will be sent to parents and guardians before vaccines are administered and for those not attending school, such as home schooled children, parents and young people can book their vaccine with their GP or a community clinic.

DfE guidance on the new SENCO qualification
A national professional qualification for SENCOs is replacing the existing qualification, as announced in March under the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan. Teaching of the new qualification will begin in autumn 2024 and the requirement to complete training within 3 years of appointment will continue to apply. More information about this and the requirements that SENCOs must meet is available in the DfE’s ‘Transition to national professional qualification for SENCOs’ guidance.

This week I highlight publication of the Education Select Committee’s Report on CEIAG, revised statutory guidance on home to school travel and the risk of further strike action.

Publication of Education Select Committee’s Report on CEIAG
Yesterday the Parliamentary Education Select Committee’s Report on Careers Education,
Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) was published. It follows the Committee’s inquiry into the quality of CEIAG delivered in schools and colleges and makes some key recommendations as follows:

• Develop and publish an updated Careers Strategy in consultation with other Departments and relevant stakeholders by the end of 2024. This should include clear, measurable outcomes and dates by which these should be achieved, including targets for increasing the number of schools achieving the Gatsby benchmarks in full.
• Ofsted must have a strong focus on CEIAG provision when inspecting schools, in particular looking at schools’ achievement of the Gatsby benchmarks.
• All schools and colleges should be part of Careers Hubs by the end of 2024 and the DfE must provide the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) with the appropriate resources and funding to achieve this.
• DfE statutory guidance should be updated to suggest an appropriate proportion of time that Careers Leaders should be given to fulfil their role and should require schools to publish information on the time they have allocated to the role on their website.
• Pilot a programme of funding careers advisers directly through the CEC, rather than requiring schools and colleges to buy in this support from their existing budgets.
• Make one-off developmental funding available to schools and colleges who have the lowest record of achieving the Gatsby benchmarks to support them to improve their CEIAG provision, setting out clear objectives and conditions of receiving this funding.
• Make the National Careers Service appropriate for under-18s or provide an alternative.
• Evaluate the current primary school career pilot after one year and extend it across England if successful.
• Develop tailored benchmarks for careers education in primary schools and provide guidance and resources to support schools to meet them.

Revised statutory guidance on home-to-school travel
In July 2019, the DfE launched a consultation on home-to-school travel and transport for pupils. The consultation’s outcome has been published this week, alongside revised statutory guidance on the topic. The new guidance includes improvements on considering if a parent can be expected to accompany their child; encouraging independence for children with disabilities and managing children’s medical needs.

Risks of further strike action
Media reports are claiming that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to reject the School Teacher Review Body’s (STRB) recommendation for a 6.5% increase for teachers’ pay in 2023/24. Leaders of the NEU, NAHT, ASCL and the NASUWT have all condemned the report and warned of its future consequences for industrial relations.

This week I report on the publication of a CYPMHC report exploring the links between behaviour and mental health, confirmation that free NHS eye tests will be available in special schools settings from April next year, two new DfE consultations on safeguarding and the Royal Meteorological Society’s call for guidance and resources for schools to deliver climate change education.

Behaviour and mental health in schools report released
Last week, the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition released a report to explore the links between behaviour and mental health, to look at the impact of school behavioural policies on children and young people, and to understand what can be done to improve the approach to behaviour and mental health in schools. The findings are due to be presented to parliament.

Free NHS eye tests to be made available to special schools
From April next year, free NHS eye tests will be made available to all special schools via a government scheme pledging £10 million. It was announced on Monday that the NHS and the government will work together to make sight tests available to all pupils in special schools, citing that children with learning disabilities are 28 times more likely to have serious sight issues.

‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ consultation opens
The DfE has opened a consultation on this statutory guidance citing that updating this guidance now is central to delivering the first phase of its ambitious plans to transform Children’s Social Care. The DfE is seeking views on how best to strengthen multi-agency help, support, safeguarding, and child protection across the whole system.

The DfE has also opened a consultation on a revision to non-statutory advice to support practitioners in their duties and the decisions they make when sharing information relating to safeguarding. The consultation seeks to gather views on how information sharing advice can provide more clarity, be easily understood and instil confidence to share information appropriately.

The Royal Meteorological Society calls for guidance and resources to deliver climate change education
The Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) has released a report highlighting opportunities for climate change education. This comes following the DfE’s publication of its ‘Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education’ which stipulates that all schools should have nominated a sustainability lead and developed a Climate Action Plan by 2025.

RMetS has called on the DfE, subject associations, exam boards and curriculum development bodies to support teachers to make use of its findings through the development of teacher training and other support materials, high quality sample schemes of work, data sets and sample exam questions.

This week I report on the launch of an Ofsted consultation on changes to post-inspection arrangements as well as the Education Committee launching an inquiry into Ofsted’s work; the introduction of Valuation Office Agency visits to all secondary and special schools to ensure accurate information on pupil capacity is available for each school; a free video produced by a specialist safeguarding consultant on the changes to KCSIE for September and the launch of an Ofqual consultation on implementing a British sign language GCSE.

Ofsted consultation on changes to post-inspection arrangements
Earlier this week Ofsted launched a consultation on proposed changes including:

• Introducing new arrangements for considering formal challenges to inspection outcomes and replacing the current internal review process with a direct escalation to the Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO).
• Changes to the complaints system, aimed at resolving complaints made by schools more quickly through improved dialogue and transparency, and the administrative burden on those making a complaint will be reduced.
• Changes to how Ofsted inspects safeguarding – at the moment, even when schools are rated mostly as Good, if the school is rated as Inadequate on safeguarding, the school will receive an Inadequate rating overall. This is due to the importance of keeping children safe. But, in very rare cases where a school fails because of safeguarding issues alone, Ofsted will now follow-up with a monitoring visit within three months to provide an opportunity for regrading. If the school has been able to resolve the safeguarding concerns, it is likely to see its overall grade improve. Ofsted will also make safeguarding requirements as clear as possible for schools and parents.
• Clarity around confidentiality policies – to reduce pressure on headteachers, Ofsted will make it clear that they are allowed to share the provisional outcomes of inspections privately with colleagues and get support from them before the report is finalised and shared with parents. Ofsted reports will also talk about what the school needs to do, to reduce public focus on individuals, including headteachers.
• Support for schools between inspections – Ofsted is giving schools more information about the timing of their next inspection. Schools will still get one day’s notice, but they will have more clarity about the year they are likely to be inspected. This will be particularly helpful for schools that have been exempt from inspection for many years. Outstanding schools are inspected less frequently than those with lower ratings. Outstanding schools that were last inspected before September 2015 are already receiving face-to-face seminars, to support them when the time comes for a new inspection.

Many of these changes, such as increased clarity about the timing of the next inspection (use this link to an Ofsted blog with rough timetables for schools based on when they were last inspected) and seminars for schools between inspections, will take effect immediately or are already being implemented. The rest introduced will be introduced from September 2023.

Also this week the Education Committee launched an inquiry into Ofsted’s work with schools, with the aim to assess how effectively Ofsted is fulfilling its role in inspecting schools and the impact of Ofsted judgements, amongst other areas. The committee has asked to hear people’s views on Ofsted and welcomes answers to the questions set out in its call for evidence. The deadline for evidence submissions is on Thursday 20 July 2023.

Valuation Office Agency (VOA) visits to secondary schools
As part of the DfE’s Net Capacity Assessment (NCA) programme, the VOA will visit every state-funded secondary school and special school in England. The programme aims to ensure accurate and up-to-date information on pupil capacity is available for each school. The VOA will measure rooms, record room types, and calculate the number of children each school can accommodate. Visits will start from July this year and conclude by August 2025.

Keeping Children Safe in Education from September 2023
Andrew Hall, a specialist safeguarding consultant, has produced a video explaining all the changes to KCSIE for September 2023. The online presentation is free to access immediately and you can register by using this link.

Consultation launched on teaching British sign language in schools
Ofqual has launched a 12 week consultation on the implementation of a British sign language GCSE. The consultation focusses on the qualification’s subject content and method of assessment and runs until 11:45pm on 7 September 2023.

This week I report on the DfE releasing KCSIE 2023 which will come into force on 1 September, a consultation on proposed changes in the EYFS and information on the review of the RSHE curriculum and statutory guidance.

KCSIE 2023 released
The DfE has released KCSIE 2023 which will come into force on 1 September 2023. Until then, schools must continue to ensure they comply with the 2022 version.

The DfE had already confirmed that no significant changes would be made. Minor changes include new information to say that staff training should cover understanding roles and responsibilities in online filtering and monitoring systems, and providing clarification on the difference between children missing education and children absent from education.

Consultation on proposed changes in the EYFS
The DfE has opened a consultation on changes to the EYFS to make it more practical for different types of EYFS providers, and to offer more flexibility and reduce burdens. Changes proposed include amending staff:child ratio requirements to allow staff to supervise more children and putting information for childminders into its own separate framework. The consultation closes on 26 July 2023.

Independent panel to advise on age appropriateness within RSHE
The independent panel will inform the government’s review of the RSHE curriculum and statutory guidance and is set to conclude by September 2023. Its term of reference can be accessed using this link.

The review will consider whether the guidance covers the right topics and offers teachers clarity on how to teach sensitive subjects and engage parents positively, and if new or additional content on mental health, suicide prevention, vaping and tackling violence against girls is needed. The review will be completed by the end of the year, following a consultation in the Autumn.

In addition to the above development, the Prime Minister has said that pupils will be taught about the health risks of vaping in RSHE lessons. A resource pack for schools on vaping aimed at pupils aged 11-13 is to be released by the government in July.