Ofsted Announces New 5-year Strategy

Ofsted has shared its new strategy for the next five years. It is broken into seven sections: 

1. Introduction 
2. 2022–27 strategy: evolution 
3. Our guiding principle 
4. Our values 
5. Strategic priorities 
6. Equality objectives 
7. Sustainability: environmental goals 

You can read the full strategy HERE.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 

We will promote children’s safety and welfare in everything we do. - Ofsted Strategy 2022 

Ofsted state: 

It is vital that we highlight systemic safeguarding issues wherever we find them so that providers or other appropriate agencies can take preventative action. We have seen an increase in the complexity of children’s needs; increasing risks from online harm and county lines; and how peer-on-peer sexual harassment and online sexual abuse have become commonplace among children and young people. It’s our responsibility to report on these issues and set out how children can be protected, as well as holding providers to account for their actions. Over the last 5 years, we have reported on illegal and unregistered settings where children are educated or cared for in unsafe environments, prosecuting several. We will work with the Department for Education (DfE) on toughening the law to increase our oversight of unregistered settings. 

Using this as a basis, Ofsted has said that it will: 

• highlight systemic safeguarding issues using insight from our inspections and internal and external reviews so that learning is embedded in our practice 
• Implement a new joint targeted area inspection (JTAI) programme that reports on the strengths and weaknesses of local safeguarding partnerships 
• Work with the DfE to increase our powers to act when children are educated or cared for in unregistered settings 
• On inspections, look at how leaders ensure that schools’ and colleges’ culture addresses harmful sexual behaviour
• Work with the DfE and other agencies such as the National Police Chiefs’ Council to improve sharing of safeguarding information and data-sharing between agencies 

Putting all these strategic principles in place should result in: 

• Ofsted inspections will inform safeguarding practice, and the majority of those inspected as part of a JTAI will agree that the experience of inspection and its findings will help them improve the services they offer 
• When Ofsted identify an unregistered provision, it then registers, complies, or closes
• Schools and post-16 providers will effectively address the problem of sexual abuse between peers, as documented through a review of inspection evidence bases and feedback from children and learners 

If you would like any further information, you can find the full report here.