Feedback from Ofsted 'Big Conversation' - Inspectors

[FSFRebecca]

At the Ofsted Big Conversation held in London on Monday Gill Jones HMI updated us on the transfer of inspectors from the ISPs to 'in house' with Ofsted. The following points were made:

• Training updates for all inspectors have been delivered by Ofsted for the last 2 years
• Approx 900 inspectors were trained in the CIF
• From April 2017 inspectors will be either employed directly by Ofsted or contracted by Ofsted
• There is a planned timescale for the complete transfer from the ISPs to Ofsted: April 2017 - inspectors transferred over, Dec 2017 - Ofsted will begin move to 'regionalisation' there will be 8 regions nationally, these regions will be led by a regional manager and will be region specific and will reflect regional priorities. ASAP after Dec 2017 all inspectors will be in a region and will be led by regional manager
• Regional managers are already in place - you can find out about them here
• Gill was very keen to point out that Early Years is very much at the front of the funding and spending priorities for Ofsted
• There was a question: Are employed inspectors and freelance inspectors trained in the same way - is there consistency? Response was that Ofsted have taken over all the training and so inspectors receive the same delivery - if there are inconsistencies let them know. Ofsted have had drive for transparency - to show the docs being used e.g by publishing inspection handbook, publishing compliance documents.
• The number of directly employed inspectors will fall - this will mean there will be more contracted inspectors (freelance) all of whom have current and up to date experience
• All inspectors - regardless of how they are employed have at the forefront of their mind - in any inspection "What is it like to be a child in this place?"
• Ofsted are not expecting the transition to Ofsted (from ISPs) to affect the inspection cycle (started August 2016)

[Cait]

Thanks.