Ofsted inspection
All Teacher Education courses are inspected by Ofsted on a regular basis. Ofsted use a demanding framework to assess a provider’s Quality of Education and Training, Quality of Leadership and Management and Overall Effectiveness. The current inspection framework used by Ofsted was first used in May 2021 and can be found on the UK Government website. Ofsted grades are ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’. For large providers, Ofsted provide separate grades for each ‘age-phase’ (i.e. Primary or Secondary).
Ofsted’s reports have a standard structure, beginning with a section ‘what is it like to be a trainee at this provider?’. Given that the single word judgements provided by Ofsted can only ever provide a part of the picture, prospective trainee teachers using Ofsted judgements to guide their application choices are encouraged to read the reports to get a stronger sense of the quality of the provider and whether this provider will suit them personally.
The current framework is designed to ensure that only ‘exceptional’ providers achieve an outstanding grade, with the percentage of age-phases inspected as outstanding by the end of August 2022 falling from 36% in the previous framework to 6% under the current one, and the percentage of age-phases inspected graded at RI and Inadequate rising from 7% to 37%. The majority of providers are graded ‘good’. Prospective trainee teachers should be aware that comparing single word judgements of providers last inspected before and after May 2021 are not comparing like with like.
The University of Exeter was last inspected by Ofsted in May 2023 and were delighted to achieve an ‘outstanding’ grade in Primary and a strong ‘good’ grade in Secondary. The University’s most recent report can be found on Ofsted’s website.
