The implications of a change in Government for education will become much clearer over the next couple of months as the white paper is finalised and eventually published. It will, almost certainly, become law very quickly. There’s a lot of change and that is always difficult.
One aspect of that is the letter Michael Gove wrote to Christine Gilbert, chief inspector of schools, at the end of last week. It outlines how the coalition will remove the SEF as the main way a school can prepare for Ofsted. It is sold as a work saving, but schools will still need to paint the best picture of themselves to the inspection team – it wouldn’t be sensible for a school not to. There will still be 4 main areas where a school will have to present evidence: quality of teaching, pupil achievement, quality of leadership, and pupil’s behaviour and safety, even after the new inspection schedule is produced.
My advice would be to wait and see what the white paper brings and to prepare for your next inspection as you did for you last – with a full and complete SEF – at least for the time being. It’s not yet time to ditch the new SEF. No changes to that process have yet been produced by Ofsted and as a result, none have been issued to the inspection providers. I am expecting to conduct my next inspection under the 2009 framework and if there isn’t a SEF – which has never been a requirement for schools to complete – the school would have to present its information to the team in other ways.