Martyn Oliver's speech at the Sixth Form Colleges Association
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-05)

Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, spoke at the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) 2025 Winter Conference/AGM in London.

Thank you, it is a great honour to be here. I was actually a head of sixth form for quite a few years in my career. It is one of the best things I ever did.

So, thank you so much for the invitation to speak to you today and my real sincere thanks to Bill for the very many numerous meetings that we’ve had over the past year – it really helped me significantly Bill.

As you may know, on Monday we launched a consultation on our renewed education inspection framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education). This is what we’ll use to inspect schools, early years providers, initial teacher education, and of course further education and skills providers including colleges like all of you.

Now, hopefully some of you, all of you I hope, have already had a look at the proposals, or seen them reported in the media. Some of you may even have already taken part in the consultation. If so, thank you! But if you haven’t yet, please please do.

We have designed what we believe will be a really strong new framework that will better inform parents and families, drive higher standards for children and learners, and reduce pressure on leaders and professionals like you.

But we are sure there are things we can do to improve. So, take a look, take part, and let us know what you think. Maybe there’s a way we can better tailor things for you? Maybe there’s some language that could be clearer? Maybe there’s a way we can do more to highlight your strengths and help you improve?

Whatever it is, please don’t miss the chance to make a real difference.

Aims of the new framework

If you haven’t had a chance to look yet, let me tell you a little bit about what we are proposing.

We have designed our new approach very carefully. We have built on everything we heard in the Big Listen. We have worked closely with experts, parent groups, unions, professionals, and sector representatives. We have done all that with several aims in mind.

First of all, we want to give parents and families better, more nuanced, and more helpful information about the places educating their children. We want reports that make sense to them, that give them the information they want and need, and that fairly represent what it is or would be like for their children at a provider.

Secondly, we want to put a strong focus on inclusion. On the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. We are proposing a specific evaluation area for inclusion. But it will also be a thread running through everything else we look at. Because I believe that if you get it right for the most disadvantaged, you get it right for everyone. I don’t think there’s a provider out there getting it right for them, and wrong for everyone else.

And thirdly, we want to make a better system for all of you. The people making a difference through educating young people. We will of course rightly continue to expect high standards for all, but we know we can do that in a better way for those being inspected.

Improved reporting

But let me start with our new report cards. As I said, we know from the Big Listen that parents wanted a more nuanced picture. They want to know what a provider is doing well, and what it could improve upon. They want an honest and fair appraisal of what it’s like for children at the provider.

I think it’s fair to say, our old approach wasn’t doing that. Overall effectiveness judgements were too broad brush. They weren’t helpful. They weren’t doing you justice.

So here’s what we’re proposing:

This example shows a report card for a sixth-form college. At the top of the report card, there are 5 tabs displayed representing different programmes. Below the 5 tabs, there is a 5-point scale consisting of 5 boxes, each labelled as follows; ‘causing concern’, ‘attention needed’, ‘secure’, ‘strong’ and ‘exemplary’. Some evaluation areas appear below the relevant point on the scale. Each evaluation area can be expanded to show more detail. ‘safeguarding’ and ‘contribution to meeting skills needs’ are separate evaluation areas and can be expanded to reveal more information.

We’ll be grading providers against a range of evaluation areas. Here you can see the areas for a 6th form college. We expect most providers to look something like this one – with most areas in the ‘secure’ column and perhaps a few in the ‘strong’ column. If we have any concerns, they would appear under ‘attention needed.’

Then we have two grades at either end. We have ‘causing concern’ when serious improvement, and possibly intervention, is required. And we have ‘exemplary’ for the truly remarkable, sector-leading practice. The sort of things that we think others could learn from and want to highlight.

We know that not everyone will be happy with idea of grades and this approach. But our top priority always has to be children and learners, and their families. Clarity and accountability for providers is not a nice to have for them, it’s a must have. Parents told us that’s what they wanted, and that’s what we’re delivering.

But through grading specific areas, not providers as a whole, our reports, we hope, will be fairer.

Through the secure grade, a high standard on its own, and then through the strong grade, our reports will really show off what providers do best.

Through the attention needed grade we hope that will help guide leaders as to what you need to work on. And we will return sooner to check on progress.

Through the causing concern grade, we will continue to call out unacceptably low standards.

And through the exemplary grade, we will share the very best work in the sector, and drive standards ever higher.

So, anyone reading the report will be able to get this sort of instant snapshot of a provider. What they’re doing well, and where they can do better. But they will also be able to click on to any of the areas and if they want to know more they can see the detail of what we found when we inspected.

Now, congratulations because 6th form colleges have always been one of the strongest types of further education, with high grades and real added value for the young people that you educate. I’m sure that may well continue, but this way it will be possible to see in more detail what it is that you are doing well. A richer, a fuller, and a more representative picture.

Inclusion

As you will undoubtedly have heard, we now have inclusion as one of the evaluation areas. But if, after this, you take a look at the detail of what we’re proposing, you’ll also see that it is a theme throughout the other evaluation areas too.

I make no apologies for that. Inclusion is important to me, but we know through the Big Listen, it’s important to children too. So we want to make sure providers are considerate of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in everything that they do.

I’m really interested in your views on what we’re proposing here. Many of you are already doing a great deal to help disadvantaged and young people. I know many 6th form colleges often do more than their neighbours to educate children with SEND, children from poorer backgrounds, children with lower grades, and children with other disadvantages.

But of course, this is incredibly complicated, and only gets more so when trying to define what it is to be disadvantaged or vulnerable for young people once they turn 16. So, once again, your input will be really valuable to Lee and I.

And of course, we need to be really clear on what we mean by inclusion. We have a working definition in the consultation as well, but we want to consider all views so it can be improved.

So please do take part in this section of the consultation if you can. It’s something we absolutely have to get right, and with your help we will.

Improved system for you

But as well as improving the way that we report, and making sure we never lose sight of the most vulnerable, we also want to make sure we reduce the pressure on you. We want to let you focus on doing what’s best for the young people you educate.

So, we will use new toolkits that are bespoke for the different types of provision. There will be a toolkit for further education and skills providers like you. And then different ones for schools, independent schools, early years, and initial teacher education.

Obviously, there will be some overlap. Some of what you do is pretty similar to what schools with 6th forms do. And where appropriate we will use the same standards to inspect you both. But there are also differences, which we want to make sure we recognise and account for. Leadership of a school educating children from 11 to 18 is obviously different to a college. So, we want to be fair and balanced, while recognising the real differences that do exist.

But no matter whether you’re a 6th form college or a nursery, or anything in between, we will still do what we can to reduce pressure and complexity for you.

Here’s an example (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67927fe8bcd53eb4d9fad614/further_education_and_skills_inspection_toolkit_draft_for_consultation.pdf) of one of the proposed toolkits that we’ll be using to inspect you.

There’s a table like this for each of the evaluation areas that you saw on the previous slide. Within each area there are themes that say 6th form evaluation area curriculum and then you can see the theme is possibly attention needed, secure and strong. There is a description of what provision would look like at each of the grade levels too. You can see those as the standards on this slide.

These will be published in full. We want to be fully transparent, and will be publishing our inspector training materials too. But we also want you to be able to use the toolkit when we inspect, and also in between inspections.

And we have based these toolkits on the legal requirements and professional standards that you are already working to. We don’t want you doing anything different just ‘for Ofsted’.

We’ll also be taking more account of your context, the circumstances in which you’re working. We of course can’t excuse unacceptably low standards, but we do want to do more to recognise the value you’re adding, the difference that you’re making.

So our inspections will be different, but we also want them to feel different. We want to be more collaborative. We want to be more supportive. We want inspection based around professional dialogue. We’ll have a discussion, starting with the secure grade. We’ll ask you things like, “where do you think you are?”, and, “what evidence can you show us?”, “what are you really proud of”, and “what are you currently working on?”

Every provider will also be able to select a nominee. A senior staff member who will work with us closely throughout the process and be fully involved and informed.

And we’re taking other steps like dropping deep dives as the only main method for gathering evidence, only having a single type of inspection so you know exactly what inspection to expect, developing inspection teams with experience of working in each remit, and introducing more iterative monitoring visits to support rapid improvement.

We hope these will combine with steps that we’ve already taken to make life a little easier for you during inspections, and when you’re expecting one.

Please take part

So that’s a whirlwind tour of what we’re proposing. But please please do take part in the consultation (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education) and take a look at all of it in more detail. You can get straight to the consultation through the QR code on the slide there.

As I said, we have developed it really carefully and deliberately over many months, and with lots of external input. But it is also not set in stone. I didn’t come here today just to tell you “this is what is happening”. I came to ask for your help.

I want your scrutiny, your expertise, your consideration. So please let us know if you think something could be better, or clearer, or fairer. And if you think something’s great, definitely tell us that too! I’d be delighted, Bill, to receive a response from the Sixth Form Colleges Association too.

We’re consulting until 28 April and we’ll be testing our approach during that time too. Our inspectors will complete full training on the new finalised approach before they start inspecting colleges like yours in November. That gives us the whole of the period from the consultation closing and all of September and all of October to train you and to train our staff. This will be an unprecedented amount of training that takes place if this consultation stands.

With your help and input, we can build the best system for parents and families, for you, and most importantly for children, young people, and all learners.