Ofsted has this morning published the letters from its first 10 “interim visits” of FE providers that are taking place this autumn.
The five-page letters include inspectors’ findings from interviews with both leaders and learners about the provider’s response to Covid-19, but do not include a judgement grade.
They include information about what actions leaders are taking to “ensure they provide an appropriate curriculum that responds to the reasonable needs of learners and stakeholders and adapts to changed circumstances”, as well as what steps staff are taking to “ensure that the approaches used for building knowledge and skills are appropriate to meet the reasonable needs of students”.
Inspectors also explore how leaders are “ensuring that students are safe and well informed about potential risks, including from online sources”.
Eight of the visits were to providers judged as ‘requires improvement’, while one was to a ‘good’ provider and the other was ‘outstanding’.
Ofsted announced in July that it would carry out these “interim visits” as part of a phased return to routine inspections, following a pause to this activity as result of Covid-19 in March.
The full inspection regime is currently planned to resume in January 2021, but this is being kept under review.
You can find links to each of the 10 interimn visit letters below.
What exactly was the purpose of these visits? They manage to say absolutely nothing in 3 pages of waffle. “Staff say…”, “Tutors believe…”, what a waste of everyone’s time and public money. Either inspect and evaluate or don’t bother. This middle ground is absolutely pointless.