Thinking about becoming an apprentice? Is someone you know looking to their future? In this episode we look at apprenticeships, focusing on the North West of England and speak to an apprentice at the University Hospitals of Liverpool group.    Hi everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom and this time we're exploring all things apprenticeships. I'm joined here today by Lynn Masterson, who's Vice Principal of commercial and growth at Hugh Baird College in Liverpool, Lisa Daniels, who's currently an apprentice on foundation degree through Hugh Baird but based at University Hospitals of Liverpool group, Fiona O'Shea, also at Hugh Baird, and by Ruth Stammers, one of our senior His Majesty's Inspectors of Further Education and Skills here at Ofsted. Just to set us off, Ruth, we probably think we know, but do we? What is an apprenticeship?   Ruth: Okay, so for those who might not know what an apprenticeship is, essentially it's a job where you learn alongside your job. So, they're open to anybody from the age of sixteen onwards. So we see apprentices, obviously quite young ones coming out of school, and we see apprentices retraining into different careers, well into their sixties, sometimes even their seventies, believe it or not. A kind of standard apprenticeship is usually either one day a week in college and four days a week in work, or with a with a training provider for one day. Or sometimes they're on a block release program, so they might be in work for a number of weeks and then go on a block of training for, say, a week or two at a college or training provider. Apprentices get paid a normal wage, so there is a basic apprenticeship wage, which is quite low, let's be honest. A lot of employers do pay their apprentices more than the standard apprenticeship wage, which is really important. And then there's other apprenticeships that actually are quite highly paid. So we've got apprentices from level two, which can be a lot of the kind of construction trades, automotive, healthcare, early years, those kind of entry level jobs right up to apprenticeships at level seven, which are senior leaders. And solicitors - really high level apprenticeships. There has been a little bit of change to funding recently, so some of those level seven apprenticeships are no longer going to be funded by the government but lots of the lower level ones are. And the reason for that really is, is to try and attract people into some of those entry level jobs, the level two and three apprenticeships, so that those who are out of the job market currently or furthest from the job market through unemployment, have got a route into employment with training as well, and and hopefully a long standing career alongside that. Briony: I mean, Ruth has described an enormous breadth in apprenticeships. So presumably there is no such thing as a typical apprentice. Lynn: No there isn't. Apprentices can come from many different backgrounds, very different circumstances. So, you know, we can sort of have an apprentice who will come from school, who's maybe made the decision that they don't want to pursue an A-level, uh, or they just want to end their time at school, and they're looking to find themselves at a career for life. There'll be opportunities where people will maybe be thinking further forward than just how they can earn money now. So there will also be people who maybe want to retrain, who've been in a job that they feel they'd like to gain a skill in something else so they can be different ages. You can as as Ruth has just said, you can have apprentices that will start at sixteen, and you can have apprentices that will also go up to, um, in the sixties or 70s. So there's no such thing. It's a common misconception that apprentices are young people leaving school. That is not the case. And a lot of people we find now are opting for apprenticeships just so that they don't have a level of debt as they're making their stud

In this episode, colleagues from the National Day Nurseries Association join Ofsted to discuss the report into the importance of the first two years of a child's life: Getting it right from the start: how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers - GOV.UK   Briony Balsom  Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Bryony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on early years, on 'Getting it right from the start, how early years practitioners work with babies and toddlers.' And indeed, that is the title of our recently released report. So the research explores how early years practitioners understand the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and apply it to the education and care of babies and toddlers. So we're talking up to two years. It draws largely on a series of visits to early years settings, a survey and some inspector focus groups. So joining us today, we have Fiona Bland, who is from the National Day Nurseries Association, Kiran Singh, who's one of Ofsted's Research and Evaluation leads and was involved in writing and producing the report. And we have Wendy Ratcliff, who is Ofsted's lead for early education. Hello, everybody. So Wendy, just to kick us off then, why did we produce the report?  Wendy Ratcliff  Really good question, and there's a bit of history there. So when we were doing our 'Best start in life research review 'series, one of the things that came out from that was that, we're aware that there's very little research out there around babies, around our youngest children. And I think that's you know, that that's really important for us at a time when the government are looking are increasing funding, there'll be more babies in settings from September in in terms of the childcare reforms. The other thing we know that those first two years lay those important foundations for all future learning, and that babies' development just needs to be encouraged, supported, and, you know, monitored by adults. It's so vitally important to get those first two years right.  Briony Balsom  Yeah, so I think the report starts out by saying what we know instinctively to be the case, that those first two years are really crucial to a child's development.  Briony Balsom  Why is it that they're so important? Could you tell us a little bit about what forms in that child in their first two years? Wendy Ratcliff  Yeah, absolutely. So. If we think about we think, well, we think about the EYFS, for example, and we think about those educational programs and the primaries of learning. There's so much that needs to happen. What does happen in those first two years and the importance around you know, personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication and language, we think of those important interactions, and I think one of the key things for us is making sure we get that balance right between care and education, because whatever we do through those interactions, those routines with the youngest children, children are learning something, and that's really important.  Briony Balsom  Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's because we know it's so important that some of the examples in the report are really so wonderful. So there's a really evocative one of the the practitioner talking about sand in a really glorious way. And you can just feel the engagement with the child. Kiran, I'm going to come to you. Can you tell us a little bit about the methodology and what, what you looked at, who you spoke with to formulate the report?  Kiran Singh  Yeah, yeah, of course. It was really important for us, right from the outset of this project to capture as many voices as we could and really try to be as accessible as we could for the early years sector. And we know that not every nursery could take part. We know that not every practitioner could tell us something. So we tried to, we did a lot of different methods. We first of all, we looked at existing studies and literature on

Would you like to learn more about our proposed new report cards, or how we’ll inspect inclusion? Ofsted is consulting on changes to our education inspections. Host Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks to Ofsted’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston (National Director, Education) and Claire Stewart (Deputy Director, Inclusive Education) about our consultation proposals, including our new report cards, inclusion grade and education inspection toolkits. Take part in our consultation here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education.   Transcript   Mark Leech: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today we're going to be talking about the consultation that we're currently running looking at improvements to the way we inspect education. So that's education right from early years right through schools and into further education and skills. And I'm joined by Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Lee Owston, the National Director for Education, and Claire Stewart, who is Deputy Director for Inclusive Education. Our consultation began in February, and it runs until the 28th of April. We're recording this in March so we can reflect a little bit on what we're starting to hear back from the consultation. We've been out meeting lots of people from the sectors that we inspect and regulate, and also meeting with parents groups and others, so we can talk a little bit about feedback and what we're hearing and hopefully answer some of the things that maybe people would like to hear us talk about. So, if I could turn to you Martyn first, just around a bit of the background to what we're trying to achieve here. We obviously had a huge consultation exercise last year, the Big Listen, which has shaped a lot of these proposals. What in a nutshell, are we trying to achieve with the changes we're making to education inspection?   Martyn Oliver: Yeah, thanks, Mark, and it's really good to be joined by Lee, and I'm really particularly delighted that we are joined by Claire, because isn't it great that we've now got a Deputy Director who's in charge of just inclusivity, because inclusion is a massive part of our work. And so if I go back to what happened just after I started, I was really clear that I wanted to listen to the system we launched, I think it was last March, the Big Listen, the largest consultation, the largest piece of listening work at Ofsted has ever done. Over 20,000 or so took part in our survey then we had independent surveys looking at parents, what do they think, what providers think, and indeed, children. And in the end, it's about 30,000 people. And they came back with some really strong messages. Some of them are hard for us to hear about a gap in trust. And then some of the messages were really positive about the things that we should do going forward. And some of them were things like, our framework is focusing on the right things currently, with a focus on the curriculum, and that's really important. But our framework is a generic framework across early years, primary, secondary, further education, initial teacher training education, independent schools and people didn't recognise their uniqueness, and so Lee and I were really keen to develop a framework going forward which looked at that uniqueness. We also wanted to pay attention to the context. We heard we weren't spending enough time looking at the context of inspections. The stress and pressure of inspection was a huge part of what we heard. And so, this framework that we're consulting on now isn't just about the actual design of what we will inspect. I think probably even more important than that, to be honest, is how we go about inspecting it. And we've really thought long and hard about that.   Mark Leech: Thank you. So, one of the challenges that we have at Ofsted is how we balance the needs of parents with the people that we inspect. So, we hear differ

What's the picture of local areas and how well they are working to prepare children and young people with special educational needs for adulthood? What support are they offering to allow young people to reach their full potential? Preparation for adulthood arrangements in local areas: a thematic review - GOV.UK   Briony Balsom  0:07  Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time we're focusing on preparing for adulthood. In December 24 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly published a report considering how well children with special needs and or disabilities or send are being supported in their preparation for adulthood. We considered survey responses from more than 2000 children, young people, parents and practitioners, and visited six local area partnerships to explore how children and young people with SEND are being prepared for adulthood. Later, I'm going to be chatting to Jess Taylor Byrne from the CQC, who jointly produced the report with us. But today, firstly, I'm delighted to be joined by guests from Newcastle College. We spoke to practitioners and leaders at Newcastle as part of our visit, and we found some really positive practice in this area. So joining us, we have Rachel Gibson, who's the Assistant Director at Newcastle College. We have Maxine Johnson, who is the SEND manager, Sabarina Logan, who's currently studying for a level three National Diploma in Business at Newcastle college. And also we have Adams Sproston, who is Ofsted senior HMI for SEND. Hello everybody!  To kick us off, I'd really love to hear from you, Adam, about what innovative ideas we came across that are really working at this really key juncture of a young person's life?  Adam Sproston  1:29  Thanks, Briony.  We found lots of positives across the six areas that we visited, typically, professionals in education, health and social care, working in very challenging contexts to meet the needs of children and young people, and they shared with us challenges in the economy, but also after COVID 19 and the impact that that's having on some young people. In particular, we found that providers that give high quality careers, information, education, advice and guidance are able to prepare young people better for adult life. May that be courses that they move to, careers that they want to be interested and and thrive in, or in other aspects. So for some young people with SEND that might be improving their independence or supported living as they become an adult. So that was really important to see where professionals know children and young people really well. They can be best placed to meet their needs and tailor their approaches to work for the child's aspirations. Briony Balsom  2:36  Wonderful. So let's come across to Newcastle and hear a little more about exactly what it is that you're you're doing so well.  Maxine Johnson  2:42  So within our support offer within Newcastle college for our learners with with high needs, so we have a dedicated team of SEND advisors who support our learners with HCPs, transition into college and transitioning with the school, the provider that they're currently with, liaison with any external providers to ensure that we can obviously meet their learners needs and support that kind of smooth transition in a college before they've even started, whether that's coming in on transition visits and doing tastes within the curriculum, or seeing the learners and doing observations in the classroom to see how their learning works and how this how they supported to again, make that transition as smooth as possible. We also do as part of our transition, we have a summer school within our life skills hub, which again, just cements and kind of builds those foundations for our students to be able to know the campus, become familiar with certain spaces that they may access when they're here, which again supports that transition into into college. So we have a de

Ofsted's report into multi-agency responses to serious youth violence: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/multi-agency-responses-to-serious-youth-violence-working-together-to-support-and-protect-children Safer London's report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-and-families-experiences-of-multi-agency-support-when-impacted-by-serious-youth-violence https://saferlondon.org.uk/   Briony Balsom  Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time, we're focusing on serious youth violence and our recently released joint report. We released a joint targeted area inspection report, which we call a JTAI, on serious youth violence on the 20th of November, that report had a lengthy title for a weighty subject. It was called 'Multi agency responses to serious youth violence, working  together to support and protect children'.   Later in the podcast we'll be joined by Carly Adams Elias from Safer London, where she's director of practice, to talk about their work around serious youth violence, but first to explore with reports and findings, we're joined by some of those who contributed to it. We have Helen Davis, who's head of thematic and joint inspection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. Ade Solarin,  the inspection lead for child protection at His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue services. Hello everyone. Jess Taylor Byrne, who is the Children's Services operations manager at the Care Quality Commission. Hi there. Hi everyone. And Wendy Ghaffar, who is Ofsted specialist advisor on cross remit safeguarding. Wendy, if I could come to you first so we can say a little bit about the scale of the problem. Many might assume it's a city issue, but is that really the case?  Wendy Ghaffar  No, it's definitely not the case. It's not just a city problem. I think we were shocked as a group of inspectorates to find that in all of the areas we visited, there were many children, including children as young as 11, carrying knives for their own protection. And in some of the areas, and for some children, it was absolutely the norm to carry a knife, often, not always, but often that was what children saw as a way of protecting themselves. And if you look at our report, at the beginning of that report, we talk about a very young teenage boy who was chased by a group of older teenagers in his local area, and he knew that those teenagers were carrying knives, and so he started carrying a knife because he saw that as the only way to protect himself. And we heard about children who were too frightened to leave their own homes, children not attending school because they were so fearful. And this is happening in small towns, out in the countryside, and we think that social media plays a role as well. If we look at the work of the youth endowment fund, they surveyed 7500 children last year, and one in four of those children had either been a victim of violence or perpetrated violence, and children also spoke about seeing real life episodes of violence on social media so they might see something that's happened in their locality on social media, and that's feeding into this sense of fear. And we don't think that adults are really sufficiently aware of this problem. And the other thing that came through is the impact that this has not just on children who are directly involved, but on their brothers and sisters, on their friends, on communities, on schools. So there's a kind of ripple effect when there's an incident and it's impacting on children's general well being, their sense of safety. I think we also need to think about the links there are with county lines and criminal exploitation. So some of this, not all of it, is happening in that context of county lines, which, as I'm sure people are aware, often organized crime gangs are forcing children to carry drugs out into the countryside, into smaller towns, and very often forcing children to carry

Here's the report discussed in this episode of the podcast: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/thematic-review-of-the-quality-of-education-in-young-offender-institutions-yois   Mark Leech  0:03  Hello. Welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and today I'm hosting a conversation about young offender institutions, or  YOIs for short. I'm very pleased to be joined by not one, but two of His Majesty's chief inspectors. We have Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector here at Ofsted, and we have Charlie Taylor, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. Now both are here because the inspection of young offender institutions involves both His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons, HMIP and Ofsted. Also with us from Ofsted is Maria Navarro, one of Ofsted specialists in this area, and heavily involved in the report we're going to be talking about today. Welcome everyone. We'll get on to the report I mentioned in a moment. But first, let's talk a bit about young offender institutions and how they work. Charlie, before you joined HMIP, you were Chair of the Youth Justice Board, so this is an area you know really well. Could you give us a bit of a background, please, about YOIs and the children who they cater for?  Charlie Taylor  1:05  Yes, certainly there are four YOIs in the country. One is private sector,  the other three are public sector. They house about around 400 children at the moment, which is a dramatic reduction from when I did my review in 2016 when there are about 1500 and an even more dramatic reduction from the the early 2000s when there are about three and a half thousand children locked up in England and Wales. The age of kids who end up in a YOI is 15 to 18, but the vast majority of them are about 16 and 17, with most being 17 at the moment, because of the prison population crisis, they're also housing more 18 year olds than they would have done in the past. So in the past, unless you had a very short time to serve, you would move on into an adult prison. But they're now hanging on to 18 year olds for longer as well, which represents a challenge.  Mark Leech  1:57  And YOIs do they cater for boys as well as girls? Or is it all boys?  Charlie Taylor  2:02  Well, there are a few girls in YOIs due to some anomalies, because of the closure of parts of the youth custody sector, particularly secure training centers. And what that meant is that provision had to be made for a small amount of very vulnerable girls who who were unable to be placed either in secure children's homes or or into secure training centers. So Weatherby YOI, up in Yorkshire, has a handful of girls there, and certainly that's an issue we've raised many concerns about during our inspection reports over the last couple of years, and in terms of the sort of the way YOIS operate.   Mark Leech  2:43  Obviously, you've mentioned secure training centers, then and secure children's homes. What's different about the YOIs, would it be more recognizable as a sort of prison environment, or is it more of a children's home environment?  Charlie Taylor  2:54  No, certainly it's much more of a prison environment. So the populations are higher, around 150 or so in somewhere like Weatherby, around 120 in someone like Wellington and in Feltham in West London, again, around 120 something like that. So they have a much more prisony feel, unfortunately, than than secure children's homes, the secure school, or even, indeed, secure, secure training centers. And I think that's been one of the criticisms for many years, is actually that they often appear to do a better job of preparing kids for a life in prison, rather than a life on the outside going on and being successful when they leave.  Mark Leech  3:36  That's probably a good point to bring in Martyn from Ofsted. Our involvement might come as a bit of a surprise to many people. Obviously, we do have that role in in adult prisons as well. Could you tell us a bit more about why and how Ofsted

Host Mark Leech listens in to Lisa Pascoe, deputy director (regulation and social care policy), Helen Humphries (specialist adviser for residential care) and Jenny Bird (research lead) as they discuss the findings from our recent research report ‘Good decisions: children with complex needs in children’s homes’. Read the report 'Good decisions: children with complex needs in children's homes' Read the blogs: Providing good experiences for children with complex needsChildren with complex needs in children's homes   Transcript Mark: Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech, and in this episode, we're going to be hearing about children with complex needs and what that means to local authorities, children's services and those working with children who live in children's homes. Earlier this year, we published a research report called good decisions children with complex needs in children's homes, and I listened in to colleagues from our social care policy and research teams as they discussed the findings. Lisa: I'm Lisa Pascoe. I'm the Deputy Director here at Ofsted with responsibility for regulation and social care policy and I'm joined today by Helen, our specialist advisor for residential care, and Jenny, our research lead.  Jenny, let's start with you. It would be really helpful to set out for people why we did this research. Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. So, it follows on really from a piece we'd done previously, which was looking at local authorities plans for sufficiency. And from that piece of work, we could see that local authorities were really struggling to find supportive homes for children who have complex needs. So we wanted to look at that even more. We knew as well that stakeholders were concerned about children's homes not accepting referrals for children with complex needs. We'd heard some things about them holding out for children who present fewer risks and, sort of preferring to take referrals for those children. And we heard as well about some concerns around the potential impact it could have on Ofsted inspections. So we really wanted this research to look into that further and to highlight good practice that was already out there, as well as the challenges that still exist, and what action could potentially be taken, either across the sector or by ourselves. Lisa: So how did we make it work? Jenny, what did we actually do? Jenny: So we used a two-phase design in this research. We started off at the start of 2023 with a survey that went out to all local authority Children's Services and all registered children's homes, and we asked them things like what they think complex needs means, what happens when they try to find places or are approached with a referral, and what the facilitators and the barriers are to finding good homes for children. Lisa: If I remember rightly, Jenny, didn't we publish something after phase one? Jenny: We did, yeah. We published a blog in around May time to highlight the findings of that survey in more detail. Lisa: And then we moved into phase two. Jenny: We did, yeah. So that built on phase one, and it was made up of two parts. The main bulk of the work was case studies. We'd completed 10 case studies, which we identified through working with three different local authorities across two regions. And in those we spoke to people who were involved in making decisions about children's care or in providing the care itself, as well as children. To supplement those, we also ran some focus groups with other groups of professionals who are involved in the care of children with complex needs. So that was people from the Association for Virtual School Heads, as well as staff who work in local authority commissioning. And we also held a focus group with some of our own Ofsted inspectors as well to talk about how they experience inspections when they're going to homes where children with complex needs are living. Lisa: I think one of the things, Helen, was about this use o

In this episode, Mark Leech (Deputy Director, Communications) speaks with Wendy Ratcliff (HMI, Early Education), Dan Lambert (SHMI, Schools) and His Majesty's Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver, about Ofsted's Big Listen.  Ofsted's Big Listen closes on 31st May and we want to hear from everyone we work with and work for. Take part here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ofsted-big-listen.    Transcript: Mark: Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. Actually, this episode, could be renamed Ofsted listens because we're going to be talking about our Big Listen, the huge consultation that we kicked off at the beginning of March. We're now recording this in early May. So there's still a few weeks left for people to give us their views. We want to hear from parents, we want to hear from all of the providers across the different sectors that we work with. So if you haven't given your views yet, please go to gov.uk/ofstedbiglisten. So today we're going to talk to a couple of colleagues who have been part of the Big Listen - they've been out and about meeting with the public, meeting with people in the sectors that we work with and hearing what people are saying. So we're joined by Wendy Ratcliff, who is one of our HMI. Wendy works in early education. And we're joined as well by Dan Lambert, who is a senior HMI for the East of England region at Ofsted so welcome Wendy and Dan. Wendy, I’ll start with you, what's been your take as you've been going out and about? Where have you been and what have you been hearing? Wendy: So we've been out and about in early education, as we usually do. And we've been out on some of our curriculum roadshows at the moment, which are focusing in on the key messages from our best start in life research review. And so we've been speaking with early years practitioners, we've been speaking with managers, we've been speaking with those who provide early years in schools and childminders as well. So we've been hearing things around that fear factor of Ofsted. And we've also been hearing things around notice periods, childminders, for example, one of the things that makes them more anxious is the fact we phone them five days before their inspection and then they're not certain which day we're going to go. So actually, that makes that anxiety worse. And the other thing I guess, is nursery managers, we make that call around midday the day before the inspection. And again, thinking about is that the right time, our inspectors are really good at saying is this a good time to have that conversation, but actually calling a day nursery at lunchtime, the day before the inspection is due, is that the best time for us to be making that notification call? So there's some of the things that people are telling us that they'd like to put forward in the Big Listen. Mark: That's really interesting, because we're getting straight into the really meaty issues, aren't we and we’re trying to capture as much from people through the consultation online. But I think it is important that people understand that as well as that we are out listening to people on the ground and we've also commissioned some external organisations, some independent organisations to do some further work with the sectors that we work with. And to do some further surveys and some focus groups to hear from different groups of people that perhaps it's a bit harder to reach. So it's really interesting the notice period thing, because there's a lot of talk about that in schools and people talk about whether we're giving enough notice to teachers and to school leaders that we're going to be in. We normally give them a call the day before. As you say it’s slightly different with childminders, it’s different, again with further education providers. Dan, are you hearing much about notice periods? What else are you picking up more in the school sector? Dan: Yeah, I've had some really great meetings with big and small groups of head tea

Briony Balsom  Hello, welcome to Ofsted Talks. I'm Briony Balsom, and today we're talking about alternative provision. Firstly, let me welcome our guests, here today with us we have Mark Vickers who's chair of the National MAT CEO network for alternative provision and special educational needs and disabilities and CEO of Olive Academies, we have Grace who attends the Olive Academy in Cambridge. Jo Fisher the Chair of the ADCS, that's the Association of Directors of Children's Services education committee, and we have Steve Shaw, who's one of Ofsted's Senior His Majesty's inspectors for SEND - special educational needs and disabilities. So, alternative provision or AP settings are places that provide education for children who can't go into a mainstream school. In January last year, we launched our new AP framework for Ofsted. Until then, there wasn't much of a coherent overview of how commissioning and oversight practices worked at a local level or of the mix of AP that local area partners were using. So that's why Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission now inspect local areas' approach to commissioning and overseeing AP as part of our joint area SEND inspections. And in February this year, we published a report into our findings about six local areas. We wanted to find out whether AAP is meeting the health, educational and care needs of young people how it's being used, what's helping, and indeed, What's hindering local partners from working together. Mark, can I come across to you to set the scene around what exactly AP is why we need it, who's it for? Mark Vickers  Alternative provision plays a really important part within the broader education offer for children and young people. At its best, its purpose is to help pupils to reengage with their education generally, often through short term interventions before returning to mainstream school for a fresh start in a new setting, can also be providing more long term placements and support for young people, particularly at Key Stage four.  And increasingly AP settings are providing upstream early intervention and preventative support through outreach to avoid the need for exclusions in the first place.  Briony Balsom  Grace, can you talk to us a little bit about your experience? Grace  So I started last March. And coming into it, I was very, very scared like, because obviously, at the start of my school, I was didn't always feel 100%. I never wanted to go in and my attendance dropped down to about 6%. So it got to the point where they didn't really want me in school anymore, because it it wasn't working for me. So now I got managed move to three different other schools. But that didn't work for me either. So the last opportunity was coming to Olive. So I started here, and at first I was very wary, because I didn't know no one here. But from the first week, I literally just went straight in everyone was so lovely. The teachers are amazing here with like English and maths and that like they sit you down and you just get that one to one. Like in a normal school, you don't get that one to one. It's like, okay, I'll tell you the answer, then it's like you still don't understand, as well here, they'll like repeat it 100 times over and over again until you're like, Okay, I get that now, with like, anxiety wise, I just feel so much more like myself now. And so much more happier than where I was a year ago. I feel like this school is just bring out such like a new person of who I am. Briony Balsom  What Grace has described sounds like an incredibly special environment for her to be able to develop in how how do you make that work?  Mark Vickers  It's effectively drawing on the very best practice of mainstream in terms of the same expectations. So we don't lower our expectations at all. But what we do is that we do it slightly differently. So the experience for those young people, we're not trying, we're not trying to recreate a small version of the mainstream school because

In this episode Mark Leech, Deputy Director of Communications, talks to Kirsty Godfrey, Senior HMI, and Zoe Enser, HMI, about Ofsted's recently published English Subject report.    Transcript   Mark Leech  02:02 Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leach and today we're going to be talking about English. We've recently published our subject report looking at the teaching of English in primary and secondary schools and I'm joined today by Kirsty Godfrey and Zoe Enser. Hello, nice to have you with us.  Hello.  Hi, Mark.  So we've published this report. It has quite a lot to say about the different components of of English teaching right across across the age groups. Should we start by just talking through some of the main findings of of the report?   Kirsty Godfrey  02:40 Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really good news stories is about reading. We found that the teaching of reading has improved. And that is really to do with all of those things that have happened over perhaps the last 10 years. So we've had the phonics screening check. We've got systematic synthetic phonics that's been put into the national curriculum. We've had our focus in Ofsted are looking at reading so in every inspection with primary age pupils, we're doing an early reading Deep Dive. And there's also the English absolve, they work so lots of policy government changes and our autofocus have really turned schools attention to the importance of teaching reading, and we know that that's been a real success story. Obviously, there's more to do. And particularly when children get to that point of finishing phonics and moving on. We know this sometimes can be less well understood really about how that curriculum is developed, their fluency is considered. And sometimes there's a rush towards going straight to reading comprehension and what those tests might look like at the end of key stage. So that's an area for further improvement, as is that teaching for those children who might be behind with their reading when they enter key stage two, sometimes they don't get sufficient practice to really embed that knowledge or the right sort of practice to make sure that that they quickly catch up.   Mark Leech  03:59 And we see that strength in reading taken through into into secondary school Zoe because I'm interested as well, we talked about sort of the mechanics of how do you how do you teach children to read but there's, there's part of how do you then use that to access the rest of the curriculum, but also how do they learn to love reading with pleasure? Is that something that we're seeing carried through into secondary school?   Zoe Enser  04:24 Well, there's two very different strands there and what we're talking about when we think about the text that pupils encounter in their engagement with reading, you're absolutely right. That access to reading and the mechanics of reading is going to make a huge difference to how they can then access the curriculum more widely. But we've got that reading culture that development of that interest in reading that habit of reading, that is being strongly developed in secondary schools. There are lots of opportunities in Tutor Time where teachers have really thought about what is it that we want our pupils to encounter what kinds of texts nonfiction short stories, poems, that's all being pulled? together as part of that? And then the separate strand around that is what texts do we study for literature? And it was really pleasing to see that there had been a lot of thought that had taken place around what were the most appropriate texts for pupils. To then use as a vehicle for that literary analysis, analysis, sorry, literary analysis, that understanding of the kind of critical approach that we take to text because they they serve different purposes. We've got the text that we enjoy and share and talk about, and then we've got the text that we also study as part of that. And that had

Ofsted will inspect supported accommodation from September 2024. To support this work, we carried out a consultation where we not only received responses from the sector, we spoke to young people about what they wanted and needed from their supported accommodation. Read more here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-confirms-plans-for-inspecting-supported-accommodation Briony Balsom  0:09  Hello and welcome to Ofsted Talks. Today I'm going to be speaking to our guests about the importance of listening to young people, especially care leavers. So just to introduce our guests briefly, we've got today with us Anna Willow, who is children's services manager at Brent Care Journeys, Tia, who has experienced care, and we've got Lisa Pascoe, who's Ofsted's Deputy Director for regulation and social care policy and Matthew Brazier, who's one of His Majesty's Inspectors, and our specialist advisor on looked-after children. Matthew, tell me about this work, which is new for Ofsted. How did it fit into our work in supported accommodation? Matthew Brazier  0:44  Yeah, of course, Briony. Yeah, we were asked maybe three years ago now by the Secretary of State to regulate supported accommodation, which obviously was going to be a really big task. There's around 7000, a little bit more, young people living in supported accommodation, or different types of accommodation. So it's things like single bedsits, but group living situations also supported lodgings. So we've been working on that for three years now, and will start inspecting this year as well. We thought it was it was a really fantastic opportunity to make sure that we spoke to young people, to make sure that we we heard from people with lived experience, to make sure that when we do inspect, and when we do register providers, that we were focusing on the things that matter most to young people. We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years working with them, helping us plan the consultation, but also listening what they think was important for young people. All of the organisations that we've worked with have been really helpful in making sure that we've had the voice of lived experience, really heard, and it's been really strong throughout the project. And we've worked with Barnardos Brent Care Journeys on the project along with a number of organisations. Briony Balsom  2:06  So Anna and Tia. Just to start with you. I'm sure we all know instinctively why we think it's important to listen to young people, but could you just kick us off by telling us exactly why it's important? Anna Willow  2:17  I think what we know in systems is that people with a lot of authority and power traditionally get together in kind of formal surroundings and make decisions that affect children and young people and families lives all the time. But if we're doing that, with insight from people with lived experience, then we're missing so much, we're really missing the richness of what we need to work with. My colleague, Tia is an Assistant Project worker in our team, and working with the insight of her and her colleagues with us, is completely crucial part of what we do so Tia,  do you want to answer that question as well about why you think it's important. Tia  2:58  Listening is the easiest thing to do. But actually hearing someone  doesn't come as easily to everyone. Because as natural human beings like we tune into different conversations that probably doesn't relate to us, like we're on the bus, we hear everything, we can choose what we want to hear and what we want to respond to. So I feel like in the past, professionals have just listened to this to give a reply back to but not listening to understand and comprehend. So that we bridge the gap between the professionals and the young people, they both can be in the same room together and coexist. Whereas beforehand, that wasn't a space that ever existed. It was two separate entities like the people who made the decisions for yo

In this episode, Briony Balsom (Head of Internal Insights) talks to our new HMCI, Sir Martyn Oliver.  Transcript Briony: Hello, I’m Briony Balsom and welcome to Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. Ofsted Talks is the official Ofsted podcast, and we cover everything from early years to schools, social care to further education and skills, alternative provision, special educational needs and more. Today you join us for a slightly shorter but also slightly special edition where we take the opportunity to get to introduce Ofsted’s new chief inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. Welcome, Martyn. Martyn: Hello, Briony – thank you. Briony: Martyn, you've had a full career in education as a teacher, then a Head and most recently as Chief Exec of multi academy trust. But, can you tell us a little bit about what it was that drew you to teaching in the first place? Martyn: Yeah, feels like an awful long time ago now. It must be 29, soon 30 years, ago and it wasn't one thing that started me in teaching. If I look back to my own school career, there were some teachers that absolutely stood out to me. But then it was a passion for my subject, art - fine art - which I absolutely love and I spent my entire childhood engaged in seeing some of the great galleries in the country. But it wasn't just that, it wasn't the inspirational teacher, it wasn't just the subject, it was the fact that I think I've always just enjoyed teaching. I've enjoyed working with people. I love the idea of getting up in the morning and wanting to help other people. And so being a teacher, the act of teaching, was something that I was just really drawn to, and then with my subject expertise, and then my inspirational teachers that I had as a child, it pointed me naturally to this, all those years ago. Briony: Wonderful. And I was about to ask what was that you enjoyed most about teaching and leading schools. It sounds very much like it was the people overlaid with the subject? Martyn: Children and working with children and seeing the joy of teaching something new and watching children really get it. And then, you know, even whether it was children who enjoyed the subject and wanted to pursue it themselves, or those that just found it an interesting moment, or part of their week, that all gave me joy. But also, what is incredible about teaching and working with people who care about children is you just come across likeminded professionals. Just such good people that work in the sector. Briony: You talk incredibly glowingly of teaching. What was it about the role of HMCI that really intrigued you enough to apply? Martyn: It's interesting because all of my - well, certainly the last 14/15 years - of my career, I've tended to go in after Ofsted into schools that were in difficult circumstances and pick them up. So, I've always had a tremendous amount of interest in Ofsted’s work and its role and the importance of what we do in finding and supporting schools and providers and helping the system to understand where things can be better. So, I've always been a long admirer of the importance of the work. And then I was encouraged by a tremendous amount of people. It's very humbling to see so many people ask me to consider to apply. And so, taking the importance of it, the fact that I was encouraged by so many of my peers to go for the role, it’s something that I thought I should do. And I've come to try and make sure that for young people and parents and how then for the staff in all of our settings - not just teachers or staff in schools, all of our providers, childminders, people who work in children's services, everyone everywhere, further education and skills, making sure that we can provide them the most modern, fit for purpose inspectorate that supports all of them to do their really important work for those children and young people. Briony: Absolutely. And you've touched on this a little bit, but now that you're in role and you're bringing the weight of your vast exp

On this episode, we're talking to two further education and skills leads from Ofsted about the FES curriculum and what it means for students and teachers. And have you seen this report we've published into FES curriculums for business, both classroom-based and work-based? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-and-skills-report-business-education Anna Trethewey: So, today we’re talking about what high-quality education looks like in the further education and skills sector, with two FES Senior His Majesty's Inspectors – Dr Richard Beynon and Dr Becca Clare, from the FES policy team. Richard, could you say, succinctly, what high-quality education is in FES?   RICHARD BEYNON: Yes, I’ll try. As with all education, the curriculum is the key. High-quality education means good curriculum design, coupled with effective teaching. And good curriculum design means selecting the content that is the most important and useful in a given subject, and then teaching the content in an order that helps learners to understand it. In maths, for instance, that means, probably, teaching learners to calculate area before volume. That doesn’t change, whether it’s further education or education for children. The evidence shows that it’s really important to think about the key building blocks of a curriculum – what foundations need to be laid first so that learners can make connections and build secure knowledge? What we learn isn’t retained in isolation. Instead, what we learn is connected in our memory to all kinds of other things we have learned before, and forms connections to things we learn later. Sometimes we refer to knowledge as ‘sticky’ – that’s because some kinds of knowledge enable other components to ‘stick’ to them and this helps to expand our expertise in a given area. Think about the really fundamental knowledge in any subject – it’s probably like this. In English, for instance, if we know what a noun is, we can build on that to learn about sentence construction, proper nouns, collective nouns, abstract nouns. In maths, if we understand about division, we can go on to learn about fractions, peRebecca Clareentages, proportion, ratio and so on. In carpentry and joinery, if we learn about the properties of wood – how and why some wood is soft or hard, how different kinds of wood absoRichard Beynon moisture, structural defects such as knots – we can work out which kinds of wood are suitable in which situations.     REBECCA CLARE: So, the curriculum content that is selected and put in place early in the curriculum really makes a difference to what learners can learn next. We often explain this by using the image of a Jenga tower – what are the knowledge and skills that really need to be at the base of the tower? What do they support? What happens if that component is missing – what can the learners not learn, if they don’t understand division, or sentence structure, or the properties of wood, or basic sociological concepts like class and gender, or – in beauty therapy or health or sports - anatomy and physiology. The key thing is to select the really key content that learners need if they are to develop expertise in that subject. What are the foundation stones? What content needs to be in place to enable further content to be learned? And in terms of teaching methods, it involves using methods that help learners really to embed the knowledge and skills they’re learning. I can remember – just – when I was at school, and quite often, as soon as I’d sat an exam, I’d forget the stuff I’d learned – because I’d only learned it for the exam. A really good education isn’t about just teaching to the test, though of course exam results matter. But it’s about teaching learners so that they can remember what they learn long term. Then, if they learn it well, they can use what they learn in their lives and jobs, they can add to it, evaluate it, critique it, apply it in all kinds of situations. It’s the opposite of the jug

In this episode, March Leech (Director, Strategy and Engagement) talks to Paul Joyce (Deputy Director, Further Education and Skills), Helen Flint (Specialist Policy Adviser, Quality and Training) and Commander Kate Scott of the Royal Navy about Ofsted’s recent Welfare and duty of care in the Armed Forces initial training report.

In this episode, Mark Leech (Director of Strategy and Engagement) talks to Richard Beynon (Senior HMI, FES Policy) and Kate Hill (Specialist Adviser, FES Policy) about enhanced inspections and how colleges are meeting skills needs.    Transcript Mark Leech Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks, the Ofsted podcast. My name is Mark Leech and today we're going to be talking about an area of work in our further education and skills inspections. We're going to be talking about enhanced inspections of colleges. So this is inspections that particularly are focused on how colleges are meeting skills needs. Today, I'm joined with two colleagues from our further education and skills team, Richard Beynon, and Kate Hill, welcome to you both. Let's start with you Richard, perhaps we can have a little chat about why this is important and what the expectation is on colleges in terms of meeting skills needs.    Richard Beynon There's a growing force behind this I think that we've seen developing across the past three or four years and it came to a head I suppose in 2022. There was some legislation that actually directed colleges to think about their skills work but colleges have always been the engine of skills in our economy. They've always dealt with vocational skills, they've always dealt with personal skills for a lot of learners. They've always been responsible for the upskilling of adults who come back to learning after a pause or a gap in their education. So colleges have always been there with this skills work. I think it's just that in the last couple of years, government has focused attention on that area of colleges work.   Mark Leech Is it sort of looking nationally or more regionally? How wide are they supposed to be casting their net?   Richard Beynon It's both really, because some colleges for example, land based colleges or specialists dance and drama colleges, serve a national need.   Mark Leech That's really interesting. Kate, so that's what we expect colleges to be doing, our role obviously is to go out and check that it's happening on the ground. How do we go about doing that?   Kate Kill We actually have usually two dedicated inspectors, one will lead on the skills aspect, and then they'll have a colleague that will work with them. What they'll do is they'll spend some time talking to different stakeholders attached to that particular college. We came up with some headings and they were community, education, employers, and civic. When we make a call to plan the inspection, we ask that the leaders arrange calls with their main stakeholders from those four groups so we start to get a picture of how they're contributing to the priority sectors in the region or area or nationally. At the same time, our team inspectors are deep diving into some chosen subjects. If we looked at health and social care, for example, we would ask the Curriculum Manager to arrange for a couple of calls with some health and social care stakeholders that might come in and talk to learners, might be involved in designing the course and having a say in what they think would be useful for them to learn, or in what order they might need to learn things.    Mark Leech Thanks Kate. I suppose the big question then is what are we finding on these inspections? We've been doing them now for a little over a year. How many have we done and what are we finding?   Kate Hill We've completed 65 of these enhanced inspections, that's as of the end of the academic year. Out of those, we have found that four of those colleges or providers, we judged them to be making a limited contribution to meeting skills needs, 40 were reasonable, and 21 were strong. Overall, 94% percent were strong or reasonable.   Richard Beynon It's worth saying we use a three scale criteria for this skills judgement. We don't use the normal four scale grades that we use for other things on inspection. We just say that a college is either strong in its contribu

In mid 2023, Ofsted published a report into T levels: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/t-level-thematic-review-final-report Here we hear from two college leaders, John Laramy, Principal, Exeter College and Diana Bird, Principal, Shipley College, about the challenges, opportunities and hopes for the future of the newest addition to the qualifications on offer for learners. Shreena Kotecha  0:00  Hi I am Shreena Kotecha head of strategy at Ofsted. And joining us today we have Diana Bird from Shipley College and John Laramy Principal from Exeter college and we also have Ofsted's finest Richard Beynon and Paul Joyce, from further education and skills. So today, we're going to be talking about T levels. We're actually recording this podcast the day after the announcement by the Prime Minister about plans to change T levels and A levels. We're awaiting the developments with interest. But in the meantime, we're going to talk about T levels. Anyway, a question for our two guests - are our students enjoying T levels? John Laramy  0:43  They very much are. So we get really good feedback from the students who take them. And they go on to some amazing progression opportunities. I would say that we certainly had really positive feedback from the students who have chosen them. I think that they aren't for every student. I think it is a demanding programme. It's a big programme. And I think in certain areas, finding the industrial placement is a real challenge. But students are really enjoying the T level, we're getting a lot out of it. And what we've been amazed by is how students have been able to progress straight from a T level into things like a degree apprenticeship. Diana Bird  1:17  Yeah, I'd agree with John, I think it's very much about making sure that you've recruited the right students onto the T level programmes. And for the students that are well suited to a T level, it is a fantastic experience. And we've seen similar things in terms of our students' progressions, so great experiences when they get into the right placements with  employers who appreciate what those students are contributing to those organisations. And a number of our students have progressed to employment in those organisations where they've had their placements, which has been an amazing outcome for them. So for the right students, a fantastic programme. Richard Beynon  1:55  Can I just ask, one of the things that we reported on in our thematic review of the rollout of T levels was that some knew, I think it was a small minority, but some T level students had difficulty getting their T level recognised as an entry qualification for higher education. Is that still a problem? Well, or has that been a problem for your students? Diana Bird  2:25  I'll be honest, in the area that we're working in, in West Yorkshire, we've not found that at all. So we even had one of our first cohort, secure a place at one of the Russell Group universities, so that was really positive outcome there, in terms of our local universities, which is where the majority of our students generally from the college tend to progress and we work really, really closely with them. So I think it's about the work that you do with your local universities or with the universities, to help them to understand the T level. And I think that's been one of our big challenges. As the as educators and as colleges, we've, we've become very familiar with the T levels. But I don't think that that's something that is, a generally shared piece of knowledge. And that's, that's going from schools to students to parents and and also into the university. So we've we've worked with them to help them to understand the curriculum to help them to see what students will be studying. And the universities have then been very happy to take our students but equally, they've amended their own curriculum in response to what's in the T level curriculum, because what we were finding with a lot of the curricu

Are young people getting the #careers information, advice and guidance they need? Listen here to our podcast on careers with thanks to Nicola Hall, Careers and Enterprise Company, Ryan Gibson, Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Katy Tibbles, Turner Schools. Mark Leech  0:12  Hello and welcome to another edition of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech and today we're going to be talking about the wide world of careers and careers education. Ofsted has recently published 'The independent review of careers guidance in schools and further education and skills providers' - quite a long title.  But a very interesting report and we'll talk about that in a little while. Joining me today I have quite a big panel actually Paul Joyce Ofsted's Deputy Director for further education and skills, Ian Tustian, who is an advisor on policy and quality of training at Ofsted. Nicola Hall, who is Director of Education at the Careers and Enterprise Company, Ryan Gibson, who is senior advisor for careers at the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and Katy Tibbles, the trust head of careers at Turner Schools. Nicola, I wonder if you can talk a bit about the current landscape and the big changes in careers guidance in schools and further education recently and a bit about the pressures on careers leaders at the moment? Nicola Hall  1:22  So, the careers guidance system has changed immeasurably over the last few years, and has really significantly moved forward. And we now see a modern industry-lead careers guidance system, which has been embedded through a national infrastructure of careers hubs, which is delivered and led by trained and qualified careers leaders across the country. So over 3000 careers leaders have now been trained through a fully funded suite of qualifications, which is supported by the Department for Education. We've seen over recent years almost universal adoption of the Gatsby benchmarks across schools, special schools and colleges throughout England. And those benchmarks set out a world class standard for those institutions to follow. And there's no cost to any of these services to educational institutions in England. Additional changes include a really increased focus on parental engagement within careers guidance, but also the introduction of enhanced provider access legislation to ensure that young people are accessing parity of impartial information regarding apprenticeships and technical education. Whilst the professional status of careers leaders and the elevation of careers leadership develops well across the country. There are still some pressures that we commonly see. Firstly, a lack of strategic leadership support. This strategic support allows careers to be aligned when it's done well to school development and improvement priorities. Another potential barrier for careers leaders is when they are being asked to undertake two roles. So that of the role of careers leader which is oversight and leadership of the whole careers programme in an institution. But also sometimes it can be problematic when the careers leader is also asked to undertake the role of impartial specialists careers advisor. Both of these roles are essential within the careers guidance system. But both of them are significant in size. And if we see those two roles conflated it can pose challenges for careers leaders. In some cases, careers leaders have a lack of allocated time and resource. For example, it might be still commonplace in some institutions, for careers leaders to have a small TLR (teaching and learning responsibility) and a couple of hours a week allocated to careers leadership. In the context of the size of the role and the achievement of the eight Gatsby benchmarks. This is likely to be insufficient, unless there is well layered wider operational support for the careers leader. And sometimes careers leaders can tell us that they're a lone voice. However, I like to liken careers to agendas like literacy, and the development of literac

In this episode, Shreena Kotecha (Head of Strategy) talks to Lee Owston (Deputy Director, Schools and Early Education) and Wendy Ratcliff (Principal Officer, Early Education) about the second part of our early years research review series. Wendy and Lee explain how this report builds on the first part of the series and share what the next report will focus on. Transcript Shreena Kotecha  Hi everyone, welcome to this edition of the Ofsted Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about the Best start in life part two research review. And today I've got with me Lee Owston and Wendy Ratcliff, who both work on early years in Ofsted. I'm gonna start by asking, this report obviously builds on part one that we published late last year. Why is it so important that we're continuing to focus on education? Lee Owston Yeah, hi Shreena. Good, to talk to you again. It's absolutely vital that we have a focus on early education at Ofsted. It's obviously reflected in one of our strategic priorities, which is about the importance of all children getting that best start in life. Because we know that whether children have a good early education or whether they have a poor one, those experiences will live on and they will affect how they achieve in later schooling and actually in their life generally. And that's why I'm sure lots of people listening will have heard me say a lot, a child's early education lasts a lifetime. So we need to make sure that what we do in Ofsted, and in the sector as a whole is grounded in the very best evidence of what works. And this report is part of the series, so it's part two, and it's what we're trying to achieve, by really setting out what we believe the best evidence looks like. Shreena Kotecha  Brilliant. Wendy did you want to come in as well? Wendy Ratcliff Yeah, absolutely and thank you for asking me to join you today. Just building on from what Lee said, very much the work with our youngest children is so important. This report, we hope it's going to be really helpful for practitioners and for those who are actually working with the youngest children day in day out. Shreena Kotecha  Lee, can you tell us a bit about what the key findings from this report are? Lee Owston Yeah, there's hopefully lots in there and I think what's really important is that there should be no surprises. Much of the content will be very familiar to those working in early years settings. So just some of the things to highlight in the time that we have, communication and language we know is such a fundamental aspect of every child's thinking and learning and the rate of their development in this particular area depends absolutely on their interactions with adults. Actually, something that did surprise me in looking through the research and kind of pulling it together with the team was that more talkative, confident children actually receive more interactions and time with adults than the less confident, less communicative children. Which, to me is kind of counterintuitive, isn't it? But now that we have that, in our research, it's set out, I think it just makes everybody aware that we need to focus, particularly in terms of interactions, on those children that aren't necessarily going to come up and ask for our attention, those children that aren't going to be the ones that want to take us by the hand and lead us to the interesting things that they've spotted around the setting. So, I think if we don't address the fact that those children who are less confident in their communication and language have less of the knowledge and skill to be able to do that, then obviously, we're just going to cause those gaps, particularly for disadvantaged children and particularly for boys, to widen even further. And, in terms of personal social and emotional development, we know that that underpins children's early learning and emotional well being. We know that those warm positive relationships with adults really help children to understand

What are the common strengths and weaknesses we identified in how a sample of schools teach geography, PE and music? Ofsted has published three new subject reports in our series. We talked to the leads for each new report to get a quick preview of what they found and what teachers can take away from each report. Important messages included making sure that: there is a focus on geographical skills, the body of knowledge about how we do geography PE is for all pupils and that leaders think really carefully about lessons to support this music leaders ask 'what can pupils realistically learn, rather than just encounter in the time available?' Transcript Shreena Kotecha  Hi, I'm Shreena Kotecha, Ofsted's head of strategy. This week we're talking about our subject reports.   The reports evaluate the common strengths and weaknesses of different subjects in a sample of schools that we've inspected. They build on our research reviews, which identified factors that lead to high quality curriculums and each of the national curriculum subjects. We've already published reports on science, maths and history. And last week on geography, PE and music.   You can find all of our reports on our website or by searching 'Ofsted subject reports.' And just to pique your interest in these, I've spoken to leads for each of the new reports to get a preview of what they found.   First up, is Mark Enser who is Ofsted subject lead for geography. Mark, what did you find in this new report?   Mark Enser  I think one of the most important messages is just how much of an improvement there has been in recent years. When you look back at the report in 2011, the previous subject report, you can see that geography wasn't in a good state, across the country. It pointed out that, in too many schools, geography had been removed completely. Children weren't getting a geography education. And even when there were lessons that were called geography, the geography content had often been removed and replaced with more generic competencies.   But what we see in the report now, is that geography is very much back, it's alive and kicking. And much more thought is being given to what children should learn. So I think that's a really key message.   But there's also some really important messages on where we need to go next. We know particularly in primary schools, that there's been a lot of work on progression within a topic. So pupils learning more say about a topic on rivers, and the knowledge on rivers is built in a sequential and meaningful way towards an endpoint. But once they've finished studying that topic, they never come back to that body of knowledge. It just sits in isolation, they're not using it, they're not building on it in the future.   And then when we look at secondary schools, we find a similar problem at Key Stage 4, less so at Key Stage 3, but at Key Stage 4, the exam specifications have often become a de facto curriculum. So one of our main messages not just for people in schools, but for policy makers, for our subject associations and others, is that we really need to think carefully about how we turn an exam specification which prescribes content into a curriculum, which orders it in a logical, meaningful way that teaches pupils about the geography that sits behind that content. Simply working through an exam specification is not the same as teaching our subject and recognising the potential that our subject has.   Shreena Kotecha  And what messages would you like geography teachers to take away from the report? What can they take back to the classroom?   Mark Enser  There's a number of things that I'd really like teachers to take back. We've subtitled the report, 'getting our bearings.' And I think that's the first thing that I'd like teachers to take away is that it's a moment to pause, to look at where we've come from. And then to think about where we want to go next, as a subject community. It's an invitation to have those conver

In this episode, Mark Leech (Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement) talks to Matthew Brazier (Project Director, Supported Accommodation) and Rachel Holden (Senior HMI, Supported Accommodation) about the development of our plans for regulating and inspecting supported accommodation.Alongside the podcast, you can learn about the following related topics on our YouTube channel: Notice of inspection for supported accommodation What makes effective supported accommodation? Supported accommodation inspection outcomes We have also published guidance detailing what providers need to know about registering with Ofsted and running or closing a supported accommodation service. Transcript Mark Leech  Hello and welcome to another bite sized episode of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech [Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement]. Today we're going to be talking about supported accommodation. This is accommodation for 16 - 17-year-olds who are in care or who have just left care, and who may need a place to live where they're supported by responsible adults. Despite the need for support and guidance at this stage in their lives we know for many young people this is an uncertain time, and they've sometimes been placed in poor quality accommodation, which is why the Department of Education has asked Ofsted to start regulating the sector and make sure standards are high enough, to help young people feel safe and supported as they make the transition into adult life. Earlier, I spoke to Matthew Brazier, our Project Director for Supported Accommodation and to Rachel Holden, our Senior His Majesty's Inspector for Supported Accommodation about our plans for regulating this sector. We talked about what we think good supported accommodation looks like, what young people have had to say about their needs, and why this new area of our work is so important. So Matthew, hi, I think we should start by talking about the children who are placed in supported accommodation just to get a sense of who we're talking about.Matthew Brazier  Yeah, of course Mark. We think there's around 7,000 children in care or care leavers aged 16 to 17 in supported accommodation, that's what the data from last year tells us. And they'll have a range of different backgrounds, the needs can really vary, it's really important not to see them as an homogenous group. And when we inspect, we'll be focusing on how providers understand and meet those different needs. But generally speaking, they'll be children who are in care and care leavers who are able to manage an increasing amount of autonomy, or independence in their lives, while they still get the kind of help and protection that all children should expect. And as I say, there's around 7000, we think, which is a not insignificant number, it's pretty similar to the number of children in children's homes. So you can tell from that comparison that it is a large number of children but all with with different needs.Mark LeechThat's really helpful. Thank you. Rachel, in terms of the accommodation itself, obviously, supported accommodation is rather different to children's homes. It's a pretty varied sector. So what sort of thing are we looking at?Rachel Holden  You're right there Mark, it is very varied. And the regulations split it into four different categories. So the first category is like when you have a spare room in your house, so it's a family home. It's called supported lodgings and they're host families who're hosting a young person. And they share all your other living facilities that you have in your house, your kitchen, and they become part of a family really. So there's that type, then there's more like self contained flats. So like a bedsit or a studio, that type of accommodation. And then there's shared houses. So you might have three or four young people living and sharing the same house, but having, obviously their individual bedrooms. And then there's accommodation, which is a little bit more like a