Local authority leaders have welcomed Ofsted’s greater focus on inclusion as part of the proposed overhaul of how schools are inspected.
The schools inspectorate has unveiled its new report cards for inspections following last year’s decision to scrap single-word judgements after the head teacher Ruth Perry took her own life.
The report cards, which will be introduced in the Autumn, aim to give parents and carers more detailed information, including a new 5-point grading scale to evaluate more areas of a provider’s work and short summaries of what inspectors found.
Among the areas proposed for evaluation are leadership and governance, curriculum, inclusion, and safeguarding.
Cllr Arooj Shah, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: ‘We are pleased Ofsted has acted on our calls for a much greater focus on inclusion, and on whether a setting is playing a meaningful role in supporting vulnerable and disadvantaged children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.’
She also added that local authorities would like to see Ofsted’s work informed by the adoption of a nationally agreed definition of mainstream inclusion.
