Ofsted curriculum

Primaries rate poorly in Ofsted trial curriculum inspections Inspectorate's research found only eight of 33 primaries had strong curriculum compared to more than half of secondaries By John Roberts 11 December 2018 Share this Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Amanda Spielman, Ofsted, curriculum Less than a quarter of primary schools visited by Ofsted scored highly for the quality of their curriculum, new research shows. Its findings shows only 8 out of 33 primaries schools visited scored highly for their curriculum compared with 16 out of 29 secondaries. And nearly half - 15 - of the primaries finished in the bottom two of five ratings, compared to three secondaries. The inspectorate visited the schools to test how it could inspect the intent, implementation and impact of school curriculum for its new inspection framework. ADVERTISEMENT Ofsteds research showed that when broken down by subjects the overwhelming majority of high scores tat primary schools did achieve came in English and maths. Chief inspector Amanda Spielman said: "It is a truism that what gets measured gets done. English and mathematics are what are measured in primary schools. "It is hardly surprising, then, that they get the most lesson time and most curricular attention from leaders. It is clearly possible to do this badly, as we found in phase 1 where some schools were practicing Sats as early as Christmas in Year 6 and focusing on reading comprehension papers rather than actually encouraging children to read. "However, our results here appear to suggest that many more primary schools are doing it well. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the foundation subjects. It is disappointing to see so few higher scores in technology subjects, humanities and arts." And of the 14 scores from schools from science only two had either of the top two of the five possible ratings. Yesterday an academic warned that a lack of scientifically literate primary school teachers was a disaster for Britain. Professor John Baruch, director of the Leeds Beckett University Centre for Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said that the country needed to embed a science-based" curriculum but there was a woeful shortage of scientifically literate teachers in primary schools. Ms Spielman said earlier Ofsted research had found that almost all of the primaries looked at used topics or themes as their way of teaching the foundation subjects (not English, maths or science). However," she added. "The ones that were most invested in curriculum design had a clear focus on the subject knowledge to be learned in each subject and designed their topics around that. What appears to happen more often, though, is a selection of topics being taught that do not particularly link together or allow good coverage of and progression through the subjects. Ofsted's latest research looked at how it could assess intent, implementation and impact of a school's curriculum. The inspectorate visited more a total of 64 schools, including two special schools, to test its model of inspecting curriculum. It is the third piece of research on curriculum Ofsted has produced as it prepares to revise how it inspects schools under a new framework. Two months ago it visited schools said to be invested in curriculum design. The inspectorate said this showed that some schools took a knowledge-led approach to their curriculum while others design the curriculum around the development of skills. In a post published by Ofsted two months ago, Ms Spielman said the inspectorate found strengths and weaknesses in both of these approaches and that both knowledge and skills are important. Of the 23 schools visited around a third were described by Ofsted as having a knowledge-led curriculum, half were said to be knowledge engaged and a small group were skills led. This led to claims that Ofsted is biased towards a knowledge based curriculum. However the inspectorate has rejected this. Ofsteds new inspection framework will have an increased focus on curriculum as part of an attempt to measure the overall quality of education a school provides rather than just the grades. Earlier Ofsted research had found that there was a dearth of understanding about the curriculum in some schools.