Belonging: A Personal and Professional Relationship with SSAT
Belonging is fashionable in education circles right now. Together with achieving and thriving, it forms the first principle for inspectors under the new Ofsted framework. I approve of the sentiment behind this decision, even as I recognise the limitations of any inspection framework in espousing belonging and worry about the impact of a potentially shallow focus on belonging.
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Recognition: The Secret Sauce for Enhancing Student Leadership
As a English and History teacher, I adore etymology, which to my mind is nothing short of an archaeological dig into language. And so, I want to begin this blogpost on SSAT’s recognition schemes for student leadership with some etymological analysis of the word ‘recognition’.
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Double Trouble: What Ofsted reports tell us about doubled disadvantage for schools
New Ofsted data suggests schools facing double disadvantage receive greater scrutiny and lower gradings, especially on attendance and achievement, raising questions about whether inspection is reducing or reinforcing inequality.
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Six Months Later: What we are learning about the new inspection framework
This week marks the half-year anniversary of the introduction into inspection practice of Ofsted’s new inspection framework. SSAT’s Inspection Tracker is the most thorough attempt to get under the bonnet of the inspection process. This short post identifies what appear to be consistent patterns and established trends within the data, and notices microtrends that potentially show how the new framework is evolving in response to actual inspections.
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Blowing Hot and Cold: The New Ofsted Framework and the Challenge of Leading on Behaviour
Analysis of inspection reports since 2023 indicates Ofsted’s growing ambivalence toward behaviour. While attendance dominates the joint judgement area, low behavior coverage masks serious risks for schools issued specific "next steps."
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Attendance and the new Ofsted Framework: Some emergent insights
The new Ofsted framework promised to focus on inclusion. Achieving, belonging and thriving sit at the heart of the new inspection processes. As the most critical facet of inclusion, attendance should be reflected in the reality of school’s experiences of inspection, not just the rhetoric.
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The Volatility of the New Ofsted Framework for Primary Schools
This blog is the third instalment where we are looking at data from our tracking of Ofsted inspection reports, to show how the new framework is playing out for schools. Here we focus on primary schools and outline how the new framework and inspection processes appear to more challenging for this sector.
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How the new Ofsted framework is changing inspections
This post presents our first analysis of what is happening under the new inspection framework, based on almost 550 ‘next steps’ published in reports for schools that have been inspected since November 2025.
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A rose by any other name? Reading across old and new Ofsted inspection gradings
Twice in the past month, the HMCI Sir Martyn Oliver has made an identical claim about the new Ofsted inspection framework judgements: “There is no read-across from the old grades to the new”, a striking claim and one that is doubted by many in the education sector.
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Enhancing inclusion through student leadership: A case in point
With a clear focus on inclusion in the new inspection framework, what better way to show your commitment to this than through enhancing student voice and leadership mechanisms at your school?
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