Source: Ofsted published on this website Monday 16 March 2025 by Jill Powell
Ofsted has announced that it is piloting a new way of involving more serving education leaders in the inspections of schools and further education providers.
Inspections already bring together the expertise of Ofsted’s full-time His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) and the real-time sector knowledge of contracted Ofsted Inspectors (OIs). This new pilot is exploring how Ofsted can enhance that crucial blend with even more shared insight into the context, challenges and day-to-day realities providers face, and how inspection can support improvement.
This is part of Ofsted’s commitment to making sure inspection teams include people with relevant, sector‑specific experience, who are best placed to understand the part of the system they are inspecting.
Currently, most OIs join Ofsted as individuals and their interaction with other OIs and HMI is largely limited to their inspection work. While this has worked well for inspection, it can restrict chances for two-way professional reflection and shared learning. The pilot is developing structured engagement opportunities for OIs, provided by the Ofsted Academy, to help forge an even deeper and more enduring connection between Ofsted and the education sector.
The scheme, which is already underway, involves OIs joining Ofsted as groups of peers drawn from the professional organisations and networks they’re already part of, such as multi-academy trusts, local authorities, dioceses, local school networks, independent learning providers and general further education colleges.
OIs recruited in this way will form a professional community with each other and with HMI. Ofsted will ensure they have regular opportunities to share feedback collectively and to reflect on what they’re seeing and learning day-to-day. Their experiences will then feed directly into how Ofsted continuously improves inspection.
