Official Statistics

Main findings: initial teacher education inspection outcomes as at 30 June 2020

Published 27 August 2020

Applies to England

This is the main findings report for the Initial teacher education inspection outcomes as at 30 June 2020 release. The following are also available:

• underlying data
• methodology
• pre-release access list

Summary

This release contains:

• data for inspections completed between 1 September 2019 and 30 June 2020
• data for the most recent inspections and outcomes as at 30 June 2020

One hundred per cent of age-phase partnerships are good or outstanding. This remains unchanged since the end of June 2019.

Introduction

Teaching in England requires specific qualifications, as well as subject knowledge, experience or a previous degree. For example, to teach in a maintained primary or secondary school, you must have achieved qualified teacher status (QTS). Early years teacher status (EYTS) is available for those wishing to specialise in working with babies and children from birth to 5 years old. For those working in further education and skills, practitioners can work towards achieving qualified teacher learning and skills (QTLS).

Initial teacher education (ITE) is the overall term for the training provided that enables a prospective teacher to gain the required professional status or qualification.

Types of ITE partnerships

There are the following types of ITE partnerships:

• school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) – a consortium of schools, usually in a local area or region, providing graduate training for teachers
• further education training – training for those entering the further education and skills sector
• higher education institution (HEI) – a university or university college that provides undergraduate or postgraduate teacher training. An HEI usually offers an academic qualification that includes QTS
• Teach First – a charity set up to recruit graduates and train them to teach in deprived areas

Each of these types of ITE partnership can offer training for up to 4 different age ranges. These are called age-phase partnerships and cover:

• early years
• primary
• secondary
• further education

How Ofsted inspects ITE

In December 2019, the old ITE inspection framework cycle came to an end. A new framework has been developed over this academic year and different procedures will now apply for ITE inspections carried out from September 2020 onwards.

Previously, ITE inspections took place over 2 stages:

• stage 1 occured in the summer term and allowed inspectors to observe trainees at the end of their training; no inspection judgements were formed during this stage

• stage 2 took place in the following autumn and focused on observing newly qualified teachers or former trainees^{[footnote 1]}

Outcomes of the inspections were only finalised after the second stage.

Any age-phase partnership found to be less than good usually received a single-stage follow-up inspection within the same academic year.

In most inspections, a separate set of inspection judgements were awarded for each age-phase partnership. We would sometimes produce a combined judgement for both primary and secondary phases if a provider only had a small number of trainees.

If ‘provision is repeatedly of requires improvement or lower quality’, as defined by the Department for Education’s (DfE) Initial teacher training (ITT): criteria and supporting advice guidance, the DfE will often withdraw trainee allocations until the age-phase partnership has been judged to be good or outstanding. As a result, some partnerships close all or part of their provision when judged to be less than good. This is one reason why inspection outcomes are so high: weaker providers or partnerships often close, and closed providers are not included in the statistics on the outcomes for all open providers at their most recent inspection.

This release covers the age-phase partnerships that had the second stage of their inspection in autumn 2019.

New inspection framework and consultation for ITE

From 27 January to 3 April 2020, Ofsted ran a consultation regarding proposed changes to the ITE framework and handbook for September 2020. We have published the consultation documents, including the responses to the consultation.

We have also published the new inspection framework and handbook for inspections from September 2020. ITE inspections will normally take place during the spring and summer terms of each academic year. It is expected, therefore, that the first inspections under the new framework will commence from January 2021.

We carried out a programme of research and a series of pilot ITE inspections during this academic year in preparation for the new inspection framework. The pilot inspections are not included in this release.

Age-phase partnerships at their most recent inspection

Thirty-seven per cent of age-phase partnerships are outstanding, an increase of one percentage point compared with the end of June 2019.

All of the 340 ITE age-phase partnerships that we have inspected were judged to be good or outstanding at their most recent inspection. This is the same as at the end of June 2019.

Inspection outcomes are strong, with 37% of age-phase partnerships judged to be outstanding, an increase of one percentage point compared with the end of June 2019. Inspection outcomes are strong for all phases. However, with just 2 outstanding age-phase partnerships out of 19, early years has the lowest proportion of outstanding age-phase partnerships. Primary/secondary combined partnerships have the highest proportion of outstanding partnerships, with 46% of partnerships being judged to be outstanding.

Figure 1: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 30 June 2020, by type of partnership and age phase partnership (numbers)

Table 1: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 30 June 2020, by type of partnership and age phase partnership

Type of partnership	Phase	Number rated outstanding	Number rated good	Total number
HEI	EBITT - Primary	0	1	1
HEI	Early Years ITT (EYTS)	2	15	17
HEI	ITE in FE	5	16	21
HEI	Primary and Secondary	0	1	1
HEI	Primary	21	39	60
HEI	Secondary	19	45	64
ITE in FE	ITE in FE	0	5	5
SCITT	Early Years ITT (EYTS)	0	2	2
SCITT	Primary and Secondary	23	30	53
SCITT	Primary	25	21	46
SCITT	Secondary	21	38	59
TeachFirst	Primary and Secondary	4	1	5
TeachFirst	Primary	2	1	3
TeachFirst	Secondary	3	0	3
All partnerships	All phases	Total outstanding - 125	Total good - 215	Total number - 340

Inspections between 1 September 2019 and 30 June 2020

Of the inspections this year, 5 of the 7 resulted in an outstanding judgement. The remaining 2 were judged to be good.

We inspected 7 partnerships in the 2019 to 2020 academic year, each consisting of a single age-phase partnership. Of these, 5 were judged to be outstanding and 2 were good. We inspected fewer partnerships in 2019 to 2020 than in previous years (for instance, we inspected 62 in 2018 to 2019). This is because the inspection cycle, which ran from 2012 to 2019, came to an end in December 2019. A cycle is a set period during which we aim to inspect all providers once, usually under the same inspection framework. Consequently, during the 2019 to 2020 academic year, fewer ITE inspections were undertaken than normal. These focused on inspections of newly accredited SCITTs and follow up inspections of partnerships judged requires improvement and/or inadequate.

In 2019 to 2020 we also developed, piloted and consulted on a new framework. Different procedures will now apply for any ITE inspections carried out from September 2020 onwards.

Figure 2: Overall effectiveness of ITE age-phase partnerships, by year (numbers)

Table 2: Overall effectiveness of ITE age-phase partnerships, by year

Year	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate	Total
2019/20	5	2	0	0	7
2018/19	29	32	1	0	62
2017/18	26	39	5	0	70
2016/17	12	34	1	1	48
2015/16	33	47	8	0	88
2014/15	1	13	2	1	17
2013/14	16	42	4	0	62
2012/13	12	38	11	0	61
2011/12	8	55	13	0	76
2010/11	41	44	8	0	93

The inspection framework for ITE last changed on 1 September 2012: this is shown by the dashed line on figure 2.

The number of open partnerships

Figure 3: Number of open partnerships, by type, over time

Table 3: Number of open partnerships, by type, over time

Year	Number of partnerships: University-led	Number of partnerships: School-led
30 June 2017	76	183
30 June 2018	77	184
30 June 2019	75	180
30 June 2020	75	180

The number of both school-led and university-led partnerships (HEI plus ITE in further education) has stayed stable across the last 3 years. There are 3 fewer school-led partnerships and 1 less university-led partnership this year compared to 2017.

SCITTs that are part of a multi-academy trust

Outcomes of inspections for SCITTs in multi-academy trusts (MATs) are slightly more positive than those for SCITTs that are not in a MAT.

There are around 8,000 state-funded academies in almost 1,400 MATs. Of these 1,400 MATs, 100 manage ITE partnerships. All of these 100 partnerships are SCITTs.

The average size of the MATs that manage ITE partnerships is 11 schools, compared to an average of 6 schools for all MATs nationally.

One-hundred SCITTs are part of a MAT, which is the same number as in July 2019 and July 2018.^{[footnote 2]} These SCITTs have a total of 131 age-phase partnerships.

Ninety-one of these SCITTs have had an inspection of at least one of their age-phase partnerships, and 94 age-phase partnerships have been inspected in total.

Inspection outcomes are strong. Out of the 94 age-phase partnerships, 45 were judged to be outstanding and 49 were judged to be good.

Outcomes of SCITT inspections in MATs are slightly more positive than those for SCITTs that are not in a MAT. However, both are very positive because all SCITTs are either good or outstanding. Nearly half of inspections of age-phase partnerships in SCITTs that are part of MATs were outstanding compared to over a third for those that are not part of MATs. Although these comparisons are based on fairly small numbers (94 in MATs and 66 not in MATs), SCITTs make up nearly half of the ITE sector.

Figure 4: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 30 June 2020, by MAT SCITTs and non-MAT SCITTs

Table 4: Most recent overall effectiveness as at 30 June 2020, by MAT SCITTs and non-MAT SCITTs

MAT status	Age phase partnership	Outstanding	Good
Non-MAT SCITT	Primary QTS	11	14
Non-MAT SCITT	Secondary QTS	7	19
Non-MAT SCITT	Primary and secondary QTS	6	9
MAT SCITT	Early years ITT (EYTS)	0	2
MAT SCITT	Primary QTS	14	7
MAT SCITT	Secondary QTS	14	19
MAT SCITT	Primary and secondary QTS	17	21
Total MAT status	Total for all age phase partnerships	69	91

Revisions to previous release

There are no revisions to the previous release.

Further information

Contacts

If you have any comments or feedback on this publication, you should contact Louise Butler on 03000 131 457 or [email protected].

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the following for their contribution to this statistical release: Oli Bayntun, James Jordan, Jay Kerai and Matthew Spencer.

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1. QTS is only awarded for primary and secondary routes, not for ITE in further education or early years. ↩

2. These are MATs as defined by the DfE and include trusts that have been established as MATs but that currently only have one school. This is different from the definition used by Ofsted in our other publications, which is based on MATs that have 2 schools or more. ↩