Ofsted is an accountability mechanism, so has a critical role to play in monitoring what schools do and setting benchmarks for standards. However, the days of judging each curriculum subject individually have long gone. There is no separate grade for maths, history or science, and there will be no grade for RSE.
The new Ofsted framework is built on four key judgements: ‘quality of education’, ‘behaviour and attitudes’, ‘personal development’ and ‘leadership and management’. Taken together, with additional judgements for the early years and for 16-19 provision where appropriate, these form the basis of the overall grade for the school (either outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate). Inspections will now usually last two days, preceded by a 90 minute phone conversation with the Headteacher. The telephone conversation may be in two separate parts, as agreed between the headteacher and the inspector.
‘Quality of education’ is the key judgment most focused on the curriculum. Here, Ofsted set out their expectation that the curriculum will be ambitious and that learners must study the curriculum in full, with teachers having good knowledge of the subject(s) they teach. This is relevant to all subjects, including RSE.
When we surveyed 240 teachers of RSE in England we found that 29% had never had any training in RSE, and topics such as pregnancy choices and the harms of explicit online content were pinpointed as needing further knowledge and confidence to teach well."
"Roary Pownall, Ofsted’s National Lead for PSHE and for Citizenship, wishes to reassure school leaders that they will recognise, and take note of, good provision for RSE wherever they find it. RSE will be relevant to the ‘quality of education’, but it is a key aspect of ‘personal development’, where the quality of RSE, Relationships Education and Health Education will be routinely included in future inspections. Here, Ofsted will be looking for evidence that the school ‘prepares learners for life in modern Britain’, and this specifically includes ‘developing pupils’ age-appropriate understanding of healthy relationships through appropriate relationship and sex education’ as one of the most significant dimensions."
"Schools will be inspected under the new framework from September 2019 but, as stated in paragraph 220, they will not be penalised if they choose to start following the updated guidance on RSE from 2020, rather than adopting it a year early.
At the same time, it is worth remembering again that inspecting RSE is nothing new. Ofsted has always been concerned that pupils understand what constitutes healthy relationships, feel safe and are prepared for adult life. When school doesn’t feel safe for children, and when children don’t have essential knowledge to recognise abusive behaviour and how to get help, inspectors have an important role in shining a spotlight on areas of concern.
Ofsted published a thematic report: ‘PSHE: not yet good enough’ in 2013. This found PSHE teaching to need improvement in 42% of primary and 38% of secondary schools sampled. In 20% of schools, staff had received little or no training to teach PSHE education, and ’Teaching was not good in any of these schools’. An update to this report would be extremely timely. It would support schools with useful practical insights, and would go hand in hand with Government commitment to continuously improve RSE."
Statutory RSE and Health Education
Supporting schools to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people
RSE and Ofsted
Thursday 31st October 2019
The Sex Education Forum have published a useful article about RSE and the current Ofsted framework, which you can read in full here.
Some extracts are included below:
"Changes to the law, and the new Government guidance on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), Relationships Education and Health Education give this cluster of subjects the same status as other curriculum subjects. In the past there has been very wide variation in quantity and quality of RSE in schools, resulting in a complete lottery for learners. The new guidance on RSE spells out that governors and school management must ensure the subject is ‘resourced, staffed and timetabled in a way that ensures that the school can fulfil its legal obligation’.
