Martyn Oliver's speech at the Schools and Academies Show
Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted's Chief Inspector, spoke at the Schools and Academies Show in Birmingham.
Good morning, everyone.
It’s excellent to be here in Birmingham with so many dedicated school and trust leaders, and many people I’ve worked with in the past. It’s great to see you all. The scale of this Schools and Academies Show and the commitment you show to continuous professional development by being here speaks volumes about the collective dedication in this room, in this hall, to the children and young people in your care.
I was here last year to talk to you all about the Big Listen – our comprehensive consultation that invited voices from across the education sector to help shape the future of inspection.
Standing up here today, it certainly feels like we’ve come an awful long way since then. We’ve taken on lots of your feedback, we’ve put our renewed framework into the world, and new, improved inspections are taking place in schools, colleges and nurseries right now.
The journey we’ve been on has been a collaborative one, and it’s brought us to this moment of genuine, I think, transformation.
Thank you for playing your part
I want to thank you for that. Thank you for engaging with us throughout this process. Thank you for your candour, your insights – and yes, thank you for the challenge.
All of your input ensures that the changes we’re making are the changes we were asked to deliver, which is a renewed system that actively facilitates improvements to the ways that schools operate.
A system that gives parents access to more detailed and useful information about their child’s school or their nursery or college.
A system that’s fairer. Fairer to teachers: presenting a balanced report that highlights areas for improvement while also giving you the chance to showcase what’s best about your institution.
A system that helps raise standards of education for all children, particularly those who are disadvantaged or vulnerable – because they are the young people who need us, everyone in this room, to get this right most of all.
But you know that.
Because you’re the ones who welcome them into school at the beginning of every day. You’re the ones who make change happen in classrooms, day in, day out. You’re the ones creating those moments of inspiration, challenge and growth that transform young lives. Our role is to help you by shining a light on that work in a way that’s fair, thorough and genuinely useful.
I want you to feel comfortable and motivated by these changes. Not anxious, but energised by a system that accounts for the complexity and richness of what happens in your schools every single day.
Changes to our approach
And it should feel energising. This is truly a bold, defining change that fundamentally reshapes how we think about schools and, hopefully, how you all think about yourselves.
I’ve said before that this is about more than one word on a banner outside of school gates. No more will everything you do, everything your staff achieve, everything your pupils accomplish, be simplified by that one label.
Because you cannot tell a full, proper story with only that one word.
It is why we have introduced much fuller narratives that account for more of what happens within your school. An opportunity to more clearly articulate the areas where improvements can be made – whether that’s to curriculum, attendance, wellbeing or something else – and to shine an ever-brighter light on where we see things being done brilliantly across your institutions.
Because great things are happening in schools every single day. I know that: I’ve seen it first-hand throughout my entire career.
I fully and firmly believe that the changes Ofsted are introducing do right by your schools and by your pupils, and that they will empower parents to make genuinely informed choices about their children’s education.
We are helping parents to fully recognise these changes, so that everyone is united in understanding perhaps the most crucial change: that we have left behind the old grading system.
It’s that simple. This is not about reading across or mapping from the old grading system to the new. We cannot cling on to the familiar – it does not serve children, parents, or schools. We are all in this new territory together – all of us here in this room today, as well as your pupils, their parents and carers, and all the pupils yet to come through the doors of your schools.
And you all have a crucial role in this too: I urge you to lean into your collective agency. When you meet the ‘expected standard’, or achieve ‘strong standard’, or even if it’s not the result that you had hoped for – there is an opportunity to take those results out to parents and explain exactly what they mean and what you’re going to do off the back of it.
Some of you may have areas of your work graded as ‘exceptional’, the highest grade. And in those cases, it’s not only about taking that message out to parents – but also about putting it in front of colleagues across the country. Showcase your knowledge. Share what you’re doing. Inspire other schools and make this a self-improving system that works better together for all children.
Our focus on inclusion
Which leads me directly to inclusion. This is the thread that runs through every single thing that Ofsted does, and it’s something I am particularly proud of.
Because when I talk about inclusion, I mean it in the widest possible sense. Yes, we’re talking about pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. Yes, we’re talking about those supported by the pupil premium. We always have and we will continue to do so.
But we’re now also explicitly talking about children looked after by the state, those with caring responsibilities at home, those known to children’s social care, and all the other groups that make children vulnerable or disadvantaged.
These children have always been present and welcomed in our classrooms. But when I look back over my own career, I recognise the fact that, 30 years ago, I may not have been as aware of them as I would be today – or that I, like many other people, may not have had the language for all those specific disadvantages.
These previously unseen groups are now fully recognised in this framework. That’s progress. That’s how it should be. Because, as I say, these children have always been in our schools – we’re simply going to be better at seeing them and responding to their needs.
What we’re really talking about is belonging. Do all children feel they belong? Are there children with barriers that make it harder to belong and to thrive in school? And do we understand what can be done to remove those barriers?
How inclusion works with achievement
And what I know to be true – what I’ve seen throughout my entire career – is that inclusive schools – schools where every child feels like they belong – are high-achieving schools. These two things are not in tension with each other. In fact, being truly inclusive means setting high standards.
It means saying to all children: you too can achieve.
And with that comes expectation. Inclusion manifests in calm classrooms where every child can learn without being disrupted by one or two others. It means supporting every child to access a rich, ambitious curriculum. It’s present in the staff who understand that high expectations and deep compassion aren’t opposing forces – they’re two sides of the same coin.
Good outcomes matter. Let me be absolutely clear about that. Qualifications open doors. Exam results create opportunities. I am not diminishing that for one moment.
But achievement is measured in more than statutory outcomes and qualifications. It’s about realising potential and helping pupils to thrive.
It’s about the child who arrives at your school struggling with basic sentences, and leaves as a confident communicator.
It’s about the young person who struggled to see a positive future, and discovers a passion that changes the trajectory of their life.
Achievement is unique to every child. And driving up standards to help them get there should be all of our north star – shining above every school, in every community.
The scale
Let me be frank with you: in Ofsted this is the biggest change to how we work in 30 years.
Which also means it’s the biggest opportunity in 30 years. An opportunity that we must all seize together to reframe how we talk and think about inspection.
No one here wants to stay the same. Every single person and every single leader in this room wants to get better. That’s why you’re here today. That’s why you do this job. The desire for continuous improvement is built into the DNA of great educators.
I said before that this is about telling a more comprehensive story. About your schools, absolutely yes. About your students. It‘s also about your community and your context.
And with our renewed approach, we are taking those things into account.
We’ll use data to help us better understand your context – including factors like disadvantage or the proportion of children with SEND within your school. That gives us a well-rounded, more complete picture before we even step foot through the door on inspection day.
That aspect is crucial: but it’s never just about the data.
Inspection is a human endeavour. It’s about professional dialogue, about seeing your work in action, about understanding the particular challenges and opportunities in your setting. We have done all we can to ensure it’s done with you, not done to you in the new methodology.
Teacher and leader wellbeing is built into every aspect of how we’ve designed this renewed approach. Your workload matters. Your stress levels matter. The sustainability of your leadership matters.
We’ve heard loud and clear that inspection, I know this myself, can be a source of anxiety, and we’ve responded by fundamentally rethinking how we work with you during the inspection process.
How this will look and feel on inspection day
When we inspect, we are asking you to take us on a journey around your school. Tell us your story. Inspection is a chance for dialogue, and a genuinely collaborative process in which we’re thinking together about what we’re seeing.
It has long been an Ofsted mantra that we don’t want you to do anything special for Ofsted – but I’m not naive. I’ve been in your shoes many times. I know that everyone wants to put their best foot forward when the inspectors arrive, and I think that’s natural.
But just know that we’re not looking for a performance. We want to see the real life of your school. To understand what it’s like to be a child at your school. It’s easier to do that, if we all dial down the pressure felt by leaders over those inspection days.
We can never fully take away the pressure. But we can remove the pressure that is unnecessary.
So we’ve introduced the role of the nominee – drawing on positive experience from further education inspections – who acts as your representative on our team throughout the process. Their role is to help co-ordinate the inspection and ensure your voice is heard at every single stage of the process.
We’re sharing inspection grades earlier in the process, keeping you informed with no surprises.
And inspections start by looking at the ‘expected standard’ – everything you should be doing already, the things that are expected of you on a day-to-day basis as school leaders and in your teams. It’s an exacting standard – because parents and the government rightly have high expectations for schools. But it’s what children deserve and it’s what you as professionals want to provide for your communities.
So we start there, and when we see where schools might be hitting an even higher standard, or where they might need a bit more focus or assistance to achieve the expected standard, we’ll say so. Unlike the previous system that boiled it down to an overall judgement, it’s perfectly possible for schools to achieve highly in some areas, and require a little more focus in others.
Our report cards will give you that full, rounded picture of your school and the support you give every child – with no overall judgement. Parents will be able to see richer information about what you offer, with simple reassurances like green colour coding, to indicate clearly that hitting ‘expected standard’ means you are good to go. They’ll understand your particular strengths. They’ll see what you’re working on to improve. It’s a narrative that reflects reality, not a label that obscures it.
Feedback from the inspection pilots
This is happening already: we are inspecting right now.
Getting to this point meant spending considerable time testing, with pilot inspections in 115 schools up and down the country.
I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the volunteers, some in this room I can see, who took part in our pilot inspections. You have played such an important role in refining Ofsted’s approach, and we’ve had a chance to take your feedback on board, so thank you.
That feedback has had a few prevalent themes.
Leaders have appreciated the clarity of the inspection process – knowing what to expect, understanding the schedule, and having transparency throughout the two days.
They’ve valued the collaborative approach and the regular reflection meetings where they can discuss what’s emerging with inspectors. The learning walks, moving away from the old deep dive format, have felt much more natural and more representative of normal school life.
And there’s been an emphasis on the approachability of inspectors.
It’s all about building up to a bigger, better, fairer picture of inspection.
I quote the headteacher of Town Farm Primary School in Surrey, Asif Bhatti, who summarised it in TES as: ‘not softer, not easier, but more human.’
I’ll repeat those words again: not softer, not easier, but more human.
Because standards for children and learners will always be at the core of what we do. We must be, and we will always continue to be, rigorous. But we are doing this with you, not to you. A shared dialogue that gives schools the chance to shine without the stress.
It’s what we’re hearing from headteachers across the country: describing experiences as ‘constructive, reflective, and ultimately empowering’ experiences with HMIs who are ‘humane and respectful’.
These aren’t my words – they are the words of headteachers. And I am grateful to them, and to all who took part in the pilots and those who volunteered, for sharing their experiences. For sticking their heads above the parapet and saying with courage and honesty that actually, this looks like a positive change.
And I hope that this assurance from your peers who have road-tested the renewed approach will help you feel more confident ahead of your own inspections.
Confident that the inspectors accompanying you into classrooms will be approachable and supportive. Confident that your strengths will be seen and shared. And confident to make changes where you feel we’ve fairly identified areas for improvement. Because that’s great leadership: reflecting, improving, learning and sharing.
Where concerns have come up during pilots, we’ve addressed them.
We’ve made small tweaks to the inspection toolkit, including on how we evaluate achievement. We’ve adapted our strategies for smaller schools – for example, small primaries told us that having two inspectors on site each day made things much more manageable for everyone involved than three on day one, and one on day two. Small changes that make a big difference.
I’ve said it before: I know change is challenging.
When I was last here at this event, we were just sowing those seeds of change. And now, we’re seeing the first green shoots of our collective effort together. We now have to nurture them, those seeds, into a strong, self-improving system that children and parents deserve.
Thank you and wrap up
So I encourage you to seek out the stories of those who’ve experienced inspections so far, including on the pilot inspections. Continue the dialogue. Ask questions. Be curious.
And again, to those of you who will go on to have areas graded as exceptional – because I am sure that some of you in this room will – I’m asking you to be true system leaders. Share your expertise. Great schools should help other schools become great.
This is not just a change for the next academic year. I stated earlier that this is the biggest change in 30 years and that means the biggest opportunity in 30 years – an opportunity for more collaborative inspection, for richer dialogue about what makes schools effective, and for giving parents a better understanding about what’s going on in their child’s school.
Together, all of us, we have a chance to improve education for the next generation. Better outcomes, broader opportunities, and brighter futures for the young people that every one of us in this room serves.
Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your challenge – keep challenging us, keep making Ofsted better. And thank you for everything you do in schools and for children every single day.
I’m now happy to take your questions.