SPOTLIGHT

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Ofsted investigating unregistered schools “with one hand tied behind our backs”, warns Chief Inspector

Legal constraints still make it too easy for illegal schools to operate in defiance of the law, the head of Ofsted has warned in her annual report.

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, said the watchdog urgently needed stronger powers to seize documents. The Government also needed to tighten the legal definition of a school and of full-time education, she added.

Spielman insisted though that Ofsted had made “strong progress” in investigating unregistered schools and its work had led to three sets of convictions.

The watchdog’s unregistered schools taskforce has investigated more than 600 suspected unregistered schools since it was established four years ago.

Of those, it found reasonable cause to believe that an unregistered school might be operating in over 290 settings. It had inspected all of those, finding safeguarding or health and safety concerns in over a third of them and issuing warning notices to 83 that it believed were unregistered schools.

Since these warnings, over 50% of the unregistered schools visited had changed the way that they run to comply with the law. They achieved this most commonly by reducing their hours to below 18 hours per week. A further 14% had closed and 12% had registered as independent schools.

“However, the legal constraints around collecting evidence make this work much more difficult than it could be,” Spielman said.

“For example, we urgently need stronger powers to seize documents. We also need the government to tighten the legal definition of a school and of full-time education. Otherwise, we are investigating with one hand tied behind our backs.

“This is a frustration that I have had to repeat in every Annual Report I have presented, and conversations with government continue.”

The Chief Inspector said the lack of regulatory teeth encouraged some settings to continue in wilful non-compliance. In September 2019, a court convicted the headteacher and the proprietor of a school in Streatham of operating an illegal school, but “despite their conviction, the proprietors informed the presiding magistrate that they intended to continue operating”.

Spielman said this highlighted the need for greater enforcement powers to prevent those convicted from running these or other educational institutions.

In her speech unveiling the report she said: “Many of the places our unregistered schools task force investigates are unregistered alternative provision. These almost always offer a poor standard of education and are frequently unsafe.

“Most are simply not fit to be described as ‘schools’ at all. And it’s actually quite shocking to find that some of these outfits are commissioned by unwitting local authorities and therefore funded by the taxpayer. The authorities are simply not checking that these places comply with the law. And the law is not strong enough.”

She added: “Ironically, the laws designed to close a legal school don’t apply to one that operates outside the law. This is a loophole that has to be closed.”

The Chief Inspector added that Ofsted welcomed the Department for Education’s announcement of a proposed register of children not in school, which the DfE hopes will make it easier to recognise unregistered education settings.

“This in turn will help identify and tackle the misuse of home education to conceal children attending unregistered schools,” Spielman said.

In her annual report the Chief Inspector also said that:

  • Ofsted’s inspections of provision for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) had “exposed a lack of coherence and coordination”.
  • Local authority children’s services continued to endure significant financial pressures. “Challenges across children’s services are underpinned by a chronic lack of funding, set against increasing demand.”
  • In social care, Ofsted was seeing improvement: 48% of local authorities were now judged good or better after ILACS inspections, which compared well with 36% judged good or better in the first round of inspections under the previous framework.
  • The children’s home sector was facing “huge challenges in sufficiency and capability, which need national oversight and strategic leadership. There are not enough children’s homes in the right places across the country, and there is no central joined-up strategy or plan to meet children’s needs.”
  • Increasingly, decisions that affect children’s education and care were being made by central management in large multi academy trusts, nursery operators or children’s home operators. “Decisions about the curriculum, the model of care, staffing, safeguarding and behaviour policies go to the heart of what Ofsted needs to consider through inspection and regulation, but the legal framework for accountability is not keeping up with the evolution of the education and care sectors.”
  • She continued to be worried about the number of pupils leaving schools during their GCSE years. Some 20,0000 pupils left their state-funded secondary schools between Year 10 (2017) and Year 11 (2018). There were 340 schools with exceptional levels of pupil movement, of which around 100 had been inspected during the year.

A copy of the report can be viewed here.