The focus on reading in Ofsted’s current school inspection framework could have resulted in other areas such as maths getting less attention, the in an evaluation.
Revisiting schools to evaluate how the ) has impacted curriculum quality since 2018, the watchdog found that maths did “not receive the same attention as reading across the curriculum in the schools we visited”.
The EIF, launched under the previous Ofsted chief inspector in September 2019, placed an increased emphasis on the curriculum through a new quality of education judgement.
An evaluation published today highlights some concerns about the impact that the EIF could have had on schools’ approach to maths.
Ofsted findings on inspection framework
Inspectors found that schools were weaker in 2024 than in 2018 in terms of whether they regarded mathematical fluency and numeracy confidence as preconditions of success across the national curriculum. Ofsted says this was the only area of the curriculum that was weaker in the most recent visits.
Ofsted found that a quarter of the schools it visited had inconsistencies and weak strategies in this area.
The evaluation also highlights that “very few” school leaders that Ofsted visited identified any changes they had made to maths across the curriculum.
”Mathematics does not have the same high profile in the EIF as reading,” the evaluation concludes.
“The weaknesses in this area of curriculum intent perhaps suggest that the emphasis on reading in the EIF has led schools to prioritise this over other areas, such as mathematics.”
Ofsted revisited 20 schools last year out of 64 it had visited to carry out curriculum research in 2018.
In general, inspectors found that overall curriculum quality had improved, the curriculum was more purposefully sequenced, the structure of the EIF had influenced curriculum thinking, and reading had been prioritised.
Around a third of the schools that Ofsted revisited had made “major changes” as a direct result of the EIF’s focus on curriculum, the evaluation says. Improvements were “fundamentally driven by school leaders and staff”.
The quality of education judgement under the EIF evaluates schools on intent, implementation and impact of their curriculum.
The research found that schools did not always fully understand these concepts in the early stages of the EIF - particularly “intent”, which evaluates how the curriculum is constructed to give all pupils the knowledge they need, its planning and sequencing and the extent to which learners study the full curriculum.
Some schools produced statements of intent for their subjects rather than setting out clearly what pupils should learn in a logical order, inspectors found. Schools expecting an inspection soon after the EIF was launched believed they needed to demonstrate intent, implementation and impact in particular ways.
”This initial uncertainty around Ofsted’s expectations made some schools carry out unnecessary work,” the evaluation says.
Inspectors also found that while implementation for foundation subjects had improved since 2018, it was still weaker than for core subjects.
Ofsted says this was because assessment strategies were more developed for core subjects than for foundation subjects, professional development was more focused on core subjects and there were some weaknesses in planning and monitoring for foundation subjects.
Several primary schools that inspectors visited had moved away from topic-based teaching. Some said the EIF had prompted a “total rethink” of their curriculum planning.
Some primary school leaders felt that making sure knowledge is delivered equally across all subjects “can lead to rigid timetabling”. A few told inspectors they believed the EIF was “not designed with the primary phase sufficiently in mind”.
The EIF initially had a transition period to allow schools to adjust to the new curriculum focus. This period was extended due to the pandemic.
Ofsted is currently consulting on its new inspection framework in anticipation of launching it in the autumn. However, unions and school leaders have criticised the proposed new inspection report cards. Curriculum is one of at least eight areas that the watchdog is proposing to grade schools on using a new five-point scale.
Ofsted was contacted for comment.
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