Ofsted sentiment, shared challenges, evidence
Universal truths about teaching and opportunities to lean into them
Some universal truths about being a teacher:
You’ll experience Ofsted in some way shape or form.
You’ll need help from your colleagues at some point.
You’ll get to chance to pay it back when you share your work with them.
You’ll agree that following the evidence is good probably a good idea.
This week’s highlights from the We Are In Beta Community are reflection of those truths and offer you opportunities to lean into them.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we lean into shared experiences which make us stronger)
This week
🔎 Ofsted: school leader sentiment analysis.
🎁 6 areas of pastoral practice to share.
🤝 Subject support needs.
🔬 5 evidence sources schools use to inform their disadvantage teaching strategies.
🔎 Ofsted: school leader sentiment analysis
Last week I shared Principal Dan Opoku’s Ofsted experience. Since then several people have reached out to say thanks and ask me if it’s reflective of others’.
Having read and listened to a number of experiences, this is what I’m seeing and hearing so far in relation to two of the new aspects of the Ofsted framework:
The 3 principles inspectors consider when preparing
The evaluation areas themselves and the secure fit model.
1. The 3 principles:
Below, I list out each of the principles - and summarise school leader sentiment and how aligned they are around it.
celebrate the school’s strengths, validate leaders’ priorities and progress and highlight where improvement is needed - the key sentiment is that the framework and process is fairer and more accurate and school leaders seem to be aligned on this.
Leadership, inclusion and whether there is an open and positive safeguarding culture are key areas of focus - the key sentiment is that this is welcome and school leaders are really aligned on this.
The ‘expected standard’ in the evaluation areas in the toolkit is the starting point for planning your inspection activities - this is the principle that has attracted more negative sentiment and mixed alignment around it. The feeling is that it’s clearer that previous frameworks but still risky.
School leaders’ reflections suggest that Ofsted’s principles are largely being enacted as intended, particularly around:
professional dialogue
inclusion
humane conduct
However, anxieties remain around:
context
secure fit thresholds
how nuanced judgements are later received and interpreted
2. Evaluation areas (and secure fit model)
Below I list out seven of the evaluation areas school leaders from the community have spoken about - and summarise the main sentiments (and key views):
Safeguarding - Quietly positive (Embedded and clearer)
Inclusion - Very positive (Major improvement)
Curriculum and teaching - Cautiously positive (Holistic but interpretive)
Achievement - Mixed (Data still powerful)
Attendance and behaviour - Neutral–positive (Less adversarial)
Personal development and well-being - Strongly positive (More authentic)
Leadership and governance - Positive but pressured (Fairer, but demanding)
Disclaimers:
This was produced with the help of a sentiment analysis GPT I trained on Ofsted materials and anonymised experiences of recent inspections.
The sample size of experiences was not large (8) so caution urged when generalising.
Given how high the stakes are with Ofsted, my hunch is that publicly shared experiences are more likely to be more positive in nature. It will be interesting to see this evolve as more experiences emerge.
Have you been through a new inspection? What’s your experience been like?
We’re looking at running a series of events to help others prepare. They’d love your input.
Reply to this email.
🎁 Join the lineup at Pastoral Champions Week Conference 2026
It’s a great opportunity to pay colleagues back by sharing your work around these 6 areas…
Last year we helped 400+ of our members learn from 30 sessions and 100+ pastoral leadership resources across: AP, belonging, attendance, behaviour, safeguarding, personal development and more.
Now, we’re looking for practitioners to share their work at this year’s conference, so we can help even more learn how other schools tackle the trickiest pastoral challenges.
You can either
you can nominate colleagues doing incredible work that you think others need to hear about.
If you’re interested in speaking and want to see what speakers produced last year email kasia@weareinbeta.com to get free access.
What topics are we looking for sessions on?
Safeguarding
Attendance
Behaviour
Inclusion and SEND
Personal Development and Well-being
Leadership and governance of pastoral issue
We (and your fellow members, who said they want to hear other schools talk about them) would love to have you involved in the speaker lineup.
Any questions: email kasia@weareinbeta.com
🤝Subject support advisors needed
We Are In Beta is helping the leadership team at a secondary school find and place English support advisors
School and department context:
mixed secondary 11-16
near Preston, Lancs
high levels of PP and EAL
Historical English outcomes close to national but inconsistent.
Progress weaker than attainment, particularly for PP, low prior attainers and boys.
Persistent difficulty securing strong 4+/5+ conversion.
November mocks show widespread procedural weakness despite reasonable text knowledge.
Subject Support needs
The school is looking for someone to provide input / delivery / improve:
procedural routines for each exam question (Language & Literature).
sentence-level modelling, live annotation and shared writing.
diagnostic mock-to-lesson feedback loops.
CPD focused on exam literacy, modelling and feedback that leads to re-attempt.
6 one day visits over the course of a year (with some communications / follow up in between)
If you (or a colleague you know)...
have achieved (and can point to evidence of) improved outcomes from doing similar work in your subject
can offer (and have capacity to deliver) support across the year
believe you can raise outcomes for low attainers / pupil premium and EAL students in this English Department in this context...
(then we'll send you more information about the school, the project and the process)
Need help finding external support? Tell us what you need here.
Offer school improvement services? Register to list your services here
🔬5 sources of evidence schools use to inform their disadvantaged teaching strategies
Following the evidence is a good idea.
But what does the research say in relation to getting the best outcomes for your disadvantaged students?
And which sources of evidence do successful sources cite in their disadvantage strategies to support their approaches?
To answer these questions, we’ve collected the most commonly cited sources of evidence in pupil premium spending plans so you can find out.
Schools cited 76 different sources of evidence to support their approaches to providing the highest quality teaching:
Frequently cited sources included:
What are disadvantage and pupil premium leaders thinking about in relation to research and evidence?
All the speaker at the National Pupil Premium Conference in partnership with E-ACT have been told the 9 themes of questions attendees have on their minds.
They’ll be sharing how they research, select and evaluate their disadvantage strategies in their contexts.
Tickets are running out
On a personal note
When I think about Ofsted prep, sharing ideas and following the evidence, I think of my PGCSE mentor, Abdul Said.
He was pragmatic, incredibly generous and didn’t over complicate things.
Whether something was looming large, it was too tricky to manage or it wasn’t quite clicking, he would always be happy to help.
Experiencing that taught me the importance of helping others. Something I try and practise everyday.
I will be forever grateful that I was I lucky enough to meet him and work with him.
Thanks, Adbul if you’re reading.
If you want to practise it too, nominate a colleague for (or apply to speak at Pastoral Champions Week 2026. You’ll get load from it.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team
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