Ofsted responses to Laming inquiry and Singleton report
On 12 March, Lord Laming published his report T
he Protection of Children
in England: A
Progress Report. The Government accepted all of his recommendations and has now
published an action plan, setting out its detailed response.
Schools should be aware of Ofsted's response to both Lord Laming's
inquiry and to Sir Roger Singleton's report Keeping Our Children Safe, a review
of safeguarding arrangements in independent schools, non-maintained special
schools and boarding schools in England.
The Laming inquiry made recommendations that have direct implications for
Ofsted: "Recommendation 10: Ofsted should revise the inspection and improvement
regime for schools giving greater prominence to how well schools are fulfilling
their responsibilities for child protection"
As a result of this Ofsted have accepted the recommendation and will be
making revisions to their inspection framework for schools. The new school
inspection framework which will apply from September 2009 will have a stronger focus on safeguarding.
The current inspection framework already includes a judgement about whether
safeguarding arrangements in schools are satisfactory but this will be
strengthened in the new framework with a grading on a scale from 1(outstanding)
to 4(inadequate) for a school's safeguarding arrangements.
Ofsted have also designed that any school which receives a grade of 4
will be likely to be awarded an inadequate grade for its overall performance and
will need therefore to make urgent improvements. These arrangements will
hopefully 'raise the bar' about the importance of safeguarding in schools and
will also facilitate the identification and dissemination of best
practice.
The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has written to
schools to highlight the importance of this action plan and of the role that
teachers and other staff have in keeping children safe from abuse but it is important that all schools are aware that e-Safety is considered under
the Safeguarding umbrella and therefore schools must have policies and
procedures in place to ensure they are able to meet the aims of the new framework when it is
released. More information will be posted as soon as the new framework is released
To read the full response from Ofsted click here
For more advice and information click here