Ofsted calls on inspectors to monitor schools that are “gaming the system”

Ofsted has called on inspectors to consider whether schools are “off-rolling” pupils in order to make their overall results look good.

In a letter to inspectors, Ofsted’s national director for education Sean Harford said there is a need for all inspectors to “examine carefully the patterns of entry for pupils in qualifications where there was significant overlap in subject content”.

He went on to say that a large number of pupils were put in for certain combinations of qualifications which improved school results at key stage 4, “but did little to prepare pupils for their next stage of education, training or employment”.

Harford wrote: “We need to focus our attention on supporting schools that are doing the best by their pupils and by identifying the appropriate actions of some schools that make it more difficult for others to demonstrate real success.”

In the letter, he outlined that inspectors need to continue to monitor how well they inspect and report on the leadership of the curriculum and “gaming the system”.

Key areas which will be monitored are high entries for qualifications that are not core subjects; double entry in qualifications that overlap in content such as statistics and free standing mathematics qualifications; and entry for GCSEs in English language and literature when “the latter is not taught with sufficient time to support effective achievement”.