Amanda Spielman

Amanda Spielman is Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation. She chaired the exams regulator Ofqual from 2011 to 2016 and chief inspector of Ofsted from 2017 to 2023.

Tuesday

Amanda Spielman

Ofsted has lost interest in educating children

Ofsted published a note on its areas of research interest earlier this month, setting out more than 100 questions grouped under seven themes. It explicitly links these to the current chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver’s priorities and also states that the list aligns with the Department for Education’s research interests. It is a revealing and depressing document – both in what it says and also in what it omits. Above all, it tells us that Ofsted isn’t much interested in actual education any more. Just six questions are directed mainly at what makes and sustains good education for all children, of which three are about the impact of AI on mainstream education, two on apprenticeships and one on adult skills bootcamps. This is in itself jaw-dropping.

Wednesday

Amanda Spielman

Education officials are clueless about education

To understand why education reform – and school improvement – is so hard it helps to get inside the mind of the officials who are supposed to be driving higher standards. This week Jonathan Slater, a former Department for Education permanent secretary, published a report for UCL Policy Lab that perfectly illustrates many senior officials’ poor understanding of schools and of accountability in particular.  Slater is, admirably, determined to improve educational outcomes for poorer children. But in my view he is also appallingly ignorant about how to actually achieve improvement. He repeats the call – from those anxious to cover up under-performance – to replace Ofsted inspections (other than for safeguarding) with a new ‘evaluation framework’.

Saturday

Amanda Spielman

Amanda Spielman on the SEND row and Labour’s Ofsted blind spot

22 min listen

As Labour looks to get a grip on public spending, one rebellion gives way to another with the changes to the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system threatening to become welfare round two.  On this week’s Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots, Lucy Dunn is joined by The Spectator’s Michael Simmons and former Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman to explore what the government is planning – and why so many Labour MPs are worried. Is the system failing the children it's meant to support, or simply costing too much? And can Labour afford to fix it without tearing itself apart? Listen for: Amanda on the unintended consequences of the 2014 SEND overhaul; why teaching assistants may not be the silver bullet schools think they are; and Labour’s mess over Ofsted.

Monday

Amanda Spielman

Can the Tories save their education legacy?

13 min listen

Bridget Phillipson's schools bill is back in the Commons today. The scope of the legislation is twofold: firstly, looking at the welfare of children in schools and secondly at fundamentally changing the landscape of secondary education by doing away with academies (and with it the legacy of the previous Conservative government on education). The plan has been read by many – including former head of Ofsted Amanda Spielman, who joins today's podcast – as Labour pandering to the unions and perhaps even prioritising the adults (union members) over the children. Amendments to the bill will be debated this afternoon, including a Tory amendment that would ban phones in schools, although it doesn't seem that Labour is in the mood to make any concessions. What is motivating Labour?

Thursday

Amanda Spielman

Can Labour crack apprenticeships?

11 min listen

Today's GCSE results show an exams system that has largely returned to pre-Covid norms. It has also given the government a chance to talk about skills and apprenticeships – something that Bridget Phillipson's predecessor as education secretary was also keen on. Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Amanda Spielman, former chair of Ofqual and Ofsted, about the state of the British education system. Produced by Cindy Yu.