Schools Week recently analysed Ofsted new report cards and found that grammar schools were frequently judged to have a ‘Strong’ standard for inclusion, despite educating far fewer disadvantaged pupils than neighbouring schools. Just 6% of grammar school pupils are eligible for free school meals, compared with around 28% of pupils in non-selective schools. Grammar schools also educate substantially fewer pupils with SEND. Yet under the new framework, they are more likely to receive Ofsted’s highest judgement for inclusion.

It seems that Ofsted is judging how well schools support the vulnerable pupils they educate,  but not considering whether those pupils are represented fairly within the school in the first place. That may be a perfectly legitimate measure of pastoral support, but many people would question whether a school can truly be described as having strong inclusion when it admits a tiny proportion of disadvantaged children.

Indeed, it seems plausible that, all else being equal, a school educating relatively few disadvantaged pupils or pupils with SEND will find it easier to provide intensive support for each individual, rather than a school educating many times that number. If so, a measure of inclusion based solely on the pupils a school already admits will systematically favour the schools with less challenging intakes.

The issue becomes even more striking when you look beyond grammar schools to the schools around them.

Former Ofsted HMI and national lead for mathematics Steve Wren recently analysed Ofsted judgements by school type, including the Department for Education category of ‘non-selective schools in highly selective areas’—it’s a mouthful, so we’ll call these schools secondary moderns.

This graph suggests that Ofsted thinks the ‘best’ schools for inclusion are grammar schools, and the worst schools for inclusion are secondary moderns. This seems hugely unfair to the schools around grammar schools who always admit the vulnerable pupils the grammar schools reject.

The reality of selective education is that secondary moderns educate far higher proportions of disadvantaged pupils, pupils with SEND and lower-attaining pupils because grammar schools use a selection test these pupils rarely pass.  Ofsted appears less likely to recognise secondary modern schools for strong inclusion, even though most sensible people would say their whole ethos is around being inclusive.

The same pattern appears in Ofsted’s judgements for achievement.

Again, grammar schools receive the strongest ratings.

This is hardly surprising. Grammar schools are designed to admit the highest-attaining pupils, so high levels of achievement are built into their intake. Secondary moderns educate pupils with a much wider range of prior attainment, and are bound to educate pupils who achieve less high grades in exams, on average.  45% of secondary moderns are judged below the expected standard for achievement.

As Ian Widdows of the National Association of Secondary Moderns observed, grammar schools are 11 times more likely to receive an Exceptional or Strong judgement for achievement than their neighbouring secondary moderns.


The implications go beyond a few surprising inspection results.

If schools are judged on how well they support those disadvantaged pupils they admit, but not on whether disadvantaged pupils are represented fairly in the first place, then the framework risks creating a perverse incentive. Schools educating relatively small numbers of disadvantaged pupils will no doubt find it easier to demonstrate excellent provision for every child they have, while schools educating far greater numbers of vulnerable pupils face a much harder task.

Grammar schools are selective because the law allows them to be. But an inspection framework should surely recognise the vastly different contexts in which schools operate. Otherwise, it risks rewarding the consequences of academic selection rather than recognising the schools taking on the greatest challenge.

This is particularly striking because it appears to sit uneasily alongside Ofsted’s own ambitions for the new framework.

When introducing the changes, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver made clear that inspections would place a much greater emphasis on disadvantaged and vulnerable children.

“If you get it right for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, you get it right for everyone.”

He has also repeatedly stressed the importance of understanding school context:

“Understanding and appreciating context sits at the heart of what we do.”

Those are welcome principles. But the pattern emerging from the new report cards suggests that they are not being applied in selective areas. Grammar schools, with comparatively small numbers of disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND, are more likely to receive the strongest judgements for inclusion and achievement. Secondary moderns, which educate far greater proportions of those pupils, are more likely to receive weaker judgements.

If Ofsted’s strongest inclusion grades are disproportionately going to schools that educate comparatively few disadvantaged and SEND pupils, while schools educating the largest concentrations of those pupils receive weaker judgements, then the framework deserves serious scrutiny. Inspection should recognise the schools taking on the greatest challenge, not inadvertently reward the structural advantages created by academic selection.