Introduction
Ofsted’s new Education Inspection Framework (EIF) has sparked plenty of discussions – but what does it really mean for training providers in practice?
On Wednesday 26 November 2025, former HMI and Ofsted expert, Richard Moore, and Bud’s Senior Delivery Consultant, Craig Robinson, hosted an informal and insightful webinar discussion that looked beyond the policy documents to explore what the new FES toolkit will really mean in practice for providers.
If you missed it, you can watch the webinar recording here:
2025 FES Inspection Toolkit Cheat Sheet
We've also prepared a chat sheet for you on the updated FES Toolkit. It summarises the key areas, implications and the advice discussed during the webinar.
Questions & Discussion from the Webinar session
Q. ‘Extensive’ sounds too subjective to me to be honest…
A. Any judgement word Ofsted uses is almost always entirely subjective and in fact, 95% of an Ofsted inspection, if not more, relies purely on the subjective views of the inspectors. Even getting ‘secure fit’ against a particular evaluation area and gaining, for example, a grade of ‘strong standard’ is entirely subjective and, in fact, does nothing really to support Ofsted’s claim of secure fit leading to greater consistency.
Q. Subjective words could be replaced by data evidence?
A. Data evidence would still be entirely subjective. When you grade a lesson as many providers still do, that is entirely subjective. What data evidence could you use on an inspection apart from that concerning achievement/pass/retention rates? No one knows a figure for what constitutes good attendance nationally for off the job training and there are no overall figures for high grades for apprenticeship standards. How could we use data evidence to make a judgement about an interview with learners or employers or what you thought of the marking of a piece of learner’s work?
Q. Data evidence doesn't always show the full picture
A. Exactly and if it did, Ofsted could save huge amounts of taxpayers’ money by carrying out inspection remotely from an office and giving you a grade based on the very small data set available to them. They would never have to visit you to see the training or talk to learners etc. I have given providers grade 4 before now who have very high achievement rates – because they recruited learners onto apprenticeships who already had all the knowledge, skills and behaviours. So they all achieved and got high grades!
Q. Can you describe what is under ‘barriers to learning’?
A. It is in the Ofsted toolkit – see page 10 and the section on ‘inclusion’.
Q. The toolkit mentions ‘disadvantaged’ - as a provider does this mean we can ignore this, as Ofsted say this is someone who has had paid school meals?
A. For any of your learners, when it comes to things like free school meals or having been in care, they have to have received them or been in that situation within the past six years to be counted by Ofsted as ‘disadvantaged’. So that would rule out almost all adult apprentices for example in a training provider. And you would hope that any lead inspector would have a sensible and realistic discussion with you at the outset of an inspection about who does, and doesn’t, sit under that banner and therefore, who is in scope. There will always be anomalies and exceptions which you then need to discuss with the lead inspector.
Q. Will Ofsted pick these learners or can we select them?
A. Will depend on your lead inspector but they will almost certainly want to pick some of them to stop you cherry picking. And they will want to do ‘case sampling’ with a cross-section of ‘disadvantaged’ learners. They may allow you to pick some too so once you get the call, have it in mind as to who you might want them to meet. That can be more challenging when you run a lot of short courses such as employability skills or skills bootcamps as you have more churn of learners and they are not with you for long enough to know which ones would perform best in front of an inspector. And have a think too about which of your learners it would be inappropriate to follow around because of, say, a particular additional learning need or condition.
Q. Achievement rates %, does that include achievements achieved outside contract eg, non timely, or just those achieved within apprenticeship contract period?
A. Yes, if you mean learners past planned end date for whatever reason. In fact, if you have a lot of PPED learners, they are likely to home in on this to find out the reasons and what you are doing about it. They will expect you to have individual action plans in place for each learner to move them through Gateway if an apprentice and on to EPA.
Q. Do you feel that they will look at in-year predicted data to demonstrate progress in an inspection?
A. No, as I explained during the webinar. Sadly but understandably, no provider ever says to an inspector that their predicted achievement rates or best case scenario is/are going to be worse than the current position, last year etc. Very few people would own up to that during an inspection as you can probably imagine.
Q. In your opinion Richard, if 20 out of 21 apprenticeships offered are above national average for achievement rates, but 1 standard has fallen below and is currently at 50% achievement rates - would you consider this to be consistent in terms of the Strong standard?
A. This was a great question as we discussed during the webinar briefly and gets right to the nub of what does ‘secure fit’ really mean and are inspectors absolutely going to apply it literally and rigidly across the board in all cases for all providers. Or will they take a more pragmatic (and subjective!!) approach. And one can perhaps see where this might all go a little bit unfairly against those bigger providers who deliver lots of qualifications – e.g. apprenticeship standards. As you say, you have a lot of standards performing really well but one doing badly and showing declining achievement rates over the past two years. Does that mean you are ‘expected standard’ probably when you feel that overall your achievement rates are strong and that you should get ‘strong standard’. I wager this won’t improve consistency as one lead inspector will say ‘expected standard’ going by the book and another will take a more sensible (perhaps) approach that you are doing very well overall to have 20 out of 21 well above national averages and give you ‘strong standard’. Nothing Ofsted can ever do can guarantee lead inspectors all think the same. Perhaps one day inspection will be done through robots and AI and that might change!
Q. Will there be a big focus on CIAG? And how best to evidence this?
A. Undoubtedly as meeting the Gatsby benchmarks on CIAG is now mandatory for all ITPs. The best way to evidence it is for you to tell inspectors where you focus on it (typically in progress reviews or perhaps guest speakers), show them evidence of the discussions having taken place and to have learners who tell inspectors that they discuss careers and progression routes on at least a reasonably timely basis. Inspectors like to see these discussions taking place early in the learner journey and not just crammed in at the end. Do not take the view that because the learners are employed, you cannot possibly talk to them about careers as you always can. It is how you approach it that is key. Remember too that their employer might be giving them careers advice though that likely won’t be impartial. So it counts but Ofsted wants to see the impartial input too from you as the training provider. Have a look at the benchmarks too and see how you stack up against them.
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