There was a flurry of FE & Skills inspection reports published this past week and we are definitely beginning to get a much clearer picture of what the different standards look like in practice.
Across the 28 reports I have reviewed this week, there are a significant number of Strong judgements. That gives us an increasingly useful evidence base for comparing the language Ofsted uses when practice meets the Expected Standard with the characteristics it highlights when practice goes further.
So, what appears to move practice from Expected to Strong?
Ofsted is clear about what Expected Standard means. It is not a mediocre outcome. Providers judged Expected are fulfilling the expected standard of education or care, including the relevant statutory, non-statutory and professional standards.
It is deliberately a high bar, but there is an unavoidable perception issue.
On a five-point scale of Exceptional → Strong → Expected → Needs Attention → Urgent Improvement, Expected sits in the middle.
For providers that have spent years aspiring to be Good or Outstanding, being told they are meeting the “Expected Standard” can therefore feel average, even though that is not what Ofsted intends it to mean.
So perhaps the more useful question for leaders is:
If Expected is the high baseline, what takes us beyond it to Strong?
The latest reports provide some interesting clues.
One of the clearest things from the reports is that providers receiving Expected judgements are often doing a lot well. They identify learner needs, provide support, employ experienced staff, sequence curriculums appropriately, undertake quality assurance, involve employers and monitor learner progress.
In other words, Expected can contain a considerable amount of good practice. What changes in the Strong reports is often the depth, consistency and impact of that practice. The language becomes noticeably different. We see phrases such as:
“highly effective”
“systematically”
“consistently”
“skilfully”
“comprehensive”
“substantial progress”
“significant impact”
“very high standard”
That language matters because it describes practice that isn't merely present, it is making a demonstrable difference.
Inclusion provides perhaps the clearest comparison between Expected and Strong. Across the reports, Expected providers frequently identify additional needs accurately, make reasonable adjustments and provide appropriate support. But the Strong examples seem to go considerably further.
In one Strong judgement, leaders have a carefully planned approach to inclusion, identify barriers before enrolment and systematically review the support apprentices receive. Importantly, leaders identified through their monitoring that apprentices receiving additional support were not achieving higher grades. They acted on that intelligence and those apprentices are now achieving higher grades in line with their peers.
That is a very different evidence trail:
Need identified → support provided → outcomes monitored → inequality identified → action taken → gap reduced.
Another Strong example describes staff systematically reviewing support to ensure that it rapidly and effectively improves progress, while identifying when support can be reduced to develop greater learner independence.
Compare this with an Expected judgement where leaders have extensive support arrangements; tailored coaching, reasonable adjustments, wellbeing plans, occupational health referrals and neurodiversity tools. However inspectors identify that leaders do not yet evaluate the impact of that support systematically enough to know whether it should continue, change or be withdrawn.
That distinction is important.
Expected: We identify needs and provide appropriate support.
Strong: We can demonstrate how effectively that support works, change it in response to evidence and show the difference it makes.
There is another noticeable distinction in the Strong Achievement judgements. Expected reports commonly describe learners making appropriate, suitable, steady or expected progress, whereas Strong reports tend to go further.
One Strong Achievement judgement describes apprentices making significant progress, with almost all moving to positive destinations and a very high proportion completing and achieving distinctions, including apprentices with SEND and other barriers. Their practical and written work is described as consistently high quality.
Elsewhere, learners receiving Strong Achievement judgements are described as making substantial progress, rapidly developing skills and producing work frequently above qualification requirements.
Another Strong example describes learners consistently making extensive progress, rapidly developing secure understanding, applying their learning to complex tasks and becoming workplace-ready immediately after completing their programme.
Strong Achievement isn't all about the headline achievement rate. The reports repeatedly look at:
progress from starting points → quality of work → depth of knowledge and skill → application → achievement → destination.
That is a much richer picture of achievement.
The same pattern appears in Curriculum and Teaching. Expected practice can still be very good. Teachers may be experienced, explain concepts clearly, sequence learning logically, use appropriate assessment and provide useful feedback. The difference in Strong reports appears to be the extent to which this happens consistently and expertly.
One Strong report describes teaching and training as “consistently of very high quality”, with tutors using substantial industrial and pedagogical expertise, skilful questioning, ample practice and assessment and feedback as constructive dialogue.
Another describes expert teaching staff making highly effective decisions about curriculum structure and using varied, well-considered strategies aligned to individual apprentices' needs.
And in another Strong example, leaders have developed consistently high-quality, well-planned curriculums through which apprentices develop complex knowledge and skills swiftly and apply their learning immediately in the workplace.
Again, the distinction isn't just: Do teachers teach well?
It becomes: How consistently well? How expertly? How well tailored? And what does that enable learners to do?
Leadership and governance provides another useful distinction. At Expected, reports regularly describe leaders as having an accurate understanding of their strengths and priorities for improvement. That is clearly important, but Strong leadership goes beyond knowing.
In one Strong judgement, leaders use data intelligently to understand why apprentices have not completed, take proactive action and demonstrate improved achievement. Board members scrutinise information rigorously and their challenge has led to improvements in curriculum and substantially improved achievement outcomes.
Another Strong report describes leaders rapidly implementing an improvement plan where provision did not meet their expectations, resulting in substantial improvements in learner retention and achievement.
This gives us another useful progression: Know your provision → identify the issue → take decisive action → monitor implementation → demonstrate impact.
The last two stages appear particularly important.
We see Expected judgements where leaders evaluate provision and take action but do not yet monitor the implementation and progress of improvement actions consistently enough.
So simply having a detailed QIP is unlikely to be what distinguishes Strong leadership. The evidence that the QIP has changed something might.
This is perhaps one of the most useful messages for providers.Strong does not appear to mean flawless. A provider can have Strong practice in one area and Expected practice elsewhere.
One of the latest reports has Strong Inclusion, while Leadership and Governance, Achievement, Curriculum and Teaching and Participation and Development remain Expected. Inspectors still identify further development of tutors' teaching skills as a next step.
Another receives Strong Participation and Development, while Achievement and Curriculum and Teaching are Expected.
This is important under a secure-fit model. Providers should not assume they need to demonstrate something extraordinary everywhere before Strong becomes possible. Instead, each judgement area needs to stand on its own evidence.
Across the reports, I think five characteristics are beginning to emerge.
Depth: practice goes beyond simply meeting the requirement.
Consistency: strong practice isn't confined to particular tutors, programmes or groups.
Precision: leaders understand different learners, programmes and risks rather than relying on organisational averages.
Responsiveness: when evidence shows something isn't working, leaders act.
Impact: critically, providers can demonstrate what changed for learners.
This doesn't mean these characteristics automatically result in a Strong judgement. Inspection is contextual and each judgement must be reached against Ofsted's standards. But they are strikingly visible in the language of the Strong reports.
Progression appears to look something like this:
We do it
↓
We do it well
↓
We do it consistently well
↓
We know who benefits and how
↓
We identify when it isn't working
↓
We change it
↓
We can demonstrate the difference
That definitely seems to be the story the Strong judgements are telling us!
If your organisation is securely operating at Expected Standard and wants to move towards Strong, the answer may not be to create another strategy, introduce another process or produce more documentation.
The better challenge is to interrogate the impact of what you already do:
That last question may be particularly important. Strong practice in pockets is not the same as a Strong system.
There is a risk that the new terminology encourages providers to see Expected as the new “average”. It isn't.
Expected is deliberately a high bar, and the reports show that providers can have substantial amounts of effective practice while receiving an Expected judgement. But providers will understandably want to move beyond it and the emerging lesson from these reports is encouraging.
Moving from Expected to Strong may not require providers to do more things. It may require them to do the right things more deeply, more consistently and with a much clearer understanding of their impact.
That changes the improvement conversation.
Instead of asking: “Are we doing what Ofsted expects?”
perhaps the more ambitious question is: “Where are we already exceeding the expected standard, and can we demonstrate that learners consistently experience the difference?”
Understanding where practice is genuinely Strong requires more than an inspection-readiness exercise. Providers need to be able to identify variation, investigate its causes and understand whether improvement activity is changing learner experience and outcomes.
The AiVII Platform brings together quality, performance and learner information. It helps providers see the information needed to identify patterns in learner progress, achievement, engagement, support and risk - all in one place. This gives leaders and quality teams a clearer evidence base for identifying where variation exists and where further investigation or staff development may be required.
Through AiVII Consulting, we can support providers to review their current position against the renewed Ofsted framework, identify where practice is securely Expected and where there is evidence of Strong practice, and focus improvement activity on the areas most likely to make a meaningful difference.
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