We are grateful to Adrian Lyons for stepping in when the planned guest was unavailable. Adrian was one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education, one of the most experienced HMI in Ofsted with a national lead for economics, business and enterprise. He regularly led the inspections of secondary schools, primary schools and initial teacher training providers. He led major national surveys such as ‘Getting Ready for Work’ in 2016 and in 2019 was the lead HMI for Ofsted’s research into initial teacher education (ITE) training programmes. His role for many years involved working with directors to find solutions to individual and organisational problems. Now he works as an independent consultant and is a frequent keynote presenter across Europe.

The chat begins with the gents considering the value of Ofsted's Big Listen. Adrian and Frank reflect on previous surveys of views from Ofsted and note that the closed nature of the questions leads to fairly predictable responses. Also, the survey doesn't cover a number of important issues such as whether a single word grade should continue, whether more emphasis should be placed on school self evaluation and whether it is right to excluded data provided by the school.

Stan reflects on the recent IFS report on Sure Start Centres, Adrian considers the recent Ofsted report on Religious Education and Frank shares some views on how work experience opportunities are changing.

An interesting and varied chat. We hope you enjoy it.

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