Laura Tarantini-Amor, EAL & SEND Consultant, Harris Federation
The new Ofsted Inspection Toolkit has changed much of how we prepare schools in the Harris Federation for inspection, creating greater impetus for shared discussion and collective responsibility. Take disadvantage, for example. Many schools rightly prioritise safeguarding as the disadvantage that trumps all. But what happens when a student experiences multiple, intersecting disadvantages? How can we use the new Toolkit to encourage collaboration among colleagues who each hold only part of the picture? And where does EAL fit into this?
Our intersectional cohort
The Harris Federation has more than 55 schools across 16 local authorities, mostly in London. Across our 43,000 students, levels of SEND, EAL, pupil premium eligibility, and other intersecting needs are almost double the national average. Our students speak 185 languages and we have 2,000 multilingual students with diagnosed SEND, alongside significant numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and families living in temporary hotel accommodation. This has increased as Home Office dispersal policies have expanded into more outer London boroughs. We do not regard EAL as a disadvantage in itself. However, where limited English proficiency combines with social, learning, or pastoral barriers, those needs must be considered and addressed holistically.
What we do differently under the new Ofsted Toolkit
We used to conduct subject-based deep dives. Now we sample students across Ofsted subject trios and follow them through the school day.
We used to hold detailed discussions with middle leaders and specific post-holders, such as the designated safeguarding lead (DSL). Now middle leaders and the SENDCo have regular surgeries with the principal, ensuring information flows upwards.
We used to audit SEND provision in isolation. Now we review inclusion structures and collaboration across safeguarding, attendance, wellbeing, SEND, EAL, behaviour, and pastoral teams.
We also used to run “mini-Ofsteds” focused on areas such as curriculum performance, SEND, or extracurricular participation. Now we use the Toolkit’s descriptors to interrogate pupil experience, belonging, and achievement across our intersectional cohorts, triangulating evidence through data, observations, and student voice.
What we noticed
During preparatory learning walks, student sampling, and teaching reviews, we found students who flagged across all needs, e.g. in care, on the pupil premium register, had SEND, and were learners who used EAL. Discussions often revealed that safeguarding was leading support without coordinated conversations with other relevant colleagues.
EAL Coordinators were frequently absent from discussions altogether, and senior leaders were not always clear about who should be involved when reviewing these students. A recurring challenge was the status differential where an EAL Coordinator was a teaching assistant or paraprofessional who would not ordinarily be invited into strategic conversations.
What we did
To strengthen awareness, we mapped each school's inclusion team, bringing together colleagues dealing with safeguarding, attendance, EAL, SEND, pastoral, behaviour, pupil premium, wellbeing and, where relevant, medical provision, all on a single page. This gave staff clarity about key postholders and the intersectional inputs between different forms of disadvantage.
Schools established at least two roundtable meetings each half-term to discuss students with complex needs. Where staff lacked the status or contracted hours to attend, line managers participated on their behalf and fed actions back to them.
Addressing issues within our EAL cohort
Some schools have seen a sharp increase in refugee and asylum-seeking families. These students prompted reflections on mental health, wellbeing, EAL provision, adaptive teaching, Key Stage 4 pathways, and extracurricular access amongst the school staff. Attendance teams, safeguarding leads, and EAL Coordinators began working more closely to monitor attendance among students living in hotels. Where families had No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), schools explored how pupil-premium-style support could still be provided.
Many schools also fundraised or secured community donations for essentials such as toiletries, baby products, and winter clothing. Students often presented with undiagnosed medical or learning needs, trauma, curriculum access barriers, and reduced participation in extracurricular activities. Schools worked with specialist organisations including the NRPF Network, Refugee Education UK, the Refugee Council, Young Roots, and the International Rescue Committee to provide targeted support and expertise.
Further actions
We also recognised that SEND, safeguarding, and EAL had drifted away from curriculum discussions despite increased emphasis on adaptive teaching, inclusion, and the universal offer. The growing complexity of EHCP processes, navigating social care thresholds, and supporting traumatised EAL learners, combined with curriculum reform and new GCSE specifications, had pushed these teams onto parallel tracks.
To address this, we encouraged SEND or Inclusion Champions within subject departments. Having every curriculum area consider how to make teaching, assessment/exams, and enrichment more inclusive proved far more effective for embedding best practice. SEND and inclusion became standing agenda items at department meetings, allowing Champions to share expertise and relay concerns about individual students, and to consider their intersecting disadvantages.
A final word
Finally, recognising Ofsted’s increased focus on walkarounds with headteachers and principals, we encouraged regular feedback meetings between middle leaders, substantive post-holders, and senior leaders. A coherent whole-school narrative helps principals present representative pupil samples and respond confidently to learning walks. That is only possible when subject leaders and specialist post-holders consistently share detailed information upwards.
Children using EAL have always faced various barriers to accessing education, whether they are very able, have an undiagnosed SEN, or are coping with inclement national sentiment about their rights and status. Schools continue to perform a coordinating role for all public sector inputs, and a touchstone of continuity and acceptance for all our families.
Yet, we have found that in developing the expertise which allows us to corral various public sector services on behalf of our students, education’s viewpoint on the whole child can suffer, more so at the secondary than primary phase. In this respect, the new Ofsted Toolkit has provided our schools with an opportunity to reconsider how inclusive their approach is and to integrate disadvantage identifiers. It is a change our MAT has welcomed and, in embracing it, we have created wider opportunities for more precise leadership, keener staff awareness, and improved student outcomes.