Ampleforth's latest failed Ofsted inspection

Ampleforth College was inspected (again) by Ofsted for its safeguarding last Novermber/December. It failed (again). The latest Ofsted report was published today on its website. It is a sorry read and I suspect it means the end of the school.

First, a bit of historical context. Ampleforth was the subject of extensive hearings at IICSA (The Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse) at the end of 2017. IICSA’s report published the following year severely criticised the school for abuses of pupils (some as young as seven years old) stretching over decades. The perpetrators were predominantly but not exclusively monks. The failure of the college and abbey to report the abuses or otherwise take effective action to prevent the abuse was also severely criticized.

In July 2019, in response to a failed ISI inspection, DfE sent Ampleforth a Warning Notice “requiring an Action Plan which details the steps that will be taken” to meet those of the Independent Schools Standards it was failing. These covered health and safety, child protection, complaints handling and leadership amongst other items.

Ampleforth’s first action plan submitted to DfE was rejected and had to be beefed up. Things seemed to improve, and two ISI inspections in 2020 were passed. But DfE received information to the effect that the second ISI inspection may have missed something important, and so commissioned Ofsted to carry out an emergency inspection in September 2020. Multiple serious problems were found.

As a result, in November 2020 DfE issued an Enforcement Notice barring the school from accepting any new pupils. If this ban were maintained for any significant length of time, it would have meant the closure of the school. No school can survive without new pupils.

Ampleforth’s initial reaction was to deny that there was a problem, complain that Ofsted had got it all wrong and threaten legal action to overturn the ban. This position lasted until mid January. At this point, I rather suspect that they received advice to the effect that legal action had very little prospect of success, and so they were going to have to persuade DfE that they had changed. So they withdrew the threat of legal action, admitted their faults, promised to improve and requested another Ofsted inspection to demonstrate that things were better.

That inspection happened in February 2021 and the report published in March. They failed again, about as badly as before. DfE declined to lift the ban but indicated that Ampleforth could ask for another inspection whenever they wanted.

Things were now quite desperate for the school. If it couldn’t take a new cohort of pupils in September 2021 this would almost certainly have meant the school having to close. No school can survive long without new pupils. But offers have to be finalized around Easter for the following September, and Easter was now very near.

So the school immediately asked for another Ofsted inspection. I suspect that they didn’t believe they would actually pass, but perhaps they might demonstrate sufficient improvement that they could persuade DfE to lift the ban while they carried on working at it. The inspection took place on 23 March.

They failed again, with little if any sign of improvement. Interestingly, Ofsted added another issue to their list of concerns: the governance of the school and the extent to which it was interlinked with the Abbey.

At the IICSA hearings back in 2017, witnesses and Ampleforth’s legal representatives went to great lengths to explain that everything was different now and the mistakes of the past could not be repeated. One measure that was said to have been taken was the separation of the governance of the Abbey and the school into two separate charitable trusts. But Ofsted had concluded that this separation was essentially in name only.

But by a miracle, even through the school had failed its third Ofsted inspection in six months, DfE lifted the ban on new pupils, claiming that the school had made “unprecented undertakings” to improve. There would be a further Ofsted inspection in the autumn term to see that those improvements had happened. Vast sighs of relief all round from the school, abbey and their various influential friends who had lobbied DfE on the school’s behalf.

And so to the present. Ofsted visited again at the end of November 2021, and as we have now seen, failed the school yet again. In a direct repeat of the previous autumn, Ampleforth is blaming Ofsted for getting everything wrong, and has appealed the outcome. This is why it has taken over three months for the report to be published.

The failures are all on the subject of safeguarding. In summary:

• The school doesn’t have control over which monks live at the monastery on site, who could include those who are judged a danger to children
• The children aren’t in a position to know the difference between those monks with a school role and therefore entitled to be within the school grounds and those who don’t have a role and shouldn’t be allowed in the school
• There was a serious incident around a sixth-form party involving drugs and excessive alcohol consumption
• Inadequate supervision leading to sex between pupils with special educational needs
• Failure to make a prompt DBS referral when a staff member is dismissed

On the positive side, experienced safeguarding staff had been recruited, referrals were getting made to external agencies, past records had been combed resulting in further referrals, and the safeguarding policy itself was compliant – although not being properly followed.

But even so, it obvious that there is a long way to go before there can be confidence in the school, and Ofsted bluntly said so. “The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective” and “there is still much work to do to ensure that the independent school standards are consistently met over time”.

Ampleforth is a long-established and prestigious school. It complained bitterly about the September 2020 report before belatedly withdrawing its objections. Those complaints included press articles from friendly journalists and commentators suggesting anti-Catholic bias was motivating Ofsted and the government. Ofsted would have known to expect something similar this time. One can therefore be reasonably sure that the report has been triple-checked for factual accuracy and thoroughly lawyered before publication. It is undoubtedly as bullet-proof as Ofsted and the government legal service knows how to make it. (The government legal service has some very good lawyers!)

Nonetheless, in its media statement in response to the Ofsted report, Ampleforth has claimed that “Ofsted's report contains substantive factual inaccuracies which undermine its conclusions about our safeguarding and leadership”. They go on to describe four specific cases where they claim that Ofsted has got its facts wrong about various incidents referred to in the report.

In a message to parents and alumni, the school has said

“We have used, and continue to use, Ofsted’s complaints process to try to demonstrate these inaccuracies and request revision of their assessment. At our request, Ofsted are now carrying out an internal review, but they have decided to publish the reports while the review is ongoing. During and since the inspection, Ofsted have viewed our consistent attempts to correct inaccuracies as a failure of leaders to accept responsibility. However, we cannot simply accept damaging errors and ill-founded judgements. The Abbey have also been in touch today to say they have contacted Ofsted directly to express concern about inaccurate statements about the Abbey and the Abbot which are contained in the reports. We are expecting a follow-up inspection after Ofsted’s review has finished and we are ready. Aside from being factually inaccurate, the cases Ofsted have raised are not linked and do not demonstrate systemic inadequacy."

Ampleforth’s big problem is that it hasn’t demonstrated to Ofsted’s satisfaction that there is substantial improvement in safeguarding. Their great fear is that the ban on new pupils will be re-introduced. Assuming DfE accepts Ofsted’s assessment, it is hard to see how Baroness Barran (Minister for the School System) could politically justify not re-introducing the ban.

But last academic year, the ban was introduced in late November and lifted in mid April, just in time for the school to confirm offers of new places for September. But we are now in mid March. If the ban were to be re-applied, then they would need to get it lifted by end of April at the very latest in order to make offers to pupils for September. (Easter is late this year, which helps somewhat.) That would mean another immediate inspection, and given how long this saga has now dragged on for, I can’t see DfE this time accepting anything less than a complete pass from Ofsted as justification for lifting the ban.

Ampleforth (Abbey and College) is also in serious difficulty financially. The school has been losing money. It is financially dependent on the Abbey (which owns the land and the buildings), and the Abbey has missed scheduled repayments on a substantial overdraft, which they hoped to clear with the proceeds of the sale of Gilling Castle. They haven’t yet found a buyer at the £3.5m asking price. This seriously complicates the problem of demonstrating that the school is independent of the Abbey, which seems to be an aspect of safety DfE has insisted on.

This suggests that Ampleforth has concluded that its only chance of survival is to fight Ofsted and try and get the report overturned, so that DfE isn’t persuaded that a ban is needed. My guess is that this is a desperate and probably forlorn hope. If they fail, they will further convince DfE that they aren’t willing and able to make the changes that are needed, and enforcement will almost inevitably follow. If that happens, the school will very probably close.