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What Ofsted Wants vs. What Learners Need

author
by
Vice President of Learning

“Your digital strategy isn’t an add-on. It’s your curriculum’s delivery system.” 

This statement captures a crucial truth at the heart of modern school leadership. As Ofsted sharpens its focus on curriculum intent and implementation, including the use of digital tools, and employers demand increasingly adaptive and technologically fluent learners, schools must rethink how digital strategy is embedded not only in infrastructure but in pedagogy.

The challenge? Aligning what Ofsted wants with what learners need.

What Ofsted Wants: Coherence, Inclusion, and High Standards for All

The March 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review underscores Ofsted’s continued emphasis on a knowledge-rich, well-sequenced, and inclusive curriculum. Crucially, the review calls for a curriculum that is "fit for the future," adaptable to AI-enabled workplaces, and effective in closing attainment gaps for SEND and disadvantaged learners.

This signals a shift from digital being a peripheral enhancement to being central to curriculum design and delivery. Ofsted is looking at how digital tools support:

  • Curriculum coherence: are we using digital tools to deepen knowledge, or distract from it?
  • Pedagogical implementation: are teachers using digital tools to support mastery and formative assessment?
  • SEND accessibility: do digital tools support diverse learners, or inadvertently exclude them?

In short, inspectors want to see that digital strategy is not a bolt-on but is intertwined with curriculum thinking.

What Learners Need: Digital Fluency, Lifelong Learning Skills, and Workplace Readiness

Employers, on the other hand, are calling for different, but related, outcomes. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies technological literacy, AI and data fluency, and resilience, flexibility, and agility as the top three fastest-growing skill areas.

By 2030, 59% of the global workforce will require significant reskilling or upskilling, with 50% of employers already planning to hire for roles requiring AI skills and 70% expecting to recruit staff with new capabilities.

In this context, digital education must go beyond PowerPoint proficiency. Learners need:

  • Real-world digital problem-solving e.g. through authentic tasks like digital storytelling, simulations, or collaborative research.
  • Feedback-rich environments enabled by technology.
  • Opportunities to apply metacognitive skills, often supported by dual coding and retrieval practice tools.

Where the Tensions Lie

Despite overlapping intentions, friction exists between what Ofsted mandates and what learners require.

Ofsted prioritises knowledge-rich curricula, often interpreted through traditional assessments and subject silos. But employers demand adaptability, interdisciplinary thinking, and digital-first fluency.

Schools are under pressure to meet Progress 8 and EBacc measures, which shape curriculum choices that often crowd out digital creativity, vocational tech, or computing beyond Computer Science GCSE.

Meanwhile, SEND learners remain underserved in both digital and curriculum design, something both Ofsted and employers are requesting to be fixed.

If digital is seen only as a delivery mechanism for content, not as a creative, adaptive tool to develop skills, it risks missing the mark on both fronts.


The Pedagogical Lens: Coherence, Feedback, and Inclusion

To bridge the divide, pedagogy must lead digital strategy. Three evidence-based anchors can guide this:

1. Curriculum Coherence and Sequencing

Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction advocate small steps, regular review, and scaffolding. Digital tools can enhance this by:

  • Supporting knowledge mapping and dual coding through tools like iPad, stylus and the screen recording feature;
  • Using low-stakes quizzes for spaced retrieval, aligned with curriculum sequences (e.g., Showbie Assessments).
  • Providing clear learning journeys visible to both students and teachers.
2. Feedback and Formative Assessment

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) rates effective feedback as one of the most impactful strategies (+6 months progress), particularly when it is timely, specific, and actionable.

Digital platforms can:

  • Enable adaptive feedback that supports learners at point-of-need;
  • Enable private submissions allowing SEND students to have a 1:1 private support strategy
  • Help teachers apply Dylan Wiliam’s formative assessment strategies, including exit tickets and peer/self-assessment;
  • Surface data analytics to inform next steps in curriculum planning and intervention.
3. Scaffolding for SEND and Access for All

The interim Curriculum Review highlights that learners with SEND are still progressing less than their peers. Digital tools must not exacerbate this gap. Instead, consider:

  • Text-to-speech, closed captioning, and colour adjustments;
  • Alternative input methods e.g. speech-to-text or switch control;
  • Tools like Immersive Reader to enhance accessibility.

Doug Lemov’s work in Teach Like a Champion reminds us that “no opt out” must include “all can access”. If digital isn’t scaffolded for all, it fails.

A Digital Strategy That Balances Both Needs

To balance Ofsted’s expectations with learners’ realities, leaders must design digital strategies with pedagogical intent and strategic foresight. Here’s how:

Embed Digital Across Curriculum Planning

Make digital an integral consideration when planning curriculum intent—not an afterthought in delivery. Link digital use explicitly to disciplinary knowledge and skill acquisition.

Train Teachers in Instructional Technology, Not Just Tools

Focus CPD on pedagogy-first digital strategy: how tools support modelling, scaffolding, and formative assessment. Use Lemov’s “check for understanding” alongside real-time data dashboards.

Review Digital Equity and SEND Access

Audit tools and devices for inclusivity. Apply the “least dangerous assumption”: assume all learners can achieve, and design digital access accordingly.

Build Employer-Led, Applied Digital Learning

Offer projects or modules that reflect real-world tools and tasks: AI problem-solving, collaborative coding, digital journalism. Partner with employers where possible.

Evaluate Impact on Learning, Not Just Engagement

Use EEF evaluation methods to track how digital supports attainment, progress, and metacognition, not just device usage.


Let your digital strategy be your curriculum’s strongest muscle, not its optional accessory.
– Abdul Chohan, Vice President of Learning

 

Final Thoughts

To paraphrase Dylan Wiliam: “Every teacher needs to get better, not because they’re not good, but because our students deserve it.” The same is true for digital strategy. It must keep evolving—not for the sake of technology, but for the curriculum, and the children, it serves.

By aligning pedagogical intent with inspection frameworks and labour market needs, schools can ensure their digital strategy delivers not just what Ofsted wants, but what learners truly need.

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