Ofsted has suspended all school inspections planned for this coming week and is in discussions with the Department for Education (DfE) about the “longer term picture”.

It comes after the inspectorate has come under intense pressure to call off routine school inspections of schools in England to help schools cope with the coronavirus emergency.

Wales’ inspectorate Estyn acted on Monday (March 16) to suspend routine school inspections in order to help schools stay open. In Scotland, inspectorate Education Scotland has also paused inspection visits.

In England, however, Ofsted had said on Friday (March 13) that it was “business and usual” and has published advice for schools on how to defer their inspection.

On Twitter on Saturday (March 14), Ofsted confirmed that it would “look very favourably on any requests to defer inspections because of coronavirus”.

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