Sean Harford became National Director, Education in September 2015. Sean was appointed Her Majesty’s Inspector in 2003. Since joining Ofsted he has worked in school improvement, school inspection policy and organisational restructuring. His previous post in Ofsted was Regional Director (South).
Before joining Ofsted, Sean was a teacher and a successful senior leader in a secondary school in the East of England, as well as associate adviser for a local authority.
Follow Sean on Twitter @HarfordSean
The culmination of two years’ hard work for those about to take GCSEs, including my own son, is soon to be upon us. Once the exams are taken, marked and graded, the results will reflect the curriculum choices, planning, teaching, …
Periodically at Ofsted I become aware of misconceptions about inspection processes; what we look at and what people think is required by us.
Let me begin by wishing you all a very happy New Year. I hope you had the opportunity to relax and recharge your batteries over the holiday period.
As the term winds down and people start to plan for the Christmas period, I’d like to thank all our readers of this blog for their interest and engagement.
As we come towards the end of the autumn term it is worth reflecting on the revisions to the government’s Keeping children safe in education guidance that were made this September.
As you will all know, some of the myths about what Ofsted wants still persist in many schools among teachers, senior leaders and governors. Marking, in particular, has proved to be one of the harder myths to bust.
I hope you've all had an enjoyable break over the summer holidays. In preparation for back to school we have published our updated Section 5 and Section 8 school inspection handbooks. As promised earlier this year, we remain committed to making as …
As the academic year comes to a close, we'd like to say thank you to all those involved with schools, early years and further education for your hard work over the course of the year.
As the nation celebrated the Queen’s official birthday over the weekend, I found another good excuse for cake – Friday (10 June) marked a year since we published the first Ofsted blog!
On Sunday 17 April 2016 Ofsted, together with @HarfordSean, took over @SLTchat to host the regular #SLTchat Twitter chat. This Storify brings together a selection of senior leaders' tweets about the main topic - how Ofsted can avoid making extra work for teachers.