Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“There is no doubt that there has been a welcome change of tone from Ofsted since the arrival of a new chief inspector and this response demonstrates a further willingness to engage in many of the current issues with inspections. The commitments to review notice periods and to share inspector training materials ae welcome, both of which NAHT has been calling for.

“The single most important recommendation in the select committee’s report was that Ofsted and the government should work together to develop an alternative to the use of single-word judgements. Ofsted must not shy away from this work. We recognise that this will require engagement with the Department for Education and we encourage Ofsted to start that work immediately. The current system of grading is causing enormous harm and not giving parents the information they need – the work to develop an alternative cannot start soon enough.

“Our position remains that pending the development of a new framework, Ofsted inspections should be ungraded, providing a short written summary of a school’s strengths and areas for development, as we set out in our report Rethinking school inspection in January.

“The funding of Ofsted is an issue for the inspectorate and the government, but if positive reforms, such as ensuring the right level of inspector expertise, require additional funding then that is something the government should take seriously.”