A prison can have a curriculum, classrooms and qualified teachers, yet still struggle to provide a dependable education.
The crucial question is whether people can reach those classrooms regularly, feel able to participate and continue learning when their circumstances change.
Ofsted’s renewed framework for inspecting education in prisons and young offender institutions in England, introduced on 21 September, offers a welcome opportunity to ask these questions. Its stronger emphasis on inclusion and reading recognises barriers that deserve sustained attention.
The challenge is turning those expectations into everyday practice.
Over around 20 years in prison and offender education, including five years managing a Sport Studies and Health and Wellbeing curriculum, I learned to look beyond the lesson plan. My work brought together physical activity, psychology, personal development and behaviour change. It taught me to ask what would help someone take the first step towards learning, and what might prevent them returning.
For someone who associates education with failure or humiliation, entering a classroom can demand considerable courage. Difficulty reading may be concealed through avoidance. A teacher needs time and skill to understand what lies behind apparent disengagement, rather than making assumptions about motivation.
My own experience of dyslexia has also made me sensitive to the gap between what someone understands and what conventional written tasks allow them to demonstrate. Inclusion requires us to recognise ability while providing deliberate support with difficulties.
In my practice, physical activity and practical learning provided ways to begin conversations about strengths, choices and progress. A discussion about training could open a route into understanding the body, interpreting information or planning towards a goal. The educational task was to make that connection purposeful and build on it.
Reading deserves the same combination of ambition and sensitivity. Learners need skilled instruction, suitable materials and opportunities to practise without embarrassment. They also need reasons to see reading as useful in their own lives.
But even thoughtful teaching depends on conditions beyond the classroom.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons’ 2025–26 annual report describes insufficient education, work and training places, alongside problems with attendance, punctuality and teaching quality. It also warns about cuts to provision and the loss of specialist teaching staff. These findings expose the distance between educational ambition and delivery.
A missed lesson should therefore prompt questions about its cause. Was the learner unwilling to attend, unable to leave the wing, afraid of another prisoner or waiting for support? Recording absence without understanding it risks directing responsibility towards the person with least control.
For the renewed framework to make a difference, three priorities deserve attention.
First, reliable access must be treated as a shared responsibility across the prison. Governors, operational teams and education providers need to understand why learning is interrupted and act together to protect teaching time.
Second, teachers need continuing professional development, specialist support and time to reflect with colleagues. Understanding learning difficulties, responding thoughtfully to distress and maintaining clear expectations are demanding professional skills. Staff need support to exercise them consistently.
Third, progress should include the steps that make sustained learning possible. Asking for help, attempting a difficult task and returning after a setback can matter alongside qualifications. These steps should lead towards meaningful educational goals, with learners involved in judging what helps them progress.
Education in custody also has value beyond preparation for employment. It can offer opportunities to think, communicate, make choices and experience achievement within an environment where autonomy is restricted.
Inspection can make barriers visible and strengthen accountability. Its promise will be realised when the wider prison system gives educators and learners the conditions to respond. A new framework should be judged by whether it helps make meaningful learning a dependable part of prison life.
