What’s new in Oaks: Ofsted AI, OBTLA AI and the IQA matrix

Meet Alana, our AI inspector. Start an Ofsted AI inspection and she asks your leaders the questions in the September 2026 FE and skills toolkit, out loud, one evaluation area at a time.

• Answer in your own words, and put evidence on the table: upload a document and she weighs it in her next question.
• Get coaching on every answer, so you know what a stronger reply would include.
• Focus on one area, or include your inspection readiness score so she probes where the data looks thin.
• Finish with a practice report card on the toolkit scale, graded for each type of provision you deliver.

It’s practice, not an Ofsted judgement. Ofsted AI is a paid add-on charged by the hour you use it. Find it under Ofsted → Ofsted AI.

OBTLA AI observes teaching and learning for you. Paste a Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet or Webex meeting link, choose the tutor being observed and Alana joins as a guest. Admit her from the lobby or waiting room and she posts a short notice in the chat, stays muted and listens.

When the lesson ends she drafts an observation of teaching and learning in your Quality register. Your observer checks it, grades it and confirms it, so the judgement always stays with your people.

• Who is who: Alana tells the voices apart, names them from the meeting and finds the tutor. You can correct any voice and she rewrites the draft.
• Send it to the tutor when it’s ready. They read it and respond from their action list. Learners never see it.
• Link it to a learner and it appears on their course record for your team.
• Tell her when to leave, ask her to leave now, or let her leave when the lesson finishes.
• Oaks keeps the transcript text. The audio is deleted as soon as the notes are written.

OBTLA AI is a paid add-on charged by the hour observed. Find it under Ofsted → OBTLA.

Tutors now have one Action list, with a count in the menu, showing what needs them next:

• Submitted work waiting to be marked, which ticks itself off once it’s marked.
• Progress reviews coming due across their caseload.
• Observations sent to them to read and respond to.
• Their own follow-ups, which they can edit or delete, with completed actions kept on the list.

Find it in the menu under Action list.

Plan how much each assessor should be sampled at interim, gateway and summative stage, and by which method: desk review, observation, professional discussion, learner interview or employer interview.

The matrix then shows planned against actual for every assessor. Each cell is rated red, amber or green against how far through the period you are, so you can see who needs sampling before the quarter ends, not after.

Find it under IQA → Plans.

• Observations of assessor practice: record the activity, a checklist and an outcome. Development needed raises an IQA action for the assessor automatically.
• Standardisation sessions are now built from real findings. Pick the samples marked action required or rejected and the observations that need development, and Oaks invites every assessor involved.
• A smarter sampling queue: each course keeps its own quota, every assessor on a course is sampled at least once, and an IQA is never given work they assessed themselves.
• Leads can send sampled items to each learner’s own IQA, and you can now sample diagnostic attempts and legacy imported decisions too.
• One daily IQA digest at 7am replaces the separate reminder emails.

A new Ofsted workspace brings your inspection evidence into one place:

• An inspection readiness score, and an evidence room that groups every report an inspector is likely to ask for by toolkit evaluation area, with your practice report cards beside them.
• Tripartite reviews: review gaps, employer signatures and comments, the evidence inspectors ask for first.
• A cohort KSB heatmap showing every active learner against every KSB, with the weakest KSBs highlighted.
• Welfare & Prevent coverage across the cohort.
• A learner journey PDF for any apprentice: starting point, progress, feedback, reviews, off-the-job, support and outcome. Every download is logged.

Give an inspector their own read-only login that only shows the learners you choose. You set the end date, and you can extend, revoke or reset it at any time.

Inspector accounts stay inside their own area of Oaks, switch off automatically when access ends, and don’t use one of your seats.

Type a standard reference such as ST0119 and Oaks fetches the published standard from Skills England, including its level, route, KSBs and options. Multi-occupation standards bring their options with them, so learners can be placed on the right pathway.

When your course already exists, Oaks keeps the details in step with the version you deliver.

The minimum off-the-job hours for each standard now come from Skills England. If the stored figure is unverified or more than 30 days old, Oaks re-checks it when you enrol a learner and shows where the number came from. A monthly check keeps every standard current.

Enrolment also suggests the practical period and planned end date, so they line up with the ILR rules first time.

A new welfare log on every enrolment records welfare checks, Prevent discussions, British Values coverage (democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance) and wellbeing concerns.

A safeguarding flag or urgent entry opens a safeguarding concern and alerts every designated safeguarding lead straight away. Ofsted views only ever show counts and dates, never the detail.

There’s also a new under-18 learners register for safeguarding and young-worker risk assessments.

When an apprentice goes through gateway, Oaks now freezes what was declared in a gateway pack, so the record can’t drift afterwards.

Record the EPA result for each attempt. Resits and retakes stay attached to the pack they follow, and a passing result is written back to the learning aim, ready for your ILR.

Find it on the learner’s record under Gateway pack.

The new ILR return close lists everything that stops a return being final: fields that changed in Oaks after it was exported, validation errors in the export, and funding rules still open.

Give each one an owner and a due date, check again against the live record whenever you like, and sign off the return once every row is resolved.

The reports library now opens with a Newest view, so new reports are easy to spot. Three arrive in a new Admin category:

• Deprived postcodes: every active learner matched to the official deprivation decile for their home postcode, using the right index for England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Filter by programme and choose which deciles count as deprived.
• Enrollment file traffic lights: whether each active learner has an enrolment form, PLR, skills scan and initial assessment on file. The enrolment list shows the same lights and can filter to learners missing a file.
• Learner care and programme: active learners, whether they are in care, their tutor, programme, and start and end dates.

Find them under Reports → All Reports.

Tell Oaks what kind of organisation you are, from an independent training provider or college to a university, employer provider, local authority or charity, and it adapts:

• Apprentices, students or learners, in the words you use.
• Date ranges that follow your funding year, academic terms or semesters.
• Funded provision switched on only when you deliver it.

You can fine-tune each one under Settings → Organisation.