Ofsted is a name that will already be familiar to most parents and it’s one that you will continue to hear throughout your child’s secondary school education.
Understanding the reasons for the checks and their impact, will give you peace of mind that your child’s school is doing everything it can to ensure pupils receive a high quality education. All schools are required by law to be inspected, but how often it is visited will depend on how it has previously been judged. A full inspection normally takes two days. When they arrive the inspectors will look at the school’s self-evaluation and analyse the pupils’ progress and attainment. They talk to the headteacher, governors, staff and pupils and consider your views as a parent.
Inspectors spend most of their time observing lessons and looking at the quality of teaching in the school, and its impact on learning and progress. They also look at the personal development, behaviour and welfare of pupils, the promotion of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development; and how well the school is led and managed. Parents are given the option of providing their views. After the visit, the lead inspector reports her or his judgement to the headteacher and governors. The inspectors’ findings are published in a report for the school, parents and wider community. This provides information about the effectiveness of the school’s work and contains recommendations about what it should do to improve.
Ofsted has made changes to how school inspections are carried out to reduce pressures on teachers and school leaders. These include: Changes to how Ofsted inspects safeguarding – At the moment, even when schools are rated mostly as Good, if the school is rated as Inadequate on safeguarding, the school will receive an Inadequate rating overall. This is due to the importance of keeping children safe. But, in very rare cases where a school fails because of safeguarding issues alone, Ofsted will now follow up with a monitoring visit within three months to provide an opportunity for regrading. If the school has been able to resolve the safeguarding concerns, it is likely to see its overall grade improve. Ofsted will also make safeguarding requirements as clear as possible for schools and parents.
Clarity around confidentiality policies – To reduce pressure on headteachers, Ofsted will make it clear that they are allowed to share the provisional outcomes of inspections privately with colleagues and get support from them before the report is finalised and shared with parents. Ofsted reports will also talk about what the school needs to do, to reduce public focus on individuals, including headteachers.
Support for schools between inspections – Ofsted is giving schools more information about the timing of their next inspection. Schools will still get one day’s notice, but they will have more clarity about the year they are likely to be inspected. This will be particularly helpful for schools that have been exempt from inspection for many years. Outstanding schools are inspected less frequently than those with lower ratings. Outstanding schools that were last inspected before September 2015 are already receiving face-to-face seminars, to support them when the time comes for a new inspection.
Independent Schools Inspectorate. The ISI reports on independent schools’ compliance with the DfE Education (Independent Schools Standards) Regulations. It inspects schools that belong to the Independent Schools Council (ISC), which has more than 1,200 members. But ISI and Ofsted use a different framework and criteria for judging school quality and they use different judgement words too. ISI uses excellent, good, sound and unsatisfactory and Ofsted uses outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate. Another difference is that ISI inspection teams largely consist of practising senior leaders currently working in ISC schools. ISI inspectors judge ISI schools against the higher standards of academic achievement and extra-curricular activities in the sector as a whole as well as against national norms.
