School inspection

[InspectorPaws]

DS’s school have sent a letter saying that they believe “on reasonably good authority” that they’re having their inspection next week. They’re not supposed to have more than two days notice of an inspection. I’d like to get an accurate picture of the school from their inspection and I feel like they’re “cheating” to know this is advance when they shouldn’t. Their letter outlines some changes that may or may not go ahead depending on whether the inspection actually happens or not.

AIBU to expect an accurate assessment of the school? We chose this school in part because of their excellent rating and have been somewhat disappointed since joining.

Sorry, just to add in case it matters, it’s a private school so it’s not an Ofsted inspection, not impacted by the strikes and not impacted by the government and budgeting/funding issues.

But if the inspection is Monday then two days notice is Thurs and Fri so seems reasonable that they will have been notified yesterday/Wednesday PM

They haven’t been officially told. The letter says so. It says in the letter “the inspection is officially announced on a Monday morning when the reporting inspector calls myself and the inspectors arrive in school on Tuesday morning…”. Online says they shouldn’t ever have more than two days notice. The letter then says “we cannot be positive it is happening next week” and then “we will communicate with you first thing on Monday either way”. So they definitely shouldn’t know yet.

The LA will have a fairly good idea of which schools are due to be done, so you can kind of work it out. We know that if Ofsted stick to their current methodology, then we are 15th on the list which means probably late Summer or September for us but the close we get the better idea we will have.

It’s a private school so not involved with the local authority and it’s not an Ofsted inspection.

I work in a school as well and you can often tell when you're likely to get an inspection.

You tend to know when one is due - usually every 3 years, Covid aside.

The ISI can look at your school's online diary and see when the best week is - if the senior governors are away, the head is at a conference and you've mock exams going on then you won't get inspected that week! So, if the school is overdue an inspection, other schools who were inspected before your school last time were recently inspected and it's a "good" week next week when everybody is available then, yes, there's a good chance of an inspection happening next week.

There’s a limit to what a school can do to turn itself around in less then a week, there’s no reason to think the inspectors will see much difference than if they’d only had a day’s notice. All schools I worked at put on a show for inspection to some degree.

ISI have different criteria to Ofsted. The inspectors are usually members of SMT from other schools, so possible someone has tipped them off.

And you'll be sent an online form to complete covering all aspects of your opinion about the school, and your child (if year 5(?) and above) will also have one. So, if children complain about the food, for example, and then the school would have to give the inspectors the menus for the last 6-12 months to be looked at. As a previous poster said, you can't pull off a good inspection on a week's notice, it is something that the school works towards all the time.

It's Friday today and they're saying next week so they may be informed on Monday for inspection to start Tuesday which is indeed two working days notice.

I have Head teacher (LA schools) friends and they are usually anticipating approximately when they've Ofsted inspection is due and do know a day or two in advance (Ie they're told or heavily hinted at on Friday for inspection starting following Monday or Tuesday.. or the Monday for potential start on wed ..

For Ofsted inspections schools get called at lunchtime on the day before the inspection starts. The idea is to give as little notice as possible, while still allowing for a bit of practicalities like checking the headteacher will be there, governors can be available for a discussion, that the entire school aren't off on a field trip somewhere, that they haven't just had any major tragedies or flooding or the head was diagnosed with cancer 24 hours earlier - significant events that would warrant a deferral.

The Independent Schools Inspectorate is in effect self-regulation, where schools pay to be part of the group and inspect each other. Yes the DfE have overview of what they do, but it's pretty much marking your own homework. Take from that what you will in assessing how accurate reports of standards are.