Independent school inspections

[Sunsnd]

Hi all,

I currently work for a bilingual international school in the UK. Having come from the state sector I have only ever experienced OFSTED. The school I currently work in is due their ISI inspection this year. How bad is it? Ofsted is awful and one of the reasons I left the state sector. I am already getting anxious about this inspection. I have also been told that I am heading up English this year which I was not expecting. What should I have ready for them? There really is nothing in place at the moment.

thanks for any help and advice. I am already getting my knickers in a twist

a :)

ISI is much more reasonable than OFSTED but it is still an inspection, so you are right to want to prepare. The best way is to download their inspection framework/ guidelines, as it will tell you what they are looking for. Your line manager should know all of this already and should really be guiding you.

Thanks for reply- unfortunately as the school is international all the staff including leadership have never been through a UK inspection before so we are all unfamiliar with ISI. Is there any where I can look to see the types of questions they may ask me as head of English ?

If you’re prepared for ofsted then isi will be an absolute dream in comparison. Think the difference between trying to catch you out vs actively willing you to show them what they’re looking for.

My DH now works in private education and says ISI are far more reasonable than Ofsted. Really Ofsted should look to ISI to help them sort themselves out. Obviously there is still pressure if an inspection because you want to show yourself at your best but nothing like the OFSTED pressure.

When I worked in independent the ISI gave nearly a week's notice before they arrived too!

Way less pressure than Ofsted which is good in many ways but I've also worked in one private institution where I was gobsmacked they passed the inspection and it did make me question whether ISI is really rigorous enough.

I mean, no one wants the awful Ofsted approach and I truly believe it's not fit for purpose - but we do need decent standards and tbh in that one school I was in, it felt like ISI were a bunch of 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' guys who really didn't want to rock the boat and were happy with things which really weren't ok.