Schools: For Schools

Preparing for an independent school inspection

Telling parents and carers

A school must take reasonable steps to tell parents and carers, including registered parents and carers of pupils who have been excluded or are away from school, that the school is going to be inspected.

We provide schools a letter to send to parents and carers for the school to use. The letter announces the inspection and has a short, confidential questionnaire for parents and carers, so they can tell the inspectors what they think of the school. It is available in English and many community languages. Schools are asked to send these promptly by email in order that parents and carers can return their completed questionnaires to the inspectors for the start of the inspection.

Pupil, staff and local authority questionnaires

We also ask schools to distribute questionnaires to their staff and pupils before the inspection, so that inspectors can find out their views about the school. In the case of inspections of boarding and residential special schools, the pupils’ includes questions for the boarders/residential pupils to answer about the boarding/residential provision.

Where pupils have been placed at the school by a local authority, the school will be asked to ensure that a copy of the questionnaire for placing authorities is sent to them.

School documents the inspectors will need to see during inspection

Schools are not expected to prepare anything extra for inspectors, but will need to make certain information and documents available to during the inspection.

Examples include:

  • class lists showing pupils’ names and national curriculum year groups
  • curriculum plans, timetables and schemes of work
  • records of pupils’ attainment and progress.
     

Further information

© Ofsted 2012. All Rights reserved

Are you registered?

x