Are they adding value to schools, asks Durell Barnes

 School governors and senior leaders are much preoccupied by responding to government taxation policy. Next steps for inspection are not high on their priority list. But I would argue that some thought should be applied to this important area of school life in time for any amendments to be made to the inspection framework before the second three-year cycle of reporting begins in September next year. Heads will wish to exert influence over their associations once they are able to focus on the issue when current priorities have been addressed.

The sector is getting used to the framework. Schools generally know what to expect. The Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) is increasingly meeting its own deadlines. However, there are some concerns about the wider inspection regime which it is important for the sector to consider now. These relate to value-added in the context of an expensive process. Big schools are paying up to £50,000 for their inspection reports, based on an annual subscription of up to £17,000. Arguably, they are getting less value for money than they used to.

Value lost?

Schools no longer benefit from the regulatory commentary which provided authoritative guidance on how to meet the standards, provided by a highly experienced team well-versed in educational legislation and regulation. Regulatory compliance updates are not routinely provided. There’s no helpline for schools to turn to if they are uncertain about regulatory or safeguarding issues. This is particularly concerning as requirements relating to issues like reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete or cladding can emerge out of the blue. The ISI is no longer available for concerned parents or pupils or past pupils to raise safeguarding concerns. The benefits of peer review are less transparent now that the names of inspection teams are withheld from the public domain and some team building parameters have been abandoned.

Inspection teams infrequently benefit now from the inclusion of trained bursars. Inspectors receive extensive training, but there could be a greater focus on regulatory compliance, maximising the trickle-down effect whereby inspectors take the benefits of that training into their schools. The ISI will counter, rightly, that it is providing regular webinars, and that it will be introducing the additional inspector (AI) status this year, but webinars have not covered all the areas schools would like and it’s not yet clear how the AI system will work.

Schools have responded positively to the implementation of the principle of collaboration in terms of joint lesson observations and other inspection activities undertaken alongside school leaders. They have also recognised the benefits of having fewer requirements in terms of documentation to be produced prior to inspection, in line with the principle of manageability, although the guidance that inspectors will not look at any self-evaluation forms is seen by many as a retrograde step against the spirit of collaboration.

A very significant change in tone and approach in terms of collaboration was introduced in the second half of last term with the ending of the full feedback meeting involving the whole inspection team and school leaders and governors and/or proprietor(s) and its replacement by two tightly controlled meetings involving a much smaller number of people (both in terms of inspectors and leaders or governors).

Similarly, there is concern about the reporting of “significant strengths”. The approach here has changed from “show and tell” to something else: schools must not “signal” them; they must be found by inspectors; and confirmed by head office. The ISI has produced a useful slide on this which has been seen on its webinars, but the actual criteria here remain unclear to many stakeholders. We know that schools can be judged to have significant strengths alongside serious shortcomings and that fulsome feedback does not necessarily result in the accolade. There is no reference to significant strengths in the annual report, so we are none the wiser.

The involvement of team inspectors is reduced by the absence of the full team from any feedback or comment on the report prior to publication. Some school leaders feel that reports are bland and do not clearly distinguish between schools. They certainly don’t pull punches in reporting non-compliance where failings are clearly identified, referred to repeatedly and always associated with shortcomings in terms of standard 8 (the leadership of and management in school). Some reports are enlivened by examples or descriptions of things observed by inspectors. But there is inconsistency in this area.

Of greater concern has been a repeated refrain that reports don’t reflect feedback on the ground. The ISI is very clear that it has a process of enhanced quality assurance (QA), which may include inspectors returning to the school after the scheduled inspection, but it’s less clear what can cause findings to change from those given at the end of the inspection. The ISI has been frank that this enhanced QA caused sometimes significant delays in publication. These delays are obviously incredibly stressful for heads in particular and not in keeping with the emphasis the ISI has given to senior leaders’ mental health, for example in the mental health training which has been provided for all reporting inspectors. These factors may partly be behind the increase in complaints to the ISI listed in the annual report, apparently running at about 7% of inspections.

It’s important to consider these points before the second round of reports under this cycle begins in September next year. If there are concerns, we need to ask if schools will really benefit from having a second version of the current reports during this cycle. And consideration needs to be given to significant strengths in the second round of reporting – will they be like Michelin stars, in some cases given and taken away, with or without explanation?

Ways of adding value

Inspection reports are not marketing documents. They should reassure the Departmemt for Education and parents as to the degree to which schools meet the regulatory requirements and the quality of provision for pupils. The current framework may have lost important features which were previously valued but that doesn’t mean it cannot provide added-value in a new context. The current framework emphasises the importance of governance and leadership, effective internal QA and the active wellbeing of pupils and this reflects current priorities. The inspection activities and evidence which underlie the reports offer a rich vein of data which could be mined to add value to the sector.

At present, if you want to know how your pupil, parent or staff voice feedback compare with other schools, you have to go to a commercial company. The ISI could benchmark its extensive data on this and publish it. It could undertake deep dives into curriculum and other areas. It could draw attention to significant strengths in schools and identify how they are achieved. As the sector is developing new curricula and other innovations, the ISI could be bringing together its observations of these. Such initiatives would be very much in line with the principles of collaboration and transparency.

Changes are afoot at Ofsted and should be borne in mind by the ISI, although one of the virtues of an independent inspectorate is that it can offer a different approach. Consideration might be given to whether an annual safeguarding report and a post-inspection report card might be appropriate. Ofsted will offer schools a period of grace to fix any safeguarding issues which arise on inspection, where it judges the school’s leadership to be capable of resolving them, and this could be an approach also for independent schools. Ofsted is considering making all its training widely accessible online and this could be an excellent way of making the ISI’s well planned training visible to the whole sector.

I am a fervent advocate for an independent schools inspectorate. I want to see the current framework develop and improve alongside relationships with the sector’s professional associations which can and do influence standards in independent schools. It is important to ensure that an independent inspectorate is capable of advising and guiding schools, adding value as well as fulfilling its statutory requirements. We should be thinking about this now and be ready to counter any calls for a single inspectorate for all schools with an inspection regime which is well proven, communicative, trusted and effective, as well as rigorous. The entire education sector would be the poorer in the absence of an alternative way of doing things.

Durell Barnes is a freelance educational consultant and head of governance and compliance at educational consultant RSAcademics.

Durell Barnes