Monday 24^th April saw the release of ISI’s new framework for inspection. As you will be aware, ISI began thinking about the new framework in Autumn 2021; schools were then invited to make comments during the consultation period in May 2022; and you may have received/be due to receive a pilot inspection from December 2022 until June this year.

ISI inspection periods typically work in six-year ‘cycles’ – the last one, ‘F16’, was extended for a year and ends in July 2023. Under the old framework, each school received two routine inspections within each cycle: Regulatory Compliance and Educational Quality. ISI are on track to finish the current cycle on time, so the first ‘F23’ inspections will start in September 2023.

Key Changes from the current framework:

• ISI have confirmed that they will NOT give an overall judgement, and have therefore abolished the four gradings: formerly excellent – good – sound – unsatisfactory. Instead, they will focus on ‘nuanced reporting‘ within the report itself (see below for more on the report).
• There will only be ONE type of routine inspection now, every 3 years, that will combine compliance and educational quality. There will be three types of non-routine inspection: material change; progress monitoring (when a school has failed to meet the Standards, it will be visited a second time, to inspect for improvement); and when the Department for Education have a reason for a school to be inspected urgently. Schools will be given a maximum of two days’ notice.
• ‘Routine inspections are scheduled for 2 and a half days and will begin at 12:00 on the first day of an onsite inspection. Inspectors will usually leave the school site by 18:00 on each day of the inspection.‘ (All quotes in this blog are from the ISI Handbook, or from ISI’s presentation webinar about the new framework on 25^th April.) Note that this is subject to change to observe elements of boarding provision.)
• ‘ISI may schedule aligned inspections of linked schools, particularly when schools share the same senior leadership team and proprietors. Where linked schools are inspected at the same time, reporting inspectors will liaise with each other and senior leaders to minimise the disruption and align inspection activities where appropriate.’
• The current framework has eight Standards, but these are being repackaged into five focus areas from September: these will be known as ‘strands’ and will all focus on wellbeing as a big driver of the framework. The five strands make up the sections of the new inspection report (see below).
• The meaning of ‘wellbeing’ for the purpose of the Standards and ISI values, is defined by Section 10 (2) of the Children Act 2004 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/31/section/10

Inspection Reports

The framework and inspection reports will comprise six sections, starting with a summary: in this, they will highlight areas of provision that they feel are ‘significant strengths’. Individual school context is important here – i.e. what is a significant achievement for one school might not be so impressive in another.

After the summary, the other five sections are:

• Section 1 – Leadership, management and governance (note: they want us to see governance as different from L&M; they also emphasise that leadership refers to leadership throughout the school, not just the SLT)
• Section 2 Pupils’ education, training, and recreation
• Section 3 Pupils’ physical and mental health and wellbeing
• Section 4 Pupils’ social and economic wellbeing and contribution to society (you may recognise this as two of the Standards combined)
• The final section (unnumbered) will be on Safeguarding

In each of these sections, ISI will decide if a school has ‘met’ or ‘not met’ the Standards contained within the strand:

   – If ‘met’, ISI will give you ‘next steps’.
   – It ‘not met’, they will give you ‘areas for action’. (Where there are weaknesses, ISI will consider the ‘reasonableness of the leaders’ decision making’, to put the weakness into a context, but above all linking this to its impact on the pupils. This is what they mean by ‘proportionality’ – see below)

‘If there are significant failings, or repeated failings,

that will be reflected in the text of the report.’

Reporting on the Early Years and National Minimum Standards for boarding will be included as applicable. ISI will continue to use Ofsted criteria when inspecting registered Early Years settings.

There are four principles on which ISI inspection practice is built:

1. Manageability of the inspection

‘ISI understands that inspection is a significant event for a school and will promote practices on inspection that, as far as possible, align with the day-to-day life of the school and do not cause unnecessary workload for the school or inspection team.’

ISI are clear that they don’t want you to do anything for the inspection that you don’t normally do.  They confirmed that they would like to see a school’s SEF uploaded to the portal. (They do have an official template, but you don’t need to use it.)

They do not want you to change timetables, cancel trips, cancel visitors etc; they’ve made it clear that they wish to ‘work around’ those things, even if it means they won’t get to see a certain year group, for instance.

2. Collaboration with the school

‘Inspectors will seek to work alongside school leaders and staff where appropriate to do so, discussing evidence and sharing emerging findings. The reporting inspector will liaise regularly with the headteacher or the DSL, keeping them informed of the emerging evidence and to amend the inspection plan, as required.’

3. Triangulation and typicality of evidence

‘Inspectors will consider a range of evidence when forming evaluations on inspection. Inspectors will look for evidence of what would be typical provision for pupils at the school over time. Inspectors will consider a range of connected evidence, including school records and by confirming the context of what inspectors are seeing, hearing and reading on inspection’.

During the phone call before the inspection team arrives, they will ask you when the best is time to talk to the different staff members, and fit their timetable around that of the school. They would like you to join them for various aspects of the inspection, namely book looks, lesson walks, tours of the premises, discussion of case studies, so that they can listen to your explanations and provide a context for the evidence recorded.

4. Proportionality in reaching judgements

‘When judging the extent to which a school meets the Standards inspectors will exercise their professional judgement. Where there are some relative weaknesses or minor errors that can be easily rectified, inspectors will take a proportionate response. Inspectors will consider if these weaknesses amount to a failure to meet one or more of the Standards. Weaknesses or errors which are indicative of systematic failings in the school’s processes and/or provision will lead to a judgement that the relevant Standards are unmet’.

Other things to note:

• The handbook is written for inspectors, not teachers/leaders, but they hope that its contents will become part of schools’ own QA processes.

• The new role of Associate Inspector during the inspection – this is a nominated member of SLT or MLT at your school who gets to shadow the process (without any kind of voting powers). This is new, and will start in the second year of F23, i.e. September 2024.

• The new inspection framework places a greater weight on seeking pupils’ views, wishes and feelings about their school. ‘Hearing the views of pupils is an important aspect of inspection practice and is triangulated with other inspection evidence.’

‘ISI Myths’

In the state sector, in a previous version of Ofsted’s handbook, there was a list of ‘Myths’ that many schools found quite helpful. We have therefore created an equivalent list for private schools facing an ISI inspection:

ISI do NOT expect a school to: 

• produce documentation specifically for the inspection
• collate samples of work specifically for the inspection
• reorganise your curriculum
• reorganise your timetable
• change lessons or cancel activities
• change or cancel off-site visits / trips
• cancel visitors who were due to come into the school

The full ISI documents can be found at:

isi.net/site/uploads/ISIdraftinspectionhandbookApril23.pdf

isi.net/framework-2023/inspection-framework/downloadable-version