Following the fallout from the testimony to Everyone’s Invited in the summer and news that a number of high-profile independent schools would be placed in “special measures” as a result of historical sex abuse allegations, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) rightly announced changes to its inspection framework, with renewed focus on areas such as sexual abuse and Black Lives Matter.
This new rigour should be welcomed by the independent sector, but what are the key changes and implications for staff?
A new approach to independent school inspections
One of the main changes is a shift in emphasis - there will be a heavier focus on informal conversations and exploring any negative comments, however small, from questionnaires and conversations held during the inspection.
Indeed, inspectors have been advised to source evidence directly from a wider circle - including parents, pupils and staff - to glean an accurate picture of what’s happening at a school both in and out of lessons.
Inspection evidence will no longer simply be triangulated; opportunities will be sought for free and frank discussions with the staff body, and inspectors have been asked to enable any weak points to be aired openly to build up the robustness of any inspection.
First impressions are still important, though. So, as part of this evidence base, schools should ensure their website is up to date.
Easy access to positive news and examples of school life will only help to provide a greater range of evidence of good examples for inspectors to consider in an educational quality inspection.
Everyone’s Invited: Relationships, sex and health education
In the light of Everyone’s Invited, it is perhaps unsurprising that inspections will focus heavily on a school’s relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) provision.
This will include how the school’s ethos supports PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) development, staff training and the role of Sendcos in supporting SEND pupils to access the RSHE curriculum.
It’s worth noting that inspection teams have been asked to reflect further on evaluating personal development outcomes, particularly moral development, if there are any issues with pupils’ understanding of RSHE aspects in school.
Similarly, inspectors have been asked to carefully consider whether the personal development outcome can be evaluated as excellent if a school has failed to roll out a proper RSHE strategy and pupil understanding is significantly lacking in this area. So this is not an area to neglect.
Equality: Black Lives Matter and Me Too
Inspectors will continue to focus on recent news events, such as the Black Lives Matter campaign. Inspection teams have already been doing this earlier in the year.
Single-sex group discussions may now be held to gauge the experiences of pupils, their views on how the school deals with incidents when they occur and the support pupils are given.
Explicit evidence of pupils’ experience of any sexual harassment or sexual violence will be under greater scrutiny and any issues followed up.
Safeguarding
Understandably, in this context, safeguarding checks will have more rigour under the new framework. Inspectors will be not just accepting a local authority designated officer (LADO’s) word that everything is OK.
Instead, through conversations with a range of staff, they will explore the school’s culture and processes for dealing with issues.
Schools must be able to evidence how all staff have been trained to recognise or deal with incidents.
Mental health and bullying
In a positive move, schools will now be asked about how they deal with concerns about pupil mental illness and more focus will be given to the effects of bullying on mental health.
Schools will need to evidence their systems for recording, tracking and tackling bullying - including how SEND and vulnerable pupils are protected. Schools will need to show the impact of any new systems or risk failing this aspect of the inspection.
More broadly, inspections are expected to also explore the school’s culture, openness and attitude to addressing issues.
Performance data and teacher-assessed grades
Reflecting on the recent Covid disruption, school leaders may be relieved to learn that reports will not comment on student outcomes against national benchmarks, after two years of teacher-assessed grades.
Furthermore, inspectors will not evaluate levels of achievement in September 2020, based on learning between March and September of that year; or take into account schools’ responses to Covid-19 during the spring and summer terms of 2020. Instead, inspectors will continue to evaluate the impact of teaching (whether on-site or online) on pupils’ outcomes.
And schools must be able to evidence how they have analysed different groups of pupils in their school (where cohort size allows).
Welcome changes
As a parent and school leader, I found the evidence presented to Everyone’s Invited shocking. Yet, sadly, Ofsted’s accompanying report showed these experiences to be all too common in our schools.
That’s why, as a sector, we should applaud this show of teeth from the ISI.
A continued focus on listening to the views of pupils, particularly around any safeguarding concerns, is especially welcomed. We must use this as an opportunity to step up, show leadership and be proactive in finding solutions.
Libby Nicholas is a managing director at Dukes Education
