The Independent Schools Council is a politically independent, not-for-profit organisation representing 1,270 independent schools educating more than 500,000 children. It exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education, developing talent at all levels of ability and from all backgrounds.

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Ofsted emphasises its confidence in ISI

29 November 2005

Self-regulation within ISC really works - Tony Hubbard

The Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) has received a major boost on the eve of Tony Hubbard's retirement and his replacement by Christine Ryan.

Parents and potential parents should be encouraged that Ofsted found ISI reports to be "generally written well...are largely free from jargon and...do not contain grammatical and technical errors". Ofsted further found that, "The vast majority of reports paint a convincing picture of the schools and provide judgements that are clear and explicit...[and]...do not shy away from identifying areas of weakness. They indicate what the relevant issues are and what the school needs to do in order to improve. Difficult judgements, such as those concerning criticisms of aspects of management, are addressed directly, carefully and with due sensitivity."

Ofsted noted, in particular, improvements in the inspection of boarding schools, finding that ISI reports "demonstrated appropriate consistency in reporting on the provision [of boarding] and its contribution to pupils' learning and personal development".

According to Ofsted's annual report, launched today, "ISI has made good progress in improving further the quality of its inspections and the quality of its inspection reports." Ofsted regards the standard of both ISI inspections and reports as "almost invariably good". 23 of the 24 ISI inspections that Ofsted monitored were judged to be good, while 29 of the 30 inspection reports scrutinised were equally adjudged to be good.

Ofsted described ISI inspections as "well led and managed", and found that, in most respects, inspection teams are "suitably matched and deployed for the needs of the inspection to reflect the distinctive nature and character of the school". Their only criticism that applies to the new framework was that the quality of lesson observation forms is "still too variable".

Speaking ahead of his retirement at the end of the year, ISI Director, Tony Hubbard commented, "I am pleased that in a relatively short time ISI has established itself as a thorough, fair and constructively critical inspection service for ISC schools. We have demonstrated that inspections carried out by senior staff from Association schools are fully independent and help schools to improve. Self-regulation within ISC clearly works. At the same time, we at ISI recognise that the recording of lesson observation evidence is still an area for continued development and we are making concerted efforts to address this area."

He continued: "I am proud that ISI is a trusted partner of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Parents, teachers and heads can be confident that each school in membership of one of the associations making up the ISC is rigorously inspected."

NOTES

Schools that are members of the associations that constitute the Independent Schools Council (ISC) are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), the professionally independent inspection arm of the Council. ISI also inspects schools from the Council of British Independent Schools in the European Community (COBISEC).

Since December 2003, ISI has been the body approved by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills for the inspection of ISC schools and reports to the DfES under the 2002 Education Act. It also carries out joint inspections of boarding schools in partnership with the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

The monitoring of the ISI inspection system reports to the Secretary of State on:

whether inspections and reports comply with ISI quality requirements, as agreed with the DfES and set out in the handbook, report manual and procedure for team building;

whether inspections establish, and reports state, if ISC schools meet the standard for registration; and

any action ISI needs to take to address concerns about inspections and reports.

Ofsted monitors the ISI inspections through the work of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools (HMI). It currently monitors 10% of ISI inspections and 15% of ISI reports. This is Ofsted's sixth report on the inspection of schools by the ISI and covers the three terms from autumn 2004 to summer 2005. During the year ISI inspected over 200 schools. HMI monitored 24 of these inspections and undertook checks of 30 reports.

ISI inspection teams consist of practising or retired senior teachers from independent schools, led by independent reporting inspectors. Schools are normally inspected every six years. The inspections provide advice to the DfES on whether schools meet the statutory requirements for continued registration.