Inspection Consultancy
Our experienced consultants can run a bespoke inspection inset day in your school. Below you will find a list of our most enquired and booked inset days based around inspection in primary schools.To view other areas which our consultants have run inset days around or to find out more on our general inset/consultancy options
Inspection and Self Evaluation
We know how much school leaders value support around inspection and self-evaluation. Focus has been supporting schools in this way for 25 years. Like all our work, we make our approach fit your needs…
Pre-inspection
Testing out your self-evaluation and checking it is robustWorking with you to check your data and self-evaluation
Checking quality
provision matches your self-evaluation Validating the judgement you have made against the criteria Giving you peace of mind
Self-evaluation
Leading a school review (in partnership with leadership team) Carrying out a completely external review Evaluating impact of school improvement work
The new Common Inspection Framework has further changed the way an inspection team arrives at that all-important overall judgement.
You will gain an understanding of the inspection process, which will enable you to plan for and manage an inspection within your setting
- The effectiveness of leadership and management;
- The quality of teaching, learning and assessment;
- Personal development, behaviour and welfare;
- Outcomes for children and learners;
- The effectiveness of safeguarding.
We know that it can be challenging for school and academy leaders to ensure that all members of the team in school understand the need for rigorous self-evaluation. We also know this is essential if a school or academy is to be universally successful. Here are some of the types of training input we can provide.
- How good is your school and how do you know?
- Moving from good to great
- Pathway to excellence
- Getting your head around inspection
- Monitoring teaching; evaluating learning
- Writing self-evaluation that matters
- Self-evaluation for phase and middle leaders
- Self-evaluation for subject leaders
- Whole school self-evaluation
- Self-evaluation for governors
We can work with you on your SED or record of self-evaluation. Our team have masses of experience of work with schools across England in a diverse range of contexts.
- They can help you cut through the evidence to produce a sharp and incisive self-evaluation
- statement which pulls on your evidence and ‘tells the story of your school’.
We can work with you to ensure that your data ‘stacks up’ and tells the story of your school.
- This type of work might include an element of training and/or scrutiny of external and internal data. Focus can also work with you to ensure
- that you have manageable and robust tracking systems which work for you (see section on data and assessment for further information).
We can work with you to undertake a range of self-evaluation activities which built the emerging picture of strengths and developments within your school. Many schools and academies use this to back up and validate their own self-evaluation statement and often use the report with their governing body. These can include:
- Lesson observations
- Work scrutiny
- Data analysis
- Staff interviews
- Pupil interviews
- Parent interviews
- Governor interviews
8.00 – 9.30 Your consultant will scrutinise your latest Analyse School Performance (ASP) and any other relevant documents.
- 9.30 – 12.30 Your consultant will work with you, or you and your SLT, to challenge you as to why you are at least ‘Good’.
- 1.00 – 3.30 Your consultant will write up the outcomes from the morning and leave you with your completed SED.
We use our exclusive proforma, aligned with the new Ofsted framework, to take your information and break it down to the essentials that Ofsted is looking for.
Your information is transferred by us, leaving you with a strong self-evaluation ready for Ofsted.
- We require copies of the following in order to complete your Self-Evaluation Document for Ofsted:
- Your latest SED or SES
- Your latest RAISEonline/Analyse School Performance (ASP)
- Your latest set of test results
- Your latest Ofsted report
You may need to provide specific examples in order for the SED to better reflect your school.
Support with Writing the SED
Schools judged ‘Good’ in their last Ofsted inspection will likely now be facing a Section 8 Inspection; you should expect to be challenged by Ofsted as to why you are still a ‘Good’ school: Focus Education has seen questions such as ‘What is your judgement of your school?’
or, ‘What is it that you are most proud of about your school?’ being typical.
Preparing for this Section 8 Inspection ideally requires a different format for your self-evaluation document and Focus is offering a new service to support school leaders with this.
Designed to take place within your school over one day, [working with yourself and your senior leadership team] Focus will help you create a robust document ready to present to Ofsted and support continued improvement in school.
Analyse Your ASP
Amanda Spielman’s recent statements have shaken up the whole of the inspection framework. Her focus on the broader curriculum and the substance of education requires school to reconsider their monitoring and evaluating procedures.
The training will consider aspects such as the place of non-core subjects’ assessment as well as what we really mean by the substance of education.
