Inspection explained (parents and carers)
We’ve answered some of your key questions below about the inspection process and the outcomes of an inspection.
The inspection process
How often are maintained schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) inspected?
Maintained schools and PRUs will have both a core inspection and an interim visit within a 6-year inspection period. The current 6-year inspection period is from September 2024 to July 2030.
What can learners expect during an inspection?
Our inspection teams spend time out and about talking to both staff and learners in classrooms, dinner halls, playgrounds and around the site to find out what learners think and feel about their education setting and their learning experience.
Before the inspectors arrive, there is an opportunity for learners to give feedback through an online questionnaire and similarly, parents and carers are invited to share their views through a questionnaire and at a face to face parents meeting with inspectors.
What criteria are used during an inspection?
During an inspection, we look at 3 key areas: teaching and learning; well-being, care, support and guidance; leading and improving.
What’s the difference between a core inspection and an interim visit?
Interim visits are not intended to draw overall conclusions about the effectiveness of the school, but they will support leaders to review progress since the last core inspection and consider their next steps for improvement.
The outcome of inspection
How are results communicated to parents and carers?
Following a core inspection, reports are published on our website 45 days after the start of the inspection. This provides an overview of the findings of the inspection team and highlights strengths as well as areas for improvement. We no longer give overall summative gradings such as ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, Adequate’ or ‘Unsatisfactory’ but our reports contain a summary of key findings. We also publish a more concise report specifically for parents and carers alongside the full inspection report.
Following an interim visit, we will provide feedback to the headteacher and publish a short letter on our website summarising the outcome of the visit. We will also provide some feedback to the school or PRU on the next steps in their improvement process.
What happens if the school or PRU needs follow-up activity?
During core inspections, the inspection team will consider whether the school or PRU needs any follow-up activity. There are two types of statutory follow-up activity:
- Special measures
- Significant improvement
Special measures and significant improvement require monitoring activity by Estyn inspectors, who will visit the school or PRU to evaluate the progress. Currently we do not publish details of interim monitoring activities during follow-up. This is because these visits are developmental in nature. We will publish a report once a maintained school or PRU is out of follow-up, or if they move from one follow-up activity to another.
Sectors other than maintained schools and PRUs have different follow-up arrangements. These may include statutory and non-statutory follow-up monitoring.