Getting together as a team of inspectors is an important part of our professional learning, but it’s not always easy or practical to do. With so many inspectors living and working right across Wales, we have to be quite creative with opportunities to meet and not a second is wasted.

For the past few years, many of you will know that we have been working closely with the Welsh Government, local authorities, regional consortia and schools as everyone prepares for wide changes in education. It’s important that all our inspectors understand the journey that providers are making as they prepare for these reforms. We’ve been using these professional development weeks for just this purpose.

For example, inspectors who have worked closely with pioneer schools to develop the areas of learning and experience of the new curriculum update us regularly. They encourage us to talk about the new and exciting things we are beginning to see happen in schools so that we know the sort of things we might expect to see when we are out-and-about inspecting schools around Wales.

Other colleagues have been involved in new or different ways of working, including carrying out some pilot engagement visits. They share their experiences with wider groups of inspectors, and together we consider the pros and cons of any changes. As you might imagine, people who spend their working lives being evaluative bring a wide range of ideas and opinions to the table. This encourages energetic discussion, which helps to shape decisions about how we inspect and about how we might work in the future. Senior leaders here expect and welcome contributions to decision-making from all inspectors and this keeps us all interested and engaged in our work.

Professional learning goes beyond the times we meet as a whole group. Throughout the year we shadow inspections in sectors we are less familiar with and go on paired visits with a specific focus. For example, a group of primary and secondary colleagues visited a secondary school in England that has a particularly imaginative and innovative approach to the curriculum. It was a real eye-opener, and made us think carefully about how we can encourage schools to think differently and be braver with the curriculum. On our return, we shared our experiences, which inspired others to do further reading and research on its philosophy and success, but nothing can quite replicate the understanding we gained by being there, meeting the teachers and engaging with the pupils.

Earlier in the blog, I talked about learning from others outside the organisation. Regular updates from a wide range of partners and stakeholders on a broad range of topics are a regular and crucial part of our professional learning. A recent session learning more about Adverse Childhood Experiences and the training currently being carried out with schools around Wales served as a timely reminder that education reform needs to improve the experiences and outcomes of all learners. If it doesn’t, why are we doing it?

All inspectors are carrying out a focused professional enquiry linked to our changing approach and their own interests. It’s early days, but colleagues have welcomed and valued the opportunity to participate in this type of professional learning activity. Personally, I’ve chosen to look more closely at how we evaluate provision to develop pupils’ digital competence in secondary schools. I’ve used our inspection reports and other publications to gather a baseline of the evidence we currently capture, and I’ll try out some new approaches over the next few months. After my research I’ll share my findings with my colleagues and will begin making amendments to our inspection toolkits.

Healthy and happy

In June 2019, our ‘Healthy and happy’ report explored the impact that schools in Wales have on pupils’ health and wellbeing. We found that twice as many primary schools as secondary schools were supporting pupils very well.

The report covers many of the issues already mentioned at the start of this post that affect health and wellbeing. However, there is a very important headline message to the report that mustn’t be lost amongst discussions about the individual issues schools need to have a ‘whole-school’ approach to supporting pupils’ health and wellbeing.

A whole-school approach

What do we mean by this? It’s that schools need to make sure that everything about the school gives a consistently positive message to pupils.

Let’s think about what happens when there isn’t a whole-school approach. Here’s a few examples:

• lessons about bullying lose their value if pupils aren’t happy with how the school deals with allegations of bullying
• learning activities around healthy eating have little impact if the food served to pupils, and the dining experience don’t promote healthy eating
• posters promoting exercise won’t make much difference if the school doesn’t provide enough time for pupils to be active.

In short, the everyday experiences of pupils in school have the greatest impact – positively or negatively – on their health and wellbeing.

It’s not an inspection

We’ll be in touch around 10 days before we visit. But there won’t be a formal notification period because it’s not an inspection.

During our visits, we’ll encourage, reassure, probe and provide a fresh perspective to staff on their journey to fulfilling the aims of the new curriculum.

There won’t be a written report for each school – the key outcome for us is that we gather important information about how the Curriculum for Wales is being progressed in schools across Wales.

Planning the visit

Before we arrive, the inspector will call the headteacher to agree a broad outline for the day. Activities will include discussions with senior leaders, governors, staff and pupils and we’ll also visit lessons and talk to pupils about their work.

Making the most of the visit

It’s a valuable chance for schools and HMI to have an open, trusting and professional conversation. Our experienced inspectors will be a sounding board for schools to share their early plans and initial developments.

The school can explain any obstacles to progress and explore with us possible approaches to overcoming these challenges. Inspectors will have observed other schools in similar circumstances facing similar challenges and will be able to signpost the school to interesting practice elsewhere.

Professional conversations between inspectors, leaders and other school staff are a key feature of the visit. 

On the visit it’s important that schools direct us to particular developments that are progressing well and highlight emerging practice across the school.  Our conversations with the school around what the visit looks like are important and will help to make sure that we all gain maximum benefit.

But we don’t expect schools to prepare specifically for the visit.  For example, we won’t be asking to see any documents unless the school wants to share these. Schools can get the best out of engagement visits by thinking generally about their challenges and successes in relation to curriculum reform.

In addition, we’ll share with schools our plans for inspections from 2021 as well as other activities happening in the transition year whilst inspections are partially suspended. These will include conferences and training opportunities where we’ll share effective practice to support schools with curriculum reform. 

After the visit

We’ll share regularly the national picture with the Welsh Government about how much progress schools are making in their curriculum for Wales work. This will help the government to be flexible if there needs to be additional support or resources to help schools with the developments. We will publish update reports and explore ways to share interesting practice so everyone has a common understanding of progress. 

Until then…

Between now and 2020, we’ll continue to pilot our engagement visits, increasing our sample and trying them out in different types of schools, for example all-age and federated schools. We will also publish our ‘Engagement visit guidance’ on our website towards the end of the spring term.   

Schools have given us very positive feedback following the pilot visits. Rhian James-Collins, Head teacher of Ysgol Gymraeg Bryn y Mor told us that:

…the visit prompted us as a school to evaluate where we are on the journey in relation to the introduction of the New Curriculum for Wales and to reflect on the impact of the strategic priorities in preparation for change. It was also an opportunity to share what we have done so far

John Kendall, head teacher of Risca Comprehensive School felt that:

… the engagement visit was very useful and we were pleased to be chosen to be part of the pilot.  There was no excessive preparation required, but we had plenty of notice to think about what we wanted to discuss. Even though it was just one day, the activities we worked on with the HMI during that time were very productive. The learning walks, book looks, and meetings with both staff and pupils were followed by really constructive and helpful feedback. The day was conducted in a supportive and collaborative way, leaving us feeling both confident in what we are already doing and with some useful ideas about other ways in which we can help move the school forward.”

We’ll be working closely with local authorities and regional consortia on how we can share the broad findings from the engagement visits with them so that they can also see and understand the progress being made by schools.  

Still got questions? Read our FAQs

What’s a link visit?

Once a year, our inspectors make an informal visit to each college or training provider. Each college has their own dedicated link inspector. This is a chance for us to build relationships with the colleges, gather up-to-date evidence about their work and support quality improvement. We also carry out similar visits to training providers and providers of adult learning in the community.

Each visit takes two to three days. We meet with senior leaders and a selection of other key staff, depending on the specific focus. We also look at key documents and may do some learning walks or talk to students.

At the end of the visit, we have a discussion with leaders about what we’ve found to help with the college’s ongoing improvement.

What is the focus?

The topics that we focus on change from year to year. At the moment, we’re exploring:

• Self-evaluation and future priorities for improvement
• Post-16 consistent performance measures
• Professional learning and the new standards
• 14-16 provision
• Site access, security and emergency procedures
• Learner engagement – learner voice and learner complaints

There’s also an opportunity for colleges to share any current issues. Likewise, we discuss inspection developments with college leaders.

If a college has been recently inspected, we discuss their progress against any recommendations in the inspection report.

How do the visits support improvement?

College leaders value the opportunity to talk to an inspector outside of a formal inspection. The link inspector can help colleges reflect on and refine their strengths and areas for improvement, and are able to highlight national effective practice that might be helpful.

The evidence we collect during these visits is used to inform the advice we provide to the Welsh Government through HMCI’s annual report, thematic reports and our contributions to national working groups.

The visits also help us to recognise how we can strengthen our own inspection guidance. For example, link visits have highlighted how colleges carry out their new duty to help prevent people being drawn into terrorism. This supported us to develop our supplementary guidance on inspecting safeguarding in post-16 provision. It also helps colleges to improve and share their practice in this area.

The discussions we have during link visits can help to identify topics that might benefit from a more in-depth thematic inspection across Wales.

How can colleges make the most of the link visit?

It’s an opportunity to reflect on practice within the college and consider how it could be further improved. There’s no expectation for college staff to do anything to prepare beforehand. The link inspector shares broad areas for discussion with college leaders and asks for any relevant documents and the names of staff to talk to.

The discussions are most beneficial when leaders are open and honest about the quality of their work. If a college only tries to showcase the very best of their work, they miss out on an opportunity to have a reflective discussion with their link inspector about their current challenges. We provide an independent perspective that can help leaders reflect on their students’ experiences.

The visit is also a chance to build the relationship between the link inspector and college leaders so that they know there’s someone in Estyn they can call if they have any questions.

College leaders should embrace the opportunities that link visits provide, and make the most of discussions with inspectors to find out about best practice and challenge your college to keep going from strength to strength.

Why we need to tackle bullying head-on

Bullying can drastically affect a child psychologically and socially. It can impact significantly on their attendance and progress in school and have a lasting effect into adulthood on their relationships and wellbeing.

The School’s Health Research Network survey in 2019 (SHRN) found that over a third of pupils of all ages reported that they ‘have been bullied at school in the past couple of months’ and a sixth said that they had ‘bullied another person in the last couple of months’.

Similarly, in May, Ofcom found that nearly a third of pupils had experienced bullying online.

Our 2014 report Action on Bullying said that pupils’ experience of bullying and how well it was dealt with varied widely, particularly in secondary schools. This sentiment was echoed in our 2019 report, Happy and Healthy.  The SHRN survey showed that pupils’ wellbeing seems to get worse as they get older. It found that the proportion of pupils who agree that there is a member of staff they can confide in declined from 80% in Year 7 to 65% in Year 11. 

Responses to questions on pupils’ wellbeing gathered in pre-inspection questionnaires during primary and secondary school inspections in 2018-2019 seem to support these findings. They also show that the proportion of secondary school pupils who are happy with how well their school deals with bullying is also notably lower than that of primary school pupils.

It’s true that research shows that adolescence affects wellbeing. However, this should not be an excuse preventing schools from tackling bullying effectively.

Defining bullying

There is no legal definition of bullying, but essentially it’s behaviour that is:

• repeated, whilst recognising that even a one-off incident can leave a learner traumatised and fearful that it will happen again in the future
• difficult for victims to defend themselves against
• intended to hurt someone either physically or emotionally
• often aimed at certain groups, for example because of race, disability, religion, gender or sexual orientation

It can be both direct and indirect, for example by spreading nasty rumours about someone or excluding them from social groups.

When deciding whether behaviour is bullying, it’s important to take the child’s perspective into account.

The law on preventing bullying in schools

Schools are under legal duties to uphold the fundamental human right of children to be free from abuse and must therefore tackle bullying in all its forms. Some key duties include that staff must act to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, promote equality and foster good relations between pupils.

Amongst other things, schools must have a behaviour policy that sets out how it will:

• prevent all forms of bullying among pupils
• record bullying incidents
• investigate and deal with incidents
• support victims
• deal with bullies

All teachers, pupils and parents must be told what the policy is. Schools should also train staff to prevent, identify and deal with bullying.

Anyone can make a complaint to the police about bullying, but it’s usually a good idea to speak to the school first.

What if your child is the victim of bullying – what can you do to help?

• Reassure them that telling you about the bullying was the right thing to do.
• Keep calm and note all the facts (who, when, where …).
• Ask your child to report further incidents to a teacher straight away.
• Make an appointment to see your child’s class teacher or form tutor and explain what your child is experiencing. Be specific!
• Keep accurate records of the bullying and the action the school agrees to take and speak to the school if you feel that this isn’t being followed through.
• Ask your child’s teacher what you can do to help at home.
• Stay in touch with the school – let them know if things improve or not.

If you feel that the school is not dealing with your concerns:

• Check to see if the school has followed its policy.
• Make an appointment to see the headteacher – keep a record of the meeting and follow it up in writing if necessary.
• If this does not help, write to the chair of governors with your concerns and what action you would like them to take.
• If you do not feel that the governing body has dealt with your complaint appropriately, you can write directly to the local authority.  The authority cannot change the school’s decision, but it can check if it has followed the correct procedures.   

There are a wide range of support groups to help if your child is being bullied (see below).

Good practice in schools

The most important lesson we learned in our reports Action on Bullying and Happy and Healthy was that, in schools that deal effectively with bullying and support pupils’ wellbeing, prevention and response go hand-in-hand. Schools should record incidents accurately and systematically, and use this information with research and good practice to improve their approaches continually. It is critical that schools take action to deal with both the behaviour and the underlying attitudes that drive bullying, also through their curriculum and ethos.  

If pupils feel that the messages they are told by their schools about respect and tolerance are different to what they experience, this undermines the work of the school. For example, lessons about bullying are of limited value unless pupils are satisfied with how the school deals with allegations of bullying.

There is a wide range of support available to schools. I’ve provided some links to Welsh Government resources and national charities, as well as to our supplementary guidance and reports to help support schools with their approaches.

Anti-bullying week 2019 starts on 11 November. Schools should use this as an opportunity to check that their approach is truly whole-school and that pupils do not see their efforts as a one-off event.  Most importantly, schools should review whether their work is having the desired impact on levels of bullying and pupils’ wellbeing. If it isn’t, then they should act to make the changes needed. 

Support for children and parents

• Welsh Government: https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-03/is-your-child-being-bullied.pdf
• Bullying UK 
• Meic Cymru 
• UK Government 
• Anti-Bullying Alliance 
• Childline 
• Internet Matters 
• Kidscape 
• The UK Safer Internet Centre 
• UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) 

Support for schools

Estyn reports and supplementary guidance:

• https://www.estyn.gov.wales/thematic-reports/action-bullying-june-2014
• https://www.estyn.gov.wales/thematic-reports/healthy-and-happy
• https://www.estyn.gov.wales/document/supplementary-guidance-inspecting-safeguarding-schools-and-prus-0
• https://www.estyn.gov.wales/document/supplementary-guidance-equality-human-rights-and-english-additional-language-0
• https://gov.wales/new-guidance-will-challenge-bullying-welsh-schools

Welsh Government

• https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-03/respecting-others-anti-bullying-overview.pdf

Research and news

• School Health Research Network (2019b) Student Health and Wellbeing in Wales: Report of the 2017/18 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey and School Health Research Network Student Health and Wellbeing Survey. School Health Research Network
• https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/internet-and-on-demand-research/online-nation/narrative
• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/three-in-five-children-have-been-bullied-at-school-survey-finds-a8995761.html

Why is teaching Welsh history important?

When I was a deputy headteacher in a Cardiff school, I accompanied a group of pupils to the Rhondda Heritage Park as part of a ‘reward’ trip organised by a local charity. After an interesting tour of the mine, one of the children turned to me and asked if we used to eat coal! This was a wakeup call – how well do we teach children in our schools about the history of Wales, in particular the history of the local area? In a nutshell, without coal most of Cardiff would not have developed, and yet these 21^st century children knew nothing about it.

Are they right?

Our inspection findings show that in many cases she has a good point. Children can recognise pictures of the wives of Henry VIII and know about the Great Fire of London, but on the whole know very little about the Rebecca Riots or the last invasion of Britain at Fishguard. Older pupils often know more about the history of other countries, for example Nazi Germany or the USA, than their own country.

Other countries such as Canada and New Zealand place a strong emphasis on schools teaching about the history of their own country.

But will things change?

There are some experts who are still sceptical about the impact that this will have. Professor Martin Johnes of Swansea University feels that the national Welsh angle may get lost in favour of local or well-known British or global examples and, as a result, there is no guarantee that curriculum reform will lead to any more Welsh history than is currently the case.

So it will be down to individual scho

Welcoming delegates – from headteachers to teaching assistants, chairs of governors to setting leaders – our team greeted the guests, who enjoyed music from a local harpist before the ceremony.

Do we know who our young carers are?

So what do good schools and colleges do to improve young carers’ experiences? 

Create a supportive environment

Identify a member of staff

Provide practical help 

• allowing them to phone home during the day to check on family members helps them to manage any concerns that might distract them from their work  
• providing uniform, books and equipment means they don’t have to worry about having the right things in school all the time  
• having a quiet place to do their homework reassures them that they won’t get into trouble if they can’t do their work at home 
• helping them to take part in cultural or sporting activities at lunchtime can boost their confidence and help them develop friendships  
• offering transport once or twice a week after extra-curricular activities means that they don’t miss out because they can’t get home afterwards 

Don’t forget educational progress and achievement