Our Approach: Independent schools

We will visit every independent school in Wales at least twice during a six-year cycle of inspection. From September 2024, we will carry out a core inspection and a monitoring inspection at each school.

Each inspection will also evaluate compliance with the Independent School Standards (Wales) Regulations 2024 (ISSR). 

We offer Welsh Government advice relating to requests for new school registrations or material changes to registrations within the sector.  

After each inspection, we publish our findings on our website. We no longer include summative gradings within these reports but instead focus on strengths and areas for improvement. 

Each year we publish the HMCI’s annual report. This includes a summary of our inspection findings as well as examples of effective practice and areas for development within the sector.

We also publish a range of reports and tools to support development in the sector.