Information relating to frequency of school inspections: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.


FOI reference: FOI/17/01775
Date received: 2 August 2017
Date responded: 31 August 2017

Information requested

Information relating to the frequency of school inspections.

Response

Q1: How many schools have not been subject to an inspection for over a decade?

Q1 Answer:

Since Education Scotland changed its approaches to inspection in September 2016, and due to the fact that inspection evidence is gathered for the National Improvement Framework publication in December each year, Education Scotland now plans inspections on the basis of academic years.

This response provides information on school inspections in each academic year from 2008. Education Scotland does not hold information on the number of inspections per academic year prior to 2008-09.

The table below provides the number of school inspections undertaken by Education Scotland in each academic year since 2008. A current list of schools is available on the Scottish Government website.

Academic Years 08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17
Secondary 61 71 40 42 33 30 24 21 19
Primary 265 295 215 137 116 136 100 103 124
Special 36 37 24 25 25 17 17 19 18
Total 362 403 279 204 174 183 141 143 161

Source: Education Scotland All figures include Independent schools, Guernsey inspections, and inspections not resulting in QI evaluations. Local authority and Independent All through schools are included in Primary and Secondary figures. Special includes day special, residential and secure accommodation services.

Q2: Please name the schools which have not been subject to an inspection for over a decade and state the date of each schools last inspection. Please group them into primaries, secondaries and special schools.

Q2 Answer: The attached document contains the schools inspected in each academic year under the National Performance Framework from April 2008 until August 2016 and under the new approaches to inspection thereafter.

Q3: Which Scottish school has been without an inspection for the longest (please name the school)? How long is it since the school's last inspection?

Q3 Answer: Current information about an individual school inspection is available on Education Scotland's website at, https://www.education.gov.scot/inspection-reports.

Q4: On average how frequently are Scottish schools inspected? (if this differs for primary, secondary and special schools please provide the figure for each sector and please make it clear how the figure is arrived at).

Q4 Answer: Education Scotland selects the schools to be inspected using a sampling methodology.

Q5: Could you please tell me how many schools HMIE inspected in each of the past three years, so 2014-15; 2015-16; 2016-17? Please break the figure down into primary, secondary and special schools.

Q5 Answer: Information is available in the response to question 1.

Q6: Could you please tell me how many schools HMIE inspected in school years 2006-07 and 2007-08? Please break the figure down into primary, secondary and special schools.

Q6 Answer: Education Scotland does not hold information on the number of inspections per academic year prior to 2008-09.

Q7: How frequently does HMIE aim to inspect schools? (if this differs for primary, secondary and special schools please provide the figure for each sector)

Q7 Answer: The Scottish Government's new standards and evaluation framework as specified within the National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan will set expectations on the focus and frequency of school inspection carried out by Education Scotland.

Q8: How many schools does HMIE hope to inspect in the coming school year 2017-18?

Q8 Answer: Education Scotland will carry out an increased number of school inspections in academic year 2017-18.

Education Scotland is in the process of agreeing the programme of inspection for academic year 2017-18 with Scottish Ministers. As a result, it is not possible to provide robust information in response to this question for the full academic year.

Education Scotland plans to carry out the following inspections between August December 2017.

Inspection Projections - August - December 2017

Sector
Secondary 9
Primary 48
Special 6

Q9: Does HMIE plan to introduce short notice inspection in 2017-18? If so, how many days will schools undergoing this type of inspection be given before the inspection team arrives?

Q9 Answer: Education Scotland will continue to add to the suite of models we use for inspection. At this point in time there are no plans to introduce a short notice model for school inspection in the academic year 2017-18.

Q10: Please provide any further information you consider relevant in order to set these figures in context.

Q10 Answer: Relevant information is included in the response to each question

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

foi-17-01775 inspection documents - information.pdf

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference

Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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