Primary school inspections: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of primary school inspections reported since the resumption of inspections after the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. The number of primary schools achieving each grade of the quality indicators in the same period.

Response

The information you have requested is provided in Annex A attached.

The information is provided in Excel format to allow filtering as necessary. This will allow you to determine the number of primary schools inspected and the gradings awarded for each quality indicator since inspections resumed in September 2022 following the COVID 19 pandemic. Notes on the data provided in Annex A

1. Data provided in Annex A was extracted at 2 May 2025.

2. The data includes primary schools of all funding types (public; grant-aided; and independent) that have been inspected since 1 September 2022.

3. The data does not include grades for schools where an inspection is currently in progress or where the report is not yet published.

4. The data includes schools that were open during this period, some of which may since have closed.

5. During inspection HM Inspectors evaluate and report on Quality Indicators (QI) from the inspection framework How good is our school?(4th edition). HM Inspectors grade the following QIs:

Full model inspection

• QI 1.3 Leadership of change.
• QI 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment.
• QI 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement.
• QI 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion.

Short model inspection

• QI 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment.
• QI 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement.
• A six point scale is used for grading QIs, which is set out below.

QI Gradings
6	Excellent
5	Very good
4	Good
3	Satisfactory
2	Weak
1	Unsatisfactory

• On 13 March 2020, Education Scotland paused all routine inspections of early learning and childcare settings and schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Routine inspections resumed in September 2022.

About FOI

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

FOI 202500462439 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

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45.8 kB