Methodology: Responses to post-inspection surveys: inspections and visits between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023
Published 18 July 2023
Applies to England
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Leaders of state-funded schools, independent schools and further education and skills, early years and social care providers receive an invite to complete the post-inspection survey. We send the invite when leaders receive the final version of their inspection report.
The post-inspection survey information is a useful factor in supporting our continuous improvement. The insights from survey responses:
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give individual inspectors first-hand feedback from providers on the quality of their work and to support their own continuous improvement
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give managers information relating to direct line management groups that help them to improve the quality of inspection, inspectors and inspection reports
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allow strategic high-level monitoring of sector views regarding inspection quality.
The survey supports policy and framework decisions and operational planning. More broadly, it also gives us insights into the impact of our work and relationship with the sectors.
The survey is voluntary. There is no obligation for schools or providers to complete it.
The survey is not anonymous. As outlined above, we use the data to provide first-hand feedback to inspectors and their managers that otherwise would not be available.
The survey contains questions about the school or provider’s inspection experience and some statements. Respondents are requested to read each statement and select one of the options according to how strongly they agree or disagree with the statement.
We have provided a separate data release for each remit. They give a summary of the number of responses for all the questions where the school or provider chooses to ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘disagree’, ‘strongly disagree’ or responds ‘don’t know’ (where applicable) to the question/statement. We also present the percentage of providers that strongly agree or agree to the statement.
Responses to the survey shown by schools and providers’ overall effectiveness outcome are on a separate tab. Where no full overall outcome was made, for example an ungraded inspection of a good or outstanding school or visit, details of responses are given.
We have calculated response rates to the survey by dividing the total number of survey responses received by the relevant number of inspections or visits in the time period.
For state-funded schools, where there has been most external interest and where response rates and sample sizes are sufficient, we have introduced weighting to our reporting on an experimental basis. This weighting takes into account the varying response rates across different inspection outcomes. We welcome views about this and whether this is useful. Details of the weighting methodology are available in the latest state-funded survey data release.