Official Statistics

Methodology and quality report: non-association independent schools inspections and outcomes in England

Updated 20 November 2020

Applies to England

The Non-association independent schools inspections and outcomes in England release also includes:

• data tables
• methodology
• pre-release access list

Introduction

This paper contains methodology and quality information regarding our release of official statistics relevant to non-association independent schools, including information on inspection volumes and outcomes. We publish these once a year.

This release informs on the outcomes of all inspections of non-association schools carried out between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019. Additionally, we have provided details of all non-association schools in England that are open and eligible for inspection, including information on their most recent Ofsted inspection outcomes at the end of the above specified period.

This methodology and quality report will make most sense if read alongside and as a supplement to the notes already contained within the statistical release.

Methodology

From September 2015, data in this official statistics series is from inspections carried out under sections 99, and 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008. The regulations set out the standards that inspectors report on. This includes the extent to which the school meets the requirements of the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014(referred to as the independent school standards).

You can find details on the dates of the inspections that are included within the release. Any inspection reports published after the cut-off date will be included in our next release. For these schools, we will list the most recent inspection that took place before the cut-off date and the current release will include the previous inspection as the school’s most recent inspection.

We have separated the data into 2 categories for analysis:

• ‘in-year’ inspections that have happened within the academic year and we have published by the given date
• ‘most recent’ inspection outcomes of schools that are open at the end of the reporting period

There is a time delay of 1 calendar month between the end of the reporting period (31 August 2019) and the publication cut-off date (30 September 2019). In order to accurately report main findings in the official statistics, we minimise bias by ensuring that we have published the reports for most inspections carried out within the reporting period. For instance, the inspection reports for schools judged inadequate go through additional moderation checks throughout the year. We publish most of these inspections reports ahead of the publication cut-off date. This is to ensure that the number of positive overall effectiveness judgements reported is not disproportionately high.

We may withhold publication of an inspection report under exceptional circumstances. Outcomes of withheld inspection reports are not included in any official statistics, and the datasets affected are clarified with footnotes.

Data in this release is also used to update Ofsted’s DataView tool.

Most recent inspection outcomes data provides a state of the nation look at all schools open on the final day of the reporting period (31 August 2019). If a school had closed on 31 August but we had inspected them within the reporting period, we would also include this school in the dataset.

Types of education

The official statistics of non-association independent schools includes 2 types of education:

• other independent schools
• other independent special schools

All state-funded and independent schools must register with the Department for Education (DfE). If a school provides early years education, this may require a separate registration with us to guarantee inclusion in the Early Years Register (EYR). If an early years provider is not included in the EYR, we will inspect it as part of the section 109 school inspection. We include outcomes for these inspections in this release. Early years schools that are included in the EYR will undergo an Ofsted early years inspection. We include these outcomes in the early years statistical release. For information on early years inspections, please refer to the official statistics for early years and childcare.

For boarding and residential schools that have gone through a section 109 school inspection, this will have included an inspection of the schools’ welfare provision, when possible. These are referred to as ‘integrated inspections’.

For schools that are also registered as children’s homes, inspections may happen as either a full inspection of the children’s home or as standalone inspections of the education provision. We attempt to avoid standalone inspections when possible. This is so inspectors can work together and share evidence in a full inspection of the children’s home. Separate reports are always produced for full, or ‘aligned’, inspections: one provided to the DfE that covers the education provision and one for Ofsted that reports on the welfare inspection. The independent schools official statistics does not report on grades from the welfare inspection.

Issues affecting comparability

All schools will normally receive a standard inspection within 3 years. However, schools receiving a judgement less than good will normally receive a standard inspection within 2 years of the previous standard inspection. In addition, these schools may receive additional inspections, for example, a progress monitoring inspection. This allows us to focus attention on improving those schools that are most in need.

The inspection framework and policy may change over time, for example, with the introduction of the common inspection framework (CIF) in September 2015. These changes may affect these statistics and their interpretation. Changes to the independent school standards and the movement of schools between inspectorates will both affect, over time, what is reported. See the comparability section for further information.

Recent changes

As of September 2015, all early years settings on the Early Years Register, state-funded schools, non-association independent schools and further education and skills providers were inspected under the common inspection framework. This will be replaced by the education inspection framework (EIF) as of September 2019, which does not apply to this release.

See the latest documentation for the inspections of non-association schools.

Revisions

We aim to provide high-quality data subject to rigorous integrity checks. However, occasionally revisions to the data may be necessary to correct errors, or if we receive subsequent information or data. Revisions to official statistics are published in line with our revisions policy.

Quality

Relevance

Through the inspection and regulation of schools and other settings, we aim to raise standards and improve lives: in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. These official statistics provide valuable evidence on the quality of schools in England and can inform the general public, government and policy to improve standards across the school sector.

We inspect non-association independent schools in accordance with sections 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008.

During a standard inspection of a non-association independent school, we also assess whether the school meets the requirements of the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014.

We introduced the common inspection framework (CIF) in September 2015, under which schools are judged as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate. This will be replaced by the education inspection framework as of September 2019, which does not apply to this release.

School inspection data is collated and summarised by these official statistics. We present judgements on schools as proportions of the total number of inspections, allowing us to identify key messages from the data. We also aim to identify any differences, patterns or trends in the data by analysing it in different ways, for example by government office region, faith or type of school. We communicate the messages in this release in an accessible way so that a wide user base can understand them, enabling users to interpret and manipulate the data as they require. Users include the DfE, local authorities, academics and the third sector.

Potential uses of the information provided by the official statistics include, but are are not limited to, the following ways:

• media outlets using the main findings to inform the public about school quality across the country and particularly in local areas

• allowing users to monitor movement in the education sector across time, considering quality of provision geographically as well as among provider types

• making education policy decisions based on the accurate and current information in these statistics

• identifying areas of weak performance both for individual schools and nationally across the independent school sector. In turn, the DfE can respond appropriately to any issues identified and develop their policy strategies to mitigate them

• the Ofsted Annual Report is directly reliant on the main messages contained within the official statistics. Furthermore, we can use the data to continually evolve our inspection framework and inform policies to improve standards

The data included in the release is generated by our regulation and inspection process and is therefore administrative data.

Meeting user needs

Since September 2015, we include data on revisions to previous releases. These are in the form of charts and tables.

In 2016, the National Statistician published new guidance covering management information and official statistics.

Constructive feedback on our statistical releases is always welcome. Please direct any comments, questions or suggestions about the data, its presentation or interpretation, to the Early Years and Independent Schools Analysis team at Childcaredataqueries@ofsted.gov.uk.

Coherence and comparability

Some of the tables and charts within the release compare yearly inspection outcomes across time (including the current year). We reflect framework changes since the first statistical release, notably the introduction of the CIF, in the publications. We also mark these on the charts. We have mapped changes to the way we grade overall effectiveness, and other sub-judgements when possible, across frameworks.

We will communicate any inspection framework changes in the introduction and methodology sections of the main findings document. Furthermore, we have added guidance to the main findings document regarding any inspection framework and methodological changes.

We will also present data of inspection outcomes presented in provisional official statistics releases in Dataview. We may publish inspection reports after the final publication date included within a release. In this case, the next provisional official statistics release will include these outcomes in the revised data for the previous release.

No other entity publishes comparable data for official or national statistics for non-association independent school inspections in England:

• in Scotland, Education Scotland carries out inspections

• in Wales, Estyn carries out inspections

• in Northern Ireland, Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) carries out inspections

We are not responsible for and cannot comment on any third-party tools that display publicly available Ofsted inspection judgements.

Changes that affect the comparability of data

Schools moving in and out of scope for inspection by Ofsted inspectorate

We only inspect non-association independent schools. That is, schools that are not members of an independent school association. The Secretary of State has approved 1 inspectorate responsible for independent school association schools: the Independent Schools Inspectorate. It is possible for schools to move between associations and therefore come under the remit of a different inspectorate. This will affect the appearance of the inspection history of the school in the release.

The release shows the most recent Ofsted inspection of a particular school, but does not report on any inspections carried out by the other inspectorates. This may result in the appearance that a school has gone without an inspection for an extended period, when a different inspectorate has in fact inspected it in that period. Similarly, schools that have been previously inspected by us but that now fall under a different inspectorate are not included in the release.

Integrated inspections

If a school offers residential boarding or is a residential special school, we aim to inspect both the education and boarding provision during the same inspection, known as an ‘integrated inspection’, to increase efficiency. Integrated inspections are shown in tables summarising inspection volumes.

Schools that are also registered as children’s homes may have their education provision inspected alone or be aligned with the full inspection of the children’s home. We will attempt to align both inspections so that inspectors may work together and share evidence. Aligned inspections still result in separate reports – 1 provided to the DfE covering the education provision and 1 for Ofsted covering the welfare inspection. Ofsted does not report welfare inspection grades as part of the independent schools official statistics.

Frameworks

Changes to the inspection framework can affect the consistency of our reporting. For example, a change in judgements between frameworks may result in breaks or changes in the way those judgements are reported.

Ofsted introduced the common inspection framework(CIF) following the ‘Better inspection for all’ consultation. This consultation initiated various changes to the way we inspect providers.

We designed the CIF to incorporate the inspection of different education, skills and early years settings to provide greater consistency in the reporting of standards among different providers that cater for similar age ranges. The CIF standardises inspection judgements across all remit areas.

See guidance on the framework and handbook for inspectors.

Introduction of the CIF has had the following impacts on current reporting:

• overall effectiveness: this judgement is reported consistently across all frameworks from September 2005 to the current framework

• effectiveness of leadership and management: this judgement is reported consistently across all frameworks from September 2005 to the current framework

• quality of teaching, learning and assessment: this judgement is reported consistently across all frameworks from September 2005 to the current framework

• personal development, behaviour and welfare: this supersedes the previous ‘behaviour and safety of pupils’ judgement, which is no longer presented in the most recent outcomes data. Analysis of this judgement will only include inspections since September 2015 and will therefore not provide a complete view of the national quality of this aspect of provision across time. Users wishing to obtain these outcomes may consult individual inspection reports

• early years provision: this judgement is reported consistently across all frameworks from September 2005 to the current framework. However due to legislation changes, this judgement was not reported on for the 2012 to 2013 and 2013 to 2014 academic years. Nursery schools have not received a separate early years judgement since September 2015

• sixth form provision: this judgement has been reported consistently since September 2005 to the current framework. However, due to legislation changes, this judgement was not reported on for the 2012 to 2013 and 2013 to 2014 academic years

Policy implications

We must inspect all schools to which section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008 applies within prescribed intervals, typically receiving a standard inspection within 3 years of the previous. However, we do not inspect all schools with equal regularity. We take a proportionate approach to inspection, as our inspection frameworks indicate.

The result of this is that the schools inspected in a particular academic year are only a subset of all schools. They are unlikely to represent schools as a whole. You should apply diligence when comparing school inspection outcomes among years. This results from the following:

Frequency of inspections

All schools will have a standard inspection within 3 years of the previous from September 2015.

Schools inspected from January 2015 that are judged as less than ‘good’ will usually receive another standard inspection within 2, rather than 3, years of the previous standard inspection.

From January 2015, schools that receive a requires improvement judgement in their standard inspection may then receive a progress monitoring inspection before their next standard inspection. These allow inspectors to assess the progress of the school in addressing any independent school standards that were not met and any other qualitative issues identified at the previous standard inspection.

If, during its standard inspection, we found that a school had met all of the independent school standards but other qualitative issues resulted in a judgement of requires improvement, a progress monitoring inspection will judge whether the school continues to comply with the standards that the qualitative issues relate to.

Carrying out additional inspections as part of a standard inspection

The DfE may commission Ofsted to carry out a standalone additional inspection or an inspection as part of a standard inspection. The DfE may also commission Ofsted to specifically inspect a school:

• for a school’s application to make a material change to its registration
• to evaluate the school’s implementation of its action plan
• to check that the school is meeting independent school standards that were previously not met
• through an emergency inspection due to concerns arising from a complaint or other information received about a school

Each of these has its own classification of inspection.

In order to increase efficiency, we will recommend to the DfE that we combine commissioned additional inspections with any standard inspection when they are already scheduled to take place in the same or following term. This will result in a single inspection event and a single published report.

New schools

Before the opening of a new school, the proprietors must first apply to the DfE for registration. The DfE ask proprietors to supply the information set out in section 98 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 and The Education (Independent Educational Provision in England) (Provision of Information) Regulations 2010.

Before the prospective school can open, the DfE require Ofsted to perform a pre-registration inspection as per the Education and Skills Act 2008. Before the inspection begins, inspectors will consider a school’s written application as evidence of the school’s readiness to open, which will advise the Secretary of State. During the pre-registration inspection, the inspector will assess the extent to which the school is likely to meet the independent school standards at the time of the school’s opening and indicate this to the DfE. The DfE, will decide on whether to register the school. This report is made available to the school but is not otherwise published. The school may not accept pupils until registration is confirmed.

After successful registration, a new school will receive a standard inspection within their first year of operation. We publish these reports as normal on our website.

Boarding or residential provision

If a school provides residential boarding and the provision has been judged good or outstanding, we will inspect it within 3 years. If this provision has been judged as less than good, it will receive a subsequent standard inspection within 2 years. We inspect the provision annually in residential special schools.

In order to increase efficiency, we will integrate the inspection of boarding or residential provision in a boarding or residential special school with the school inspection when inspection cycles coincide. If inspection cycles do not coincide, only an inspection of the boarding or residential provision will be carried out.

Separately registered childcare provision

Early years or childcare provision of greater than 2 hours per day that is not managed by the school’s proprietor or governing body must normally be registered with Ofsted. If provision managed directly by the school’s proprietor or governing body includes care for children under 2 years old, or if no child attending is a pupil of the school, it must be registered with Ofsted. We do not assess this provision as part of an inspection of the school.

Revised independent school standards

Revised independent school standards came into force from 5 January 2015. These apply to independent schools and, in part, to academies and free schools.

Accuracy and reliability

This release reports on:

• the most recent Ofsted inspection grade of all open non-association independent schools
• inspections that have taken place during the academic year

A cut-off date for the publication of the reports included is given in the publication (inspected by 31 August 2019 and published by 30 September 2019). We exclude schools that have yet to receive an inspection. Occasionally, an inspection report will be withheld following publication, usually to complete minor amendments with the agreement of the school, and we will not include this in inspection outcomes. Charts and tables will include footnotes to advise in these cases. Neither will we include the inspection judgements if we publish the inspection report after the cut-off date. These will appear in later releases as revisions, after we have published them.

We provide moderation to all overall inspection judgements of inadequate. This may delay the publication of those reports until after the publication cut-off date. Therefore, these provisional statistics may contain a bias in under-representing the number of inadequate schools. Furthermore, if we require further evidence to secure the inspection evidence base, we will delay publication of the inspection report.

This release only includes inspection outcomes of Ofsted inspected non-association independent schools. We include inspection outcomes for state-funded schools, further education and skills providers and providers of early years provision in separate releases.

Use of Ofsted administrative data

We extract data on inspection outcomes from our administrative systems. While we aim to produce the highest quality data, errors in recording inspection outcomes may affect the quality of source data. We perform a number of rigorous quality assurance checks to minimise the risk of reporting error.

Since September 2015

The lead inspector is responsible for entering inspection outcomes data onto our systems. We perform a quality assurance process at this stage to minimise the risk of errors. Furthermore, we perform an additional quality assurance check on a sample of entries to make sure the original inspection report matches the data on the administrative system. We focus our attention on checking entries where the risk of error is likely to be greatest, for example, if the inspection outcome awarded changes during the quality assurance process. If in the unlikely event that a data error is still identified on our systems and this affects the quality of the data,we will provide a note in the release.

Technical production

Manual errors may also arise from the technical production process. We perform additional quality assurance on the data at this stage to minimise the risk of errors. On identifying an error, we will place a note on the website and upload a corrected version of the document as soon as possible.

See more information of the issues relating to the use of administrative data.

Data obtained from other sources

Get Information About Schools (GIAS) provides data on a school’s type and phase of education. This is considered to be of good quality. The DfE must verify any change to the type of education. Independent schools have some remit to change their age range through a local process. However, changes to key stages usually require agreement from the DfE and a material change inspection from Ofsted. The DfE’s validation processes do pick up errors but this may be after the event. Schools are now required to update their GIAS record every 90 days.

Timeliness and punctuality

We publish data once a year and this includes details of standard inspections that have taken place and we have published within the most recent complete academic year, and the most recent inspection (of any time) a school has received from Ofsted.

We publish data at 9:30am on the date pre-announced in the statistical release calendar. You can find information on any delay in publication in the statistical release calendar.

We may include inspection reports in the data if we publish them within 1 calendar month of the cut-off date (31 August 2019). This allows for the majority of inspections that have taken place within the reporting period to be published. The production process includes obtaining and cleaning the data, drafting findings, quality assuring all outputs and uploading the information onto the GOV.UK website. This takes on average 6 weeks.

We give pre-release access in accordance with the Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics Order (2008).

You will find the list of post holders granted pre-release access as a separate document accompanying each release.

Accessibility and clarity

We publish our releases in an accessible format on the GOV.UK website. The information is publicly available without any restriction on access to the published data. Each release includes inspection outcomes that we have subsequently published. The data informs users of the progress of the inspection framework and of changes in the non-association independent school sector.

We accompany each release with supporting metadata in an accessible format. This enables users to perform their own analysis on the data. This information may be used and re-used free of charge and in any format and medium (excluding logos), under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

Performance, cost and respondent burden

There is no respondent burden in relation to this statistics release as the data is a by-product of our inspection process. The only cost involved is the internal resource involved in collating and producing the release.

Confidentiality, transparency and security

We may hold sensitive or personal data. The disclosure control processes we have in place ensure that this data is not published. All data releases follow our confidentiality and revisions policies.

Glossary

Emergency inspections

We carry out emergency inspections of independent schools under section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008. We carry these out at the request of the Secretary of State for a variety of reasons, for example, as a result of a complaint or concern made to the DfE. We will use the issue that triggered the inspection as the main line of enquiry for the inspection, and we will report to the DfE whether the school meets the independent school standards relevant to the issue. We carry out emergency inspections at no notice and we have published reports of these inspections since summer 2018.

We do not investigate individual complaints. Rather, the focus of inspection is any issues that impact the whole school that the complaint may give rise to.

Independent schools

Independent schools are defined by section 463 of the Education Act 1996, as amended. They provide full-time education for:

• 5 or more pupils of compulsory school age, or
• at least 1 pupil of that age for whom a statement is maintained under section 324, or who is looked after by a local authority (within the meaning of section 22 of the Children Act 1989). It is immaterial if full-time education is also provided at the school for pupils under or over compulsory school age (this definition of ‘independent school’ forms part of the definition of ‘an independent educational institution’ for the purpose of the 2008 Act.)

The DfE’s policy position with respect to full time education is contained within Part A of the departmental advice ‘Registration of independent schools’.

There are around 2,350 independent schools in England. We only inspect the educational provision in independent schools that are not members of an independent schools association, referred to as non-association independent schools. The inspectorate approved by the Secretary of State, the Independent Schools Inspectorate, inspects schools that are members of an independent schools association. All inspections are carried out at the request of the Secretary of State for Education. The DfE is the registration authority for all independent schools.

Integrated inspections

When the inspection of educational provision in non-association independent boarding or residential special schools is due at the same time as the welfare inspection, we combine these into an integrated inspection of the whole school. We carry out inspections of welfare provision under the Care Standards Act 2000 having regard to the national minimum standards for boarding schools or residential special schools, as appropriate.

Material change inspections

Outside normal inspection cycles, we carry out material change inspections of registered independent schools at the request of the Secretary of State, out of the normal inspection cycle, when the school wishes to make a material change to their premises, intake or age range, or to the provision they make for disabled pupils and those with special educational needs, or there is a change to the proprietor. These inspections are carried out under section 162 of the Education Act 2002.

Inspectors will consider the implications of the material change and report to the Secretary of State whether the school is likely to meet the relevant independent school standards, if the material change is implemented. The school cannot implement the proposed change unless the Secretary of State grants permission.

Pre-registration inspections

The Secretary of State is the registration authority for independent schools in England and maintains a register of independent schools. When a proprietor has made an application for registration of an independent school, the Secretary of State must notify Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI), who must then inspect the school. The purpose of the inspection is to report to the registration authority on the extent to which the school would likely meet the independent school standards if the school were to be registered. We carry out these inspections under section 99 of the Education and Skills Act 2008.

When a proprietor makes an application for a new boarding or residential special school, we make an integrated pre-registration inspection by both an education and a social care inspector.

Progress monitoring inspections

We carry out progress monitoring inspections at the request of the Secretary of State to check the progress made by independent schools to address weaknesses identified at their last inspection. We carry out these inspections under sections 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008.

The Secretary of State issues schools identified as having weaknesses with a notice. Schools must submit an action plan to the Secretary of State setting out the steps they will take to address their weaknesses and meet the relevant independent school standards and/or national minimum standards, when relevant. Action plans must specify the timescale within which the steps will be taken.

In progress monitoring inspections, inspectors assess and report on the amount of progress schools have made with implementing their action plan. They will check whether the previously unmet independent school standards or national minimum standards are now met.

Standard inspections

We carry out standard inspections of independent schools under section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008. We will report to the DfE on the extent to which the school complies with the independent school standards and will also make evaluative judgements about the quality of education at the school under the common inspection framework. We will normally contact the school by telephone to announce the inspection around lunchtime on the day before the inspection is due to start.

Instructions for printing and saving

Instructions may vary depending on which browser you use, such as Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, and the type of device you use, such as an iPhone or laptop.

You will find your print and save options in your browser’s menu. You may also have other options available on your device. The instructions for mobile and tablet devices will be specific to their make and model.

How to search

Click on Ctrl + F on a Windows laptop or Command + F on a Mac

This will open a search box in the top right-hand corner of the page. Type the word you are looking for in the search bar and press enter.

Your browser will highlight the word, usually in yellow, wherever it appears on the page. Press enter to move to the next place it appears.

How to print a copy of the guidance

Click on Ctrl + P on a Windows laptop or Command + P on a Mac

You can also choose to save as a PDF.