Ofsted has published an update for its inspectors (external link)  which includes the following clarification on governing boards' role during the inspection:

“It has been brought to our attention that some schools have not informed all of their governors/trustees about the inspection of their school, nor invited them to meet inspectors during the inspection.

Inspectors should make clear to the headteacher, at the start of the inspection, that all governors/trustees must be informed of the inspection and that arrangements should be made for inspectors to meet the chair of governors/chair of the board of trustees and as many governors/trustees as possible during the inspection, and that as many governors/trustees as possible should also be invited to attend the final feedback meeting.”

Ofsted has previously clarified that all those on the governing board should be informed of the provisional outcome, including those who are unable to attend the final feedback meeting.

The update also highlights some other issues that are relevant to governing boards:

• the new Department for Education (DfE) guidance (external link)    on safeguarding recommends that schools hold more than one emergency contact number for each pupil (above the legal minimum);
• inspectors will ask secondary school leaders about what they are doing in response to the DfE’s ambition (external link)    for the vast majority of pupils to study the EBacc;
• inspectors will consider  the DfE's recent guuidance (external link) on gender separation in mixed schools;
• that caution is required when considering the performance of groups of pupils (for example, by pupil characteristic), particularly small groups;
• Ofsted has no expectation about how primary schools should be carrying out assessment or recording pupils’ achievements and there is no requirement for numerical data to be used.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Analyse School Performance (ASP) is the official data dashboard provided free to schools by the Department for Education (DfE). It replaced RAISEonline in July last year and gives school leaders a comprehensive overview of performance against headline measures. Governors and trustees are entitled to access the service and it is an essential resource for holding a school to account and monitoring performance.

While governors may be familiar with the secure access login portal, the login page for ASP is changing. Users of ASP will now need to set up an account with the DfE sign-in service. You can see details of how to do this here (external link).