In September 2024, the Welsh Inspecting board Estyn will begin a new cycle of inspections, with a revised framework. The aim of the new inspections will be to focus on strengths and areas for development, as well as making inspections a positive experience for everybody involved. The changes are in line with Wales’s national mission to improve education and training for all learners, in which all partners involved in education improvement have a role to play.
Estyn has also launched its ‘Ready Already’ or ‘Barod yn Barod’ campaign, which aims to reassure education providers that they don’t need to overprepare for inspections, ahead of the new inspection cycle. It also aims to address common misconceptions that might cause concern or additional challenges.
At CPOMS, we understand that inspections can be a source of stress and worry for staff. It’s important that schools are empowered to demonstrate the good safeguarding and teaching practices that are already in place, without worry. In this blog, we’ll break down the new Estyn framework, as well as highlighting the ways in which your school may already be well-equipped to navigate an inspection.
What’s changing in the Estyn framework?
The changes in the framework follow initial adjustments to inspections implemented in Spring 2022, when Estyn moved away from single, summative gradings such as ‘excellent’, ‘good’ and ‘adequate’ to focus on detailed evaluations in the body of reports. With this change, Estyn aims to remove judgement from the inspection focus and instead prioritise collaborative conversations around how provisions can best help children to learn.
Some of the additional changes that Estyn is introducing to its framework in 2024 include:
- Greater detail on the strengths of each provider and areas for improvement
- More regular contact with schools and other providers, and more up-to-date feedback for parents and carers
- More in-person discussions, placing less emphasis on achievement data
- A reduction in the inspection notice period from 15 to 10 days
Estyn aims to make inspections a positive experience for everyone. With these changes, it intends to drive the best outcomes and experiences for learners, support improvement across Wales, and provide staff with the opportunity to contribute to the inspection and improvement process.
The five key inspection areas
Whilst Estyn’s approach to inspections is changing, the five key inspection areas will remain the same:
- Learning: standards and progress in learning and skills such as reading, writing, numeracy and digital skills
- Wellbeing and attitudes to learning: the extent that children feel safe, secure, ambitious and confident in their learning
- Teaching and learning experiences: the breadth, balance and appropriateness of the school curriculum
- Care, support and guidance: the quality and culture of personal development, including moral, spiritual, social and cultural and the provision of learning support
- Leadership and management: the quality and effectiveness of leaders and managers
For each of these areas, inspectors will collect and assess evidence from several sources. This can include examples of work from pupils, discussions with staff, pupils, and parents, pre-inspection questionnaire responses and electronic evidence of pupil progress. Inspections will consider all information and contexts; however, the report feedback will only detail the main strengths and areas for improvement.
Inspectors will also continue to adhere to several key principles. These include taking a learner-led approach to inspections, focusing on the quality and effectiveness of teaching, and using a range of tailored inspection methodologies and approaches that are bespoke to the provider’s circumstances.
‘Ready Already’ – the Barod yn Barod Campaign
No matter how confident an educational setting is in its provision of high-quality education, upcoming inspections can feel daunting for its staff. Shifting the focus of inspections away from judgement may help alleviate this somewhat, but it’s important that staff know how they can best prepare without significantly increasing workload.
Estyn’s ‘Ready Already’ campaign is aiming to help relieve the stress of inspections by reassuring staff and tackling misconceptions. The key message of the campaign is that schools and teachers are ‘ready already’ for an inspection; there is no need to engage in masses of additional preparation or paperwork.
Through its campaign, Estyn is aiming to highlight that inspectors want to see the day-to-day running of schools, and settings should not change how they run because of an upcoming visit. The campaign also highlights that very few documents are required ahead of inspections and individual lesson plans for inspections are not required.
One of the best ways that schools can prepare for an upcoming Estyn inspection is to have the structures and tools in place that can easily demonstrate good practice across the five key areas. With this, education providers can be confident in their ability to communicate their strengths, as well as their challenges and engage positively with the process of inspection and improvement.
How safeguarding software can help
Safeguarding software can be a valuable tool for education providers when it comes to preparing for inspections. By providing a clear, digital system for recording and monitoring key information about pupils and staff, this software places evidence of good practice at your fingertips.
Safeguarding software can help education providers to prepare for inspections by:
- Providing a powerful reporting tool: With CPOMS, staff can easily prepare management reports ahead of or during inspections.
- Creating a clear chronology for each child: Staff can tailor software to meet the individual needs of the school, using fully customisable tags to log, record and monitor important information about each child. This can be used to demonstrate instances of good safeguarding practice when issues arise and provide a bank of evidence for any key strengths or challenges that staff might wish to communicate.
- Providing robust staff chronologies: With CPOMS StaffSafe, schools can record all information about individuals against marked categories of their choice – from performance management and welfare concerns to general comments, allowing schools to easily demonstrate the practice of staff appraisals, supervision, and support.
Accessing the tools for success
With the new cycle of Estyn inspections beginning in September, it’s important that staff across education settings in Wales feel prepared. However, this shouldn’t mean a significant amount of extra work or stress from staff. Having access to the right tools, like safeguarding software from CPOMS, can help staff to feel empowered in their ability to demonstrate the key strengths of their setting, as well as any challenges or need for additional support.
For more information about how CPOMS can help your school to prepare for inspections, contact us today.
