Scottish school inspectors are too careful about their judgements, ask too many questions and take too long to reach conclusions, according to a team of Dutch experts.
Earlier this year, school inspectors from the Netherlands touched down in Scotland to review the school inspection regime, focusing on how inspectors interact with staff and gather evidence for their reports.
One or two days could be shaved off school inspections, the Dutch reviewers said, if more time was spent scrutinising self-evaluations by schools, and less time spent asking questions and examining information.
Scottish secondary headteachers told TESS that they agree with the criticism, and said they believed a planned move to a shorter inspection period this year - alongside the longer four-day inspections - would be “appreciated” by headteachers.
Jim Thewliss, general secretary of secondary heads organisation, School Leaders Scotland, said that after over 20 years of the self-evaluation framework How Good is Our School, heads had got “significantly better” at using performance indicators to “inform their development priorities and hence target their improvement strategies”.
He added: “It’s a bit difficult to judge given the lower level of inspection over the course of the last couple of years but our impression is that our members believe the move towards a shorter model is a good idea.”
Outside view
Over the course of a fortnight in March, Dutch school inspectors visited four Scottish primaries and two secondaries where new approaches to inspection were being trialled.
They found much to praise about the way HMIE conducted its inspections, including the “open” and “respectful” conversations between inspectors and schools, and the “trusting relationship” that they tried to establish.
It should and could be possible to come to conclusions sooner
They highlighted the framework used to ensure that inspectors engaged effectively with schools (see box, “The power of PRAISE”, right) and were enthusiastic about the scope of Scottish inspections, which cover more than just “the three rs” - something that the Netherlands is keen to emulate.
However, the Dutch inspectors reported that their Scottish counterparts needed to be “110 per cent sure”, held lots of meetings and studied a lot of documents. They questioned whether all of this was necessary.
‘Reduce inspection by days’
Herman Franssen has been inspecting Dutch primary schools for the past 20 years and was a member of the Dutch review team.
He told TESS that, in the Netherlands, primary school inspections usually take just one day, and secondary inspections two days. By contrast, full inspections in Scotland typically run for four days.
He said: “In Scotland there is more time available to do the inspection and more inspectors involved. But we think they could perhaps reduce inspection by one or two days, for example, because it should and could be possible to come to conclusions sooner.”
The Dutch inspectors advocated moving from “inspecting to verifying” and making better use of the school’s self-evaluation as a starting point so that inspectors were not starting from “zero”.
Earlier this year, TESS featured a primary and secondary head who were involved in the shorter inspection pilots (“An inspector calls... giving us only two days’ notice”, 1 July). Both reported that the inspectors got their schools “spot on”.
However, Patricia Alexander, secondary headteacher at St Maurice’s High in North Lanarkshire, added that teachers and parents were less enthusiastic. Parents felt that the shorter timescale made it harder for them to be involved in inspection and teachers complained about being unable to properly showcase their work.
An Education Scotland spokeswoman told TESS that its school inspections had built on school self-evaluations since 2008.
She added: “As we have developed the new models of inspection, we have also reviewed the way in which we gather evidence and reach conclusions.
“The feedback from the Dutch Inspectorate has been a very positive contribution and, together with feedback we have received from stakeholders during our consultation exercise, has helped to shape these new inspection models.”
The “peer review” was organised through international inspection body the Standing International Conference of Inspectorates. This month, Scottish inspectors will visit the Netherlands for four days.
Scotland was matched with the Netherlands because both have mature inspectorates - the Dutch inspectorate is the oldest in Europe, while Scotland’s is the second oldest.
