Office for Standards in Education inspectors are being told to write summary reports for parents which are “warmer” and “seek to capture the spirit of the school”.
OFSTED is responding to widespread dissatisfaction by sending advice to inspectors on making the summaries more user-friendly. Parents have found them hard to understand, and some schools have found it necessary to produce their own.
The guidance says that schools, parents and governors find the summaries do not reflect the balance of judgments in the full inspection report. They want the reports to be more accessible to parents.
The advice tells inspectors to use a warmer, easier style, and to present information in prose rather than tabular form. “Write positively, do not be afraid to commend strengths where they exist,” OFSTED says.
