Subject Inspections How to Gain a Strategic Overview of Standards for Subject Leaders

1. Subject Inspections & How to Gain a Strategic Overview of Standards for Subject Leaders by The School Improvement Team, PEP Team and Curriculum Team.

2. Aims To find out what is involved in a subject inspection. To discuss how a robust system can be implemented in school in order to provide all subject leaders with the essential knowledge of knowing what the standards are in their school and what are the key priorities, strengths and weaknesses within their subject.

3. Subject Inspections How much notice do schools receive prior to an inspection? How often do these inspections happen? Who carries out the subject inspection? What about self-evaluation? Will teachers get feedback? Will a report be published? Why have separate subject inspections? How long is a subject inspection and what does it include?

4. How much notice do schools receive prior to an inspection? Schools have a short notice period not more than 2 weeks but generally longer than a Section 5 Inspection. Inspectors will need to see the subject under inspection being taught. Schools need to ensure that key staff are available for discussions.

5. How often do Subject Inspections happen? Inspection cycles last around three years for most schools Schools can expect to have at least one survey inspection in a three year cycle along with a Section 5 inspection.

6. Who carries out the subject inspection? The inspections are carried out by Specialist Ofsted Inspectors, HMI and additional inspectors with expertise in the particular subject.

7. What about self-evaluation? When the inspector initially makes contact with a school to make arrangements he or she will request access to the self-evaluation form. The inspection will include a discussion of the school�s self-evaluation of the subject being inspected.

8. Will teachers get feedback? The Code of Conduct and Ofsted�s inspection principles mean that teachers should always receive feedback. At the end of the inspection the school receives detailed feedback through discussion to key members of staff with LA representatives present and a relevant governor. Inspectors will discuss their findings and give judgements to provide a level of detail that will not be included in the published letter.

9. Will the report be published? The subject inspection feeds into an overview reporting on subjects or other aspects of education. The school receives a short feedback letter after the visit, setting out the findings of the inspection and noting areas for development. The letter is published on the Ofsted website after the end of the half term in which the visit takes place and is available to the public.

10. Implementing a system that will provide Subject Leaders with essential information for evaluation. Assessing pupil�s skill using National Curriculum Level Descriptors. To undertake work scrutiny exercise and collect exemplars of levels across the school. e.g top, middle and bottom levels within each year group. To monitor planning and collect samples of planning along with samples of work. To monitor lessons which would be beneficial in gaining an overview but not essential. Quality assuring and analysing NC levels pupils work, planning and delivery completes a monitoring loop.

11. Assessing Pupil�s National Curriculum Levels Assessing pupils national curriculum levels within a subject is vitally important to developing an overview of standards. (This is different from looking at the next steps in learning.) NC levels should be collected for subject leaders bi-annually at a minimum. Suggested times would be February as most Foundation subjects would have been taught and class teachers will know their classes very well and at the end of the academic year in order for levels of attainment to inform planning for the new academic year and allow subject leaders to make judgements about the pupil attainment and progress . Levelling work involves looking at level descriptors and finding the best fit. This can be more finely tuned by denoting how secure they are by suffixing the level using a, b or c. A � standing for a pupil just starting to work into the next level B � standing for a pupil securely at that level and C for a pupil who still has one or two skills to develop from a previous level. (Exemplars of work and levelling can be found on the N.C. Action website) Essentially if class teachers are planning work at the correct levels for pupils then assessment of skill levels should not be difficult. (Ref: proforma for collecting N.C. levels for all subjects in each class)

12. Teacher Assessments for Term 3 & 6 Term���� Subject������ Academic Year���� Class�������. Year Group �������.. Photocopy for each subject leader and highlight the relevant subject. Use sub-levels to indicate whether a pupil is secure in a level. (a, b, c) This will help the Subject Leader to determine standards.

13. Analysis of data per class School: ��������.. Subject Geography�����.. Class������������ No. Pupils in Class 25���������. Percentage P.P = 4% NC Level Number of Pupils Percentage 1 lower 0 0 1 middle 1 4 1 upper 2 8 2 Lower 10 40 2 middle 10 40 2 higher 1 4 3 lower 1 4 3 middle 0 0 3 higher 0 0 4 lower 0 0 4 middle 0 0 4 higher 0 0 Level 5 0 0 4% children are gifted and talented 44% children are above average or G&T for their year age. 84% children are average or above average for their age. 8% children are below average for their age. 4 % children are well below average for their age. Notes: - Children identified as Gifted and Talented Children identified as under achieving

14. Undertaking work Scrutiny Ask each class teacher to provide you with top, middle, and bottom samples of work (for some subjects evidence will not be in a paper format) Class teachers need to annotate the work and give a National Curriculum level along with relevant planning for the lesson. This will then start to build up a portfolio of evidence across the school and will allow subject leaders to quality assure work being carried out across the school which in turn will help them to evaluate the impact of initiatives etc.

15. Monitoring Planning Monitor plans alongside work samples so as to judge whether work has been well differentiated, is pitched at an age appropriate level and �has actually taken place�. If medium term plans are completed in more detail for Foundation Subjects and used on a weekly basis then plans should be well annotated to meet pupil�s current learning needs.

16. Lesson Observations Ofsted criteria for lessons judgements are very clear and should be used when making judgements about pupil�s learning. When carrying out a lesson observation, undertake a work scrutiny of top, middle and bottom attainment along with checking planning. ( If this is collected it provides good evidence as to seeing a complete cycle of monitoring.)

17. Tips It is impossible to carry out work scrutiny and lesson observations and monitoring of planning all of the time therefore sample work and carry out lesson observations in critical year groups � Foundation, year 2 and year 6.

18. Day 2 Download exemplars and progress for the subject from NC Action site to bring to day2 Bring 6 levelled examples of work or planning or observations if work is not paper based Class teachers should have levelled these and annotated them. Plan how you will have disseminated course materials and activities to school through Staff Meeting and SLT Bring 3 successes and 3 barriers to day 2 �use proforma in pack.

19. Thank you for attending the course we will see you all again on DAY 2.