Guide to Section 23 Inspections

Schools

Children

Youth

Ministry - Adult

Resources

Homepage

What's On

The Team

The Board

Archive

Updated 17 January, 2003

Step by Step Guide to Section 23 Inspections in Ely Diocese

Stage One - the brown envelope arrives

• The school receives notification of its OFSTED inspection - a nominated foundation governor or the headteacher alerts the Diocesan RE Adviser to the dates - 01353 652712 shirley.hall@ely.anglican.org
  
• The Section 23 Inspection should take place in the same academic year as OFSTED. School and foundation governors determine whether the two inspections should take place concurrently, consecutively or with significant distance between the two. The advice of the Diocesan Board of Education & Training is that, whenever possible, the two inspections should take place at the same time.
  
• The foundation governors locate the Section 23 Inspection claim form which arrives with the second OFSTED mailing. It will be required at the end of the inspection process.

Stage Two - Locating an Inspector

• The Section 23 Inspector is an independent agent, and foundation governors must make a contract with him or her for the inspection. As a first step a nominated foundation governor requests from the RE Adviser names of trained Section 23 inspectors active in the Diocese. The Adviser will either supply the school with a number of names and mini-biographies from which a selection may be made, or will, on request, nominate an individual inspector to the school. When determining which inspector to employ, governors may wish to view the summaries of inspection reports elsewhere on this website.
  (The Diocese can only assist the school in this process, the governors are not required to accept the nomination of any particular inspector from the Adviser.)
  
• The nominated governor (or the Adviser if requested) approaches the inspector to agree the contract. The inspector will supply the governors with a standard National Society contract for this purpose.
  
• The Section 23 Inspector should be supplied with a name and address for the OFSTED team in order to facilitate contact. Likewise the OFSTED team should be notified of the appointment of the Section 23 Inspector.
  
• Agree with the inspector the timings of the inspection process, and the production of the report. The Section 23 Inspector may be expected to follow the same schedule and timings as the OFSTED team. The normal rate for a primary school inspection is £300 for a Voluntary Controlled School and £400 for a Voluntary Aided School (warning - if the governors agree to a higher rate of reimbursement they will not be able to reclaim the extra fee from the DfES). From April 2003 the maximum level of grant available from the DfES for a Section 23 Inspection will be increased to £350 for a Voluntary Controlled School and £450 for a Voluntary Aided School.

Stage Three - Preparing for Inspection Week

• The inspector will require pre-inspection information from the school, in particular general information about the school as supplied to OFSTED, mission statement or statement of values, admissions policy (Voluntary Aided only), policies on RE, collective worship, spiritual development, and all associated planning and recording documents, INSET and financial details related to the above, a statement on the school's links with the local church etc. The inspector may also ask for other documents which pertain to the ethos of the school e.g. the behaviour policy.
  
• The inspector will probably wish to send out a questionnaire to parents. Where possible this should be sent out with the OFSTED questionnaire.
  
• The inspector may wish to attend the pre-inspection parents meeting, but is not obliged to do so. Foundation governors may need to facilitate this.
  
• The inspector will wish to interview the incumbent and possibly also any foundation governors who have particular church school responsibilities. The foundation governors should also consider whether there are any members of the local church and community it would be good for the inspector to interview for evidence on the area of school links. The inspector is certain to welcome this kind of recommendation.

Stage Four - Following the Inspection

• The inspector may be expected to give preliminary verbal feedback on their findings to the headteacher, the chair of governors and interested foundation governors at the end of their last day in school.
  
• The governors may request the Section 23 inspector to present the final written Section 23 Report to the governing body in person. Often the inspector will be prepared to do this, but governors should be aware that the standard inspection fee does not cover attendance at such a meeting, and it may be helpful to offer the inspector travel expenses for this.
  
• A copy of both the Section 23 Report and the OFSTED Report should be lodged with the Diocesan Board of Education & Training.
  
• Summaries of the Section 23 Report should be sent to all parents; wherever possible these should be sent out with the OFSTED summaries.
  
• The foundation governors arrange for the payment of the inspector (there is no specific area of school funding designated for this payment - schools may have to be creative as to where the payment is found). The governors send a copy of the report, and a receipted invoice from the inspector to the DfES with the appropriate form (see Stage One point three). The money will be refunded by the DfES direct to the school's account.

Stage Five - Section 23 Action Plan

• The foundation governors work with staff to create a Section 23 Action Plan.
  
• The Action Plan is lodged with the Diocesan Board of Education & Training. The Diocesan Adviser may be approached for support to fulfil the Action Plan e.g. providing INSET.
  
• Governors monitor the fulfilment of the Action Plan.