Evaluation and Inspection
Evaluating the effectiveness of Church schools
The National Society for the promotion of Religious Education (now known simply as ‘The National Society’ ) is the body responsible for overseeing Church schools throughout England. The National Society provides a huge range of resources for use by Church schools and the governors of Church schools. You may like to visit their website here.
The National Society provides a Self-evaluation Toolkit for schools to use when reflecting on their effectiveness as Church schools with a Christian foundation. There is a link to this document from this page of the website. You may like to consider how it might be used by the governors at your school. Whatever you do, don’t try to do it all at once! It should be a part of the school’s regular management and evaluation cycle, just like the Ofsted SEF (Self Evaluation Form). Perhaps looking at one of the four sections each year or each term would be a way forward.
The diocese has produced a self-assessment checklist for Church schools, based on the National Society’s 2009 Toolkit. It is available as a download at the foot of this page and may provide you with a simpler way to begin a review of your school.
Inspection
The National Society is the body that oversees the inspection of Church schools. The statutory inspection of Anglican schools (SIAS) is undertaken alongside (but usually a little while after) a school’s Ofsted inspection, under Section 48 of the Education Act 2006. It is helpful to read through the Framework for Inspection and even more importantly, the guidance notes on grade criteria, as these spell out what a SIAS inspector will be looking for when visiting your school.
Associated Documents:
- Framework for inspection of Church schools (561kb)
- Self evaluation toolkit (557kb)
- SIAS grade descriptors (171kb)
- Self-evaluation checklist for church schools (112kb)