The Scottish Government

Title

Schools receiving positive inspection reports

National Indicator/Target

Increase the proportion of schools receiving positive inspection reports.

Brief Description

The indicator provides information on the percentage of schools that had positive evaluations in all of a reference subset of the quality indicators used by HM Inspectorate of Education ( HMIE) in school inspections.

Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates

This indicator informs progress in relation to the Smarter Strategic Objective, by showing the extent to which there is an improving trend in inspectors' professional judgements about the quality of outcomes for pupils being achieved in the rolling programme of primary, secondary and special school inspections that they undertake.

More Detailed Definitions

Definitions of Keywords

The reference subset of Quality Indicators ( QI) is:

1.1 Improvements in performance

2.1 Learners' experiences

5.3 Meeting learning needs

as published in How good is our school? 3 Appendix A on the HMIE website

( http://www.hmie.gov.uk/hgios/hgios.asp).

The definition of school is publicly funded schools (therefore excludes independent sector and independent specials, but will include grant aided).

The definition of positive inspection report is the percentage of schools that have satisfactory or better, good or better and very good or better in all three reference quality indicators as defined in How good is our school? 3 Appendix B. With effect from inspections commencing in April 2008, HMIE will report using the term "satisfactory" instead of the previous "adequate", but with the same definition. The indicator will be reported for all schools but will also be disaggregated by Primary, Secondary and Special.

Evidence Source

Quality Indicator ( QI) evaluations from school inspections carried out by HM Inspectorate of Education from April 2008. The unit of measurement for this indicator is the percentage of schools satisfactory or better, good or better and very good or better for all of the three reference QIs. It is a proxy measure for the quality of Scottish schools.

Baseline and Past Trends

Representative baselines and trends are not yet available. The baseline will be built up from inspections from April 2008 to March 2011.

Methodology

Data Ownership and Quality Assurance

The data is collated by HMIE for the evaluations made by inspectors for the reference subset of quality indicators. The results are the professional evaluations of HMIE.

Publication of Data

The results of individual inspection reports are published on the HMIE website after the inspection has taken place ( www.hmie.gov.uk). The indicator based on representative national sub-samples and a profile of the results for each QI for each year will also be published on the HMIE website each year, with the complete baseline to be published in 2011. Annual results will be published from 2012 onwards compared with the baseline. A wider set of Quality Indicator evaluations will be published in the Improving Scottish Education publication planned by HMIE for late 2008 (note data will be prior to 2008) and also in subsequent publications in this series.