Arrangements for inspecting special schools

Published 01/01/2017.  Last updated 09/01/2024
    1. Arrangements for inspecting schools
    2. Being ready for inspection
    3. Briefing for headteachers
    4. Guidance on issuing pre-inspection questionnaires
    5. Briefings for parents and parent councils

1. Arrangements for inspecting schools

Through inspection, HM Inspectors aim to promote improvement in special schools and successful innovation that enhances learners' experiences as well as providing assurance to stakeholders. Our inspectors focus on the quality of children's learning and outcomes and the school’s capacity to improve.

HM Inspectors evaluate how well a school or setting is performing in a range of key areas. They use quality indicators (QIs) from 'How good is our school? (4th edition)'.

HM Inspectors carry out inspections using a variety of models. This includes full inspections which cover four QIs, and short inspections which cover two QIs.

The special school inspection programme covers over 100 special schools across Scotland. In addition, we inspect a wide range of special units linked to pre-school, primary and secondary provision.

School inspection reports

Inspection reports for schools and early learning and childcare settings in Scotland.

2. Being ready for inspection

​Briefing the inspection team on the establishment’s view of its improvement through self-evaluation

Our inspections provide the opportunity for schools and settings to show that they know themselves well and that they are using self-evaluation to focus on improving children and young people’s attainment and achievements in line with Curriculum for Excellence.

Before the inspection, you are asked to complete, in consultation with your education authority, a brief self-evaluation summary form. The self-evaluation summary form is shown below.

Word file: Brief self-evaluation summary using the full inspection model (153 KB)

Word file: Brief self-evaluation summary using the short inspection model (152 KB)

At the start of the inspection you are invited to use your completed self-evaluation summary form to brief the inspection team. You should set aside up to an hour for this meeting. This dialogue should provide the inspection team with a clear sense of your journey – where you’ve come from, where you are now and where you want to get to. It is important that you cover outcomes for all learners who attend your establishment. This meeting will be the start of an ongoing dialogue with the inspection team about your establishment’s performance and journey of continuous improvement.

It would be helpful to the inspection team if you

  • give a clear account of your establishment’s strengths and aspects for development;
  • demonstrate where the school or setting is improving and show how you know
  • identify the key sources of evidence which underpin your knowledge of school/setting performance and improvement, and make these available; and
  • show how you prioritise areas for improvement

Evaluating your establishment

You will most likely use the fourth edition of How good is our school? or How good is our early learning and childcare? as part of school/pre-school self-evaluation. You probably also use the six point graded scale. Your own evaluations against the six point scale will be helpful to inspectors.

3. Briefing for headteachers

By now, you will be aware that an inspection team will soon visit your school. The team is looking forward to working with you and your colleagues. Throughout the inspection, we shall engage you and your staff in professional dialogue with the aim of supporting improvement.

Your inspection administrator (IA) will be in touch very soon to confirm that your inspection box has all the paperwork you will need and to check if you have any immediate questions. This briefing note has been designed to help you to prepare for the inspection and to outline the kinds of activities which will take place during the inspection. It aims to answer some of the questions you may have regarding the inspection.

Briefing note for headteachers of special schools

This briefing note aims to help staff to understand the inspection process of a special school.

PDF file: Briefing note for headteachers of local authority special schools using the full inspection model (667 KB)

PDF file: Briefing note for headteachers of local authority special schools using a short inspection model (760 KB)

Child protection and safeguarding self-evaluation form

This form is used to record information about child protection and safeguarding. Head of settings are asked to return this with the pre-inspection documents. The Managing Inspector (MI) and/or delegated team member will discuss the information provided in this form with relevant staff during the inspection.

Word file: Child protection and safeguarding: self-evaluation (Part A) (148 KB)

Word file: Child protection and safeguarding: outcome of inspection (Part B) (151 KB)

4. Guidance on issuing pre-inspection questionnaires

Headteacher guide for issuing pre-inspection questionnaires

An important aspect of the inspection is for key stakeholders to be given the opportunity to provide their views of the setting or school. To gather the views of learners, parents, staff and partners we ask the headteacher to issue a pre‑inspection questionnaire to these stakeholders. You’ll find a sample of the questionnaires below.

PDF file: Questionnaires for primary (762 KB)

PDF file: Questionnaires for secondary (821 KB)

Within the email notifying you of the inspection, you will find a number of links to an online survey which holds the pre-inspection questionnaires. The links you will receive are set out below.

Learners

All learners from P4 and above should be sent the survey link.

Please make sure that learners have privacy to complete the questionnaires. You should reassure learners that once they have completed the survey, no-one in the school will see their answers. Inspection team members will not tell anyone about what a learner has written unless they are worried about the learner’s safety. In that case they will talk to the learner and pass it on to someone who can help. Where required, those learners with additional support needs should be helped to complete the survey.

Parents

All parents should receive the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. Parents may complete a pre-inspection questionnaire for each of their children attending the school or setting being inspected. The pre-inspection questionnaire asks the parent to indicate if they shall be providing one response only or if they are providing one response for each of their children.

As part of the inspection, a member of the inspection team will meet with a range of stakeholders. Parents are asked within the pre-inspection questionnaire to indicate if they would like to meet with a member of the inspection team and, if so, to provide their contact details. The Inspection Administrator (IA) will contact a random sample of parents to invite them to the meeting.

Staff

All staff should receive the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. We have created pre-inspection questionnaires for the following broad groupings. A survey link will be provided for each grouping in the notification email which you should circulate as appropriate:

  • school support staff
  • teachers
  • pupil support staff

Partners

We define partners within How good is our school? (4th edition) to include all individuals or organisations that deliver learning and contribute to the life and work of the school/setting. They may include community learning and development services, colleges, universities, employers, third sector, community organisations and libraries. This also covers partners who provide specialist input to support identified children.  All those who work in partnership with your school/setting should be sent the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire.

Distributing the links

You should use the existing digital channels to inform these stakeholders of the inspection, the information that is available from our website and the appropriate link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. When sharing the links it is important to include the date which all responses must be completed by. We usually refer to this as the date the survey will close.

Methods for sharing the links include: using internal email for staff/practitioners; adding the links to your website (remember to remove when the survey has closed) for parents and partners; include the information within a group call or newsletters for parents, staff/practitioners and partners; connect with learners through Glow.

You are best placed to know the most effective ways of communicating and engaging with your stakeholders to ensure that as many as possible have the opportunity to provide their views about your school or setting. We have found that some schools and settings have, in addition to sending the links digitally, opened their doors to parents so that they can use the school’s devices to complete the pre‑inspection questionnaires. For example, some schools invite parents to use the library and ICT suite facilities, or to complete the pre-inspection questionnaire during a parents’ school event.

We recognise that schools and settings will want to encourage as many of their stakeholders as possible to complete the pre-inspection questionnaire. To aid with this, the IA can provide you with a regular update on responses rates. Where, for example, the response rates are lower for a particular stakeholder group you could send another communication which reminds and encourages more responses.

What will we do with the information we gather?

We will use an online survey tool which holds the pre-inspection questionnaires and responses.

  • Education Scotland will then store all responses confidentially on secure servers for a period of five years. Personal information provided by respondents will not be shared with any other third-party organisation and will only be used for the purpose it was obtained in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • Education Scotland is subject to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Further information is available on our website.
  • Formic follows some of the principles of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Assistance may be required for those who use screen readers or keyboard-only controls.
  • If stakeholders wish to increase font size to help them complete the survey, it’s best to use the browser controls, for example, Internet Explorer offers options to increase text size via the view menu.

5. Briefings for parents and parent councils

​Support and advice for chairperson of parent council

As chairperson of the parent council you will be interested to know that Education Scotland will shortly be inspecting your child’s school. Gathering the views of parents is important to us during the inspection of a school or setting. We consider these views carefully as part of the evidence during the inspection. We will want to know what you, as chairperson of the Parent Council, think about the school and how it is doing. A member of the inspection team will arrange to meet with you during the inspection. This briefing note aims to help the chairperson of the parent council understand the inspection process of a special school.

PDF file: Briefing Note For Chair Of Parent Council Of Primary Primary And Nursery Class Special Secondary And All-Through Schools (342 KB)

PDF file: Briefing Note For Chair Of Parent Council Of Primary Primary And Nursery Class Special Secondary And All-Through Schools using short model (342 KB)

Briefing for parents

This section aims to help parents to understand the inspection of a special school.

What happens in the inspection of your child’s special school?

Your child’s special school is to have an inspection to find out how well your child is being educated and looked after. HM Inspectors (HMI) will take account of the type and nature of the school and children and young people's needs. The inspection will be carried out by a team of inspectors, associate assessors (AA), and a lay member (LM) working for Education Scotland.

Where there is a nursery class, it may be inspected by an inspector from Education Scotland and the Care Inspectorate or by one inspector on behalf of both organisations.

The inspection published letter will highlight what the school does well and where it needs to improve.

Any requirements made as a result of the inspection refer to action which must be taken by the pre-school provider to comply with relevant legislation.

Before the inspection

We use an online survey tool to gather the views of learners, staff, partners and parents. You will be sent a link to the survey which provides information about the survey and how to complete it.

All replies will be treated in confidence unless they raise issues about the safety and welfare of children or staff in the school. Parents are invited to indicate if they would be available to meet with the inspection team during the week of inspection at the end of the survey. We will contact a small group of parents to make arrangements.

An inspection team can be made up from inspectors from Education Scotland along with others from similar organisations. Information given to us will be seen only by this team. We will not tell anyone else where our information came from unless the safety and wellbeing of a person is considered to be at risk.

During the inspection

  • We will visit classrooms, observe learning, and talk to staff, children and young people about their learning.
  • We may spend some time looking at your child’s work and reading his/her reports.
  • We may work with your child as part of a small group or in a classroom.

After the inspection

  • At the end of the inspection or review, HM Inspectors will share the findings with the school and agree any follow up activity.
  • The inspection team will publish a letter for parents on the Education Scotland website.
  • Summarised Inspection Findings and the analysis of the pre-inspection questionnaire responses are also published on Education Scotland’s website.
  • Where HM Inspectors are confident in the work of the school and that the school has the capacity to continue to improve, no more visits are made in connection with the inspection.
  • In some cases, HM Inspectors will carry out a further inspection to support staff in making improvements.

​The term 'parents' should be taken to include foster carers, residential care staff and carers who are relatives or friends.

^ Back to top

Arrangements for inspecting special schools

Published 01/01/2017.  Last updated 09/01/2024
    1. Arrangements for inspecting schools
    2. Being ready for inspection
    3. Briefing for headteachers
    4. Guidance on issuing pre-inspection questionnaires
    5. Briefings for parents and parent councils

1. Arrangements for inspecting schools

Through inspection, HM Inspectors aim to promote improvement in special schools and successful innovation that enhances learners' experiences as well as providing assurance to stakeholders. Our inspectors focus on the quality of children's learning and outcomes and the school’s capacity to improve.

HM Inspectors evaluate how well a school or setting is performing in a range of key areas. They use quality indicators (QIs) from 'How good is our school? (4th edition)'.

HM Inspectors carry out inspections using a variety of models. This includes full inspections which cover four QIs, and short inspections which cover two QIs.

The special school inspection programme covers over 100 special schools across Scotland. In addition, we inspect a wide range of special units linked to pre-school, primary and secondary provision.

School inspection reports

Inspection reports for schools and early learning and childcare settings in Scotland.

2. Being ready for inspection

​Briefing the inspection team on the establishment’s view of its improvement through self-evaluation

Our inspections provide the opportunity for schools and settings to show that they know themselves well and that they are using self-evaluation to focus on improving children and young people’s attainment and achievements in line with Curriculum for Excellence.

Before the inspection, you are asked to complete, in consultation with your education authority, a brief self-evaluation summary form. The self-evaluation summary form is shown below.

Word file: Brief self-evaluation summary using the full inspection model (153 KB)

Word file: Brief self-evaluation summary using the short inspection model (152 KB)

At the start of the inspection you are invited to use your completed self-evaluation summary form to brief the inspection team. You should set aside up to an hour for this meeting. This dialogue should provide the inspection team with a clear sense of your journey – where you’ve come from, where you are now and where you want to get to. It is important that you cover outcomes for all learners who attend your establishment. This meeting will be the start of an ongoing dialogue with the inspection team about your establishment’s performance and journey of continuous improvement.

It would be helpful to the inspection team if you

  • give a clear account of your establishment’s strengths and aspects for development;
  • demonstrate where the school or setting is improving and show how you know
  • identify the key sources of evidence which underpin your knowledge of school/setting performance and improvement, and make these available; and
  • show how you prioritise areas for improvement

Evaluating your establishment

You will most likely use the fourth edition of How good is our school? or How good is our early learning and childcare? as part of school/pre-school self-evaluation. You probably also use the six point graded scale. Your own evaluations against the six point scale will be helpful to inspectors.

3. Briefing for headteachers

By now, you will be aware that an inspection team will soon visit your school. The team is looking forward to working with you and your colleagues. Throughout the inspection, we shall engage you and your staff in professional dialogue with the aim of supporting improvement.

Your inspection administrator (IA) will be in touch very soon to confirm that your inspection box has all the paperwork you will need and to check if you have any immediate questions. This briefing note has been designed to help you to prepare for the inspection and to outline the kinds of activities which will take place during the inspection. It aims to answer some of the questions you may have regarding the inspection.

Briefing note for headteachers of special schools

This briefing note aims to help staff to understand the inspection process of a special school.

PDF file: Briefing note for headteachers of local authority special schools using the full inspection model (667 KB)

PDF file: Briefing note for headteachers of local authority special schools using a short inspection model (760 KB)

Child protection and safeguarding self-evaluation form

This form is used to record information about child protection and safeguarding. Head of settings are asked to return this with the pre-inspection documents. The Managing Inspector (MI) and/or delegated team member will discuss the information provided in this form with relevant staff during the inspection.

Word file: Child protection and safeguarding: self-evaluation (Part A) (148 KB)

Word file: Child protection and safeguarding: outcome of inspection (Part B) (151 KB)

4. Guidance on issuing pre-inspection questionnaires

Headteacher guide for issuing pre-inspection questionnaires

An important aspect of the inspection is for key stakeholders to be given the opportunity to provide their views of the setting or school. To gather the views of learners, parents, staff and partners we ask the headteacher to issue a pre‑inspection questionnaire to these stakeholders. You’ll find a sample of the questionnaires below.

PDF file: Questionnaires for primary (762 KB)

PDF file: Questionnaires for secondary (821 KB)

Within the email notifying you of the inspection, you will find a number of links to an online survey which holds the pre-inspection questionnaires. The links you will receive are set out below.

Learners

All learners from P4 and above should be sent the survey link.

Please make sure that learners have privacy to complete the questionnaires. You should reassure learners that once they have completed the survey, no-one in the school will see their answers. Inspection team members will not tell anyone about what a learner has written unless they are worried about the learner’s safety. In that case they will talk to the learner and pass it on to someone who can help. Where required, those learners with additional support needs should be helped to complete the survey.

Parents

All parents should receive the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. Parents may complete a pre-inspection questionnaire for each of their children attending the school or setting being inspected. The pre-inspection questionnaire asks the parent to indicate if they shall be providing one response only or if they are providing one response for each of their children.

As part of the inspection, a member of the inspection team will meet with a range of stakeholders. Parents are asked within the pre-inspection questionnaire to indicate if they would like to meet with a member of the inspection team and, if so, to provide their contact details. The Inspection Administrator (IA) will contact a random sample of parents to invite them to the meeting.

Staff

All staff should receive the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. We have created pre-inspection questionnaires for the following broad groupings. A survey link will be provided for each grouping in the notification email which you should circulate as appropriate:

  • school support staff
  • teachers
  • pupil support staff

Partners

We define partners within How good is our school? (4th edition) to include all individuals or organisations that deliver learning and contribute to the life and work of the school/setting. They may include community learning and development services, colleges, universities, employers, third sector, community organisations and libraries. This also covers partners who provide specialist input to support identified children.  All those who work in partnership with your school/setting should be sent the link to the pre-inspection questionnaire.

Distributing the links

You should use the existing digital channels to inform these stakeholders of the inspection, the information that is available from our website and the appropriate link to the pre-inspection questionnaire. When sharing the links it is important to include the date which all responses must be completed by. We usually refer to this as the date the survey will close.

Methods for sharing the links include: using internal email for staff/practitioners; adding the links to your website (remember to remove when the survey has closed) for parents and partners; include the information within a group call or newsletters for parents, staff/practitioners and partners; connect with learners through Glow.

You are best placed to know the most effective ways of communicating and engaging with your stakeholders to ensure that as many as possible have the opportunity to provide their views about your school or setting. We have found that some schools and settings have, in addition to sending the links digitally, opened their doors to parents so that they can use the school’s devices to complete the pre‑inspection questionnaires. For example, some schools invite parents to use the library and ICT suite facilities, or to complete the pre-inspection questionnaire during a parents’ school event.

We recognise that schools and settings will want to encourage as many of their stakeholders as possible to complete the pre-inspection questionnaire. To aid with this, the IA can provide you with a regular update on responses rates. Where, for example, the response rates are lower for a particular stakeholder group you could send another communication which reminds and encourages more responses.

What will we do with the information we gather?

We will use an online survey tool which holds the pre-inspection questionnaires and responses.

  • Education Scotland will then store all responses confidentially on secure servers for a period of five years. Personal information provided by respondents will not be shared with any other third-party organisation and will only be used for the purpose it was obtained in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • Education Scotland is subject to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Further information is available on our website.
  • Formic follows some of the principles of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Assistance may be required for those who use screen readers or keyboard-only controls.
  • If stakeholders wish to increase font size to help them complete the survey, it’s best to use the browser controls, for example, Internet Explorer offers options to increase text size via the view menu.

5. Briefings for parents and parent councils

​Support and advice for chairperson of parent council

As chairperson of the parent council you will be interested to know that Education Scotland will shortly be inspecting your child’s school. Gathering the views of parents is important to us during the inspection of a school or setting. We consider these views carefully as part of the evidence during the inspection. We will want to know what you, as chairperson of the Parent Council, think about the school and how it is doing. A member of the inspection team will arrange to meet with you during the inspection. This briefing note aims to help the chairperson of the parent council understand the inspection process of a special school.

PDF file: Briefing Note For Chair Of Parent Council Of Primary Primary And Nursery Class Special Secondary And All-Through Schools (342 KB)

PDF file: Briefing Note For Chair Of Parent Council Of Primary Primary And Nursery Class Special Secondary And All-Through Schools using short model (342 KB)

Briefing for parents

This section aims to help parents to understand the inspection of a special school.

What happens in the inspection of your child’s special school?

Your child’s special school is to have an inspection to find out how well your child is being educated and looked after. HM Inspectors (HMI) will take account of the type and nature of the school and children and young people's needs. The inspection will be carried out by a team of inspectors, associate assessors (AA), and a lay member (LM) working for Education Scotland.

Where there is a nursery class, it may be inspected by an inspector from Education Scotland and the Care Inspectorate or by one inspector on behalf of both organisations.

The inspection published letter will highlight what the school does well and where it needs to improve.

Any requirements made as a result of the inspection refer to action which must be taken by the pre-school provider to comply with relevant legislation.

Before the inspection

We use an online survey tool to gather the views of learners, staff, partners and parents. You will be sent a link to the survey which provides information about the survey and how to complete it.

All replies will be treated in confidence unless they raise issues about the safety and welfare of children or staff in the school. Parents are invited to indicate if they would be available to meet with the inspection team during the week of inspection at the end of the survey. We will contact a small group of parents to make arrangements.

An inspection team can be made up from inspectors from Education Scotland along with others from similar organisations. Information given to us will be seen only by this team. We will not tell anyone else where our information came from unless the safety and wellbeing of a person is considered to be at risk.

During the inspection

  • We will visit classrooms, observe learning, and talk to staff, children and young people about their learning.
  • We may spend some time looking at your child’s work and reading his/her reports.
  • We may work with your child as part of a small group or in a classroom.

After the inspection

  • At the end of the inspection or review, HM Inspectors will share the findings with the school and agree any follow up activity.
  • The inspection team will publish a letter for parents on the Education Scotland website.
  • Summarised Inspection Findings and the analysis of the pre-inspection questionnaire responses are also published on Education Scotland’s website.
  • Where HM Inspectors are confident in the work of the school and that the school has the capacity to continue to improve, no more visits are made in connection with the inspection.
  • In some cases, HM Inspectors will carry out a further inspection to support staff in making improvements.

​The term 'parents' should be taken to include foster carers, residential care staff and carers who are relatives or friends.

^ Back to top