Home > Schools > Church School Inspection

Church School Inspection

The 2005 Education act introduced the current Ofsted Inspection arrangements. Section 48 of the Act also introduced arrangements for the denominational inspection of Church of England Schools: Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools sometimes known as SIAS

What is a SIAS inspection for?

Technically to ensure that the school is fullfilling the Trust Deed that established the school in the first place.

In essence, it asks the following questions:

'So you're a Church School .. So What?'
How is this school any different from a community school?
What will my children gain from attending a chuch school?

To answer this, these are the key questions schools will need to answer:

How well does the school, through its distinctive Christian character, meet the needs of all learners?
What is the impact of collective worship on the school community?
How effective is the religious education?
How effective are the leadership and management of the school as a church school?

The National Society self-evaluation Toolkit helps schools to develop their self-evaluation processes. It should be seen as an audit tool... a way for the school to celebrate and tell its story as a church school. Despite its name it should not be treated as a SEF.

Self-evaluation is an ongoing process, and it is important to regularly update the toolkit in readiness for an inspection. As a measure of good practice, governors should ensure the report also feeds into the school’s planning for development.

Final reports are written to a set format and all Salisbury diocesan schools’ reports are available on this and The National Society website. The Diocese provides a quality assurance service and regular training for the SIAS inspectors. It is the responsibility of the school to send a copy of the report to parents.

Please note that Ofsted are in process of changing their inspection framework, this will have an impact on some aspects of SIAS inspection. More details to follow

The Ofsted Framework for inspection 2012