- ISI has four values which also place children’s wellbeing first and foremost. These values shape its work, help guide decisions and permeate the culture of the inspectorate:
- Children first: Children and their wellbeing are at the heart of everything we do.
- Diversity: We promote a culture of inclusivity in our workplace and report robustly on how well schools meet standards relating to equality, diversity and inclusion.
- Integrity: We are independent of the schools we inspect. This allows us to deliver fair and objective judgements.
- Transparency: We publish all inspection reports, our annual accounts and an annual data report. We share information on how we recruit and train our inspectors, how we inspect and how we quality assure our own work.
- ISI has four inspection principles on which its inspection practice is built. These are:
- Manageability: ISI understands that inspection is a significant event for a school and will promote practices on inspection that, as far as possible, align with the day-to-day life of the school and do not cause unnecessary workload for the school or for the inspection team.
- Collaboration: Inspectors will seek to work alongside school leaders and staff where appropriate to do so, discussing evidence and sharing emerging findings.
- Triangulation and typicality: Inspectors will consider a range of evidence when forming evaluations on inspection. Inspectors will look for evidence of what would be typical provision for pupils at the school over time. Inspectors will consider a range of connected evidence, including school records and by confirming the context of what inspectors are seeing, hearing and reading on inspection.
- Proportionality: When judging the extent to which a school meets the Standards, inspectors will exercise their professional judgement. Where there are some relative weaknesses or minor errors that can be easily rectified, inspectors will take a proportionate approach. Inspectors will consider if those weaknesses amount to a failure to meet one or more of the Standards. Weaknesses or errors which are indicative of systemic failings in the school’s processes and/or provision will lead to a judgement that the relevant Standards are unmet.