Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Christine Ryan: It might be helpful if I just make a distinction between the registration function and inspection. Registration occurs when schools want to set up as independent schools. Now, they must be registered with the Department, and that means they apply to be registered as independent schools. They then have an initial inspection to check their suitability to operate as independent schools.
The inspection function is one that occurs routinely on a rolling programme and that inspection function is not carried out by the Department or the regulator. Inspection is carried out either by Ofsted for independent schools, or by ISI for the vast majority of the children in independent schools, or by another approved inspectorate that looks after schools that are members of the Focus Learning Trust—I think there are 26 members at the moment. There is a distinction between what happens now with the Department, which is the body by which schools register, the regulator, and the interpreter of the regulations for the inspectorates, and what happens in terms of inspection and ongoing inspection—the quality assurance side of what happens on a routine basis on the rolling programme for all the schools. Those two things are quite different.