School inspection report publication statistics: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of school inspection reports published later than 10 weeks after the date of inspection since the formation of Education Scotland.

2. The number of schools to have achieved weak in all inspection categories since the formation of Education Scotland.

3. The percentage of all school inspection reports provided by Education Scotland to have contained a finding of weak in all inspection categories.

4. The inspection findings in each of the inspection categories for all inspections of schools conducted in or after 2020.

Response

Education Scotland’s programme of inspection operates from 1 August to 31 July each year, known as an academic year. The information you have requested is provided for all academic years since the formation of Education Scotland in August 2011 to the most recently published reports in December 2023.

1. The number of school inspection reports published later than 10 weeks after the date of inspection since the formation of Education Scotland.

2. Since Education Scotland was formed in August 2011, 866 inspection reports were published more than 10 weeks after the inspection

Notes
1. Includes all Scottish school inspections carried out from August 2011 and published up to and including December 2023.

2. Education Scotland aims to publish inspection reports within 10 working weeks of the end of the inspection week. We do not publish inspection reports during periods of school closure such as holidays. Publication timescales for individual inspection reports are adjusted accordingly and may therefore be longer than 10 weeks as a result.

3. The information provided above is based purely on 10 consecutive weeks but has not been adjusted to take account of school closures as outlined in (ii).

4. The number of schools to have achieved weak in all inspection categories since the formation of Education Scotland.

5. 32 schools have achieved weak in all inspection categories between August 2011 and December 2023.

Notes
1. In school inspections HM Inspectors use selected quality indicators (QIs) from How good is our school? (4th edition) (HGIOS? 4). QIs are evaluated and graded using a six-point scale: excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, weak and unsatisfactory.

2. The above information details the number of schools that received a weak grading for all of the QIs graded during an inspection.

3. The percentage of all school inspection reports provided by Education Scotland to have contained a finding of weak in all inspection categories.

4. 1.71% of all school inspection reports issued by Education Scotland contained a finding of weak in all inspection categories between August 2011 and December 2023.

5. The inspection findings in each of the inspection categories for all inspections of schools conducted in or after 2020.

6. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. As such, we would direct you to the Education Scotland website where you can search and filter inspection reports by date of publication.

Note
1. Routine school inspections were paused between March 2020 and August 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.