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Do OFSTED Inspections of Secondary Schools Make a Difference to GCSE Results?
Author(s) -
SHAW I.,
NEWTON D. P.,
AITKIN M.,
DARNELL R.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192032000057375
Subject(s) - certificate , school certificate , mathematics education , secondary education , academic achievement , student achievement , government (linguistics) , psychology , medical education , pedagogy , mathematics , medicine , algorithm , linguistics , philosophy
The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) aims to improve school performance through inspection. A government indicator of a secondary school's performance in England and Wales is the students' success in examinations. The examination results of over 3000 OFSTED inspected secondary schools offering students for General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examination during the 1992 to 1997 inspection cycle were modelled statistically. For kinds of schools where achievement was already much higher or lower than the average (e.g. selective schools), inspection was associated with slight improvements in achievement. For county, local education authority maintained, comprehensive schools (the largest single group), inspection did not improve examination achievement. Some implications for school improvement are discussed.