HMIe National Thematic Inspection Report - Local Authority Approaches to Supporting School Improvement
Perth and Kinross Council · 2 June 2025
Back to Executive Sub-Committee of the Learning and Families Committee — 2 June 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Our vision is a Perth and Kinross where everyone can live life well, free from poverty and inequalities ___________________________________________________________________ Committee or Board: Executive Sub-Committee of the Learning and Families Committee Date of Meeting: 2 June 2025 Report Title: HMIe National Thematic Inspection Report - Local Authority Approaches to Supporting School Improvement Report Number: 25/135 Report Author: David Macluskey, Strategic Lead – Education and Learning, (FBSCommittee@pkc.gov.uk) Organisational Lead: David Macluskey, Strategic Lead – Education and Learning ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Purpose 1.1 The purpose of this report is to share the National Thematic Inspection report published by His Majesty’s Inspectors of Education on 12 March 2025 regarding local authority approaches to supporting school improvement and to share the findings from the thematic inspection undertaken in Perth and Kinross. 1.2 Sections 1. Purpose 2. Recommendation 3. Background/Context 4. Main Issues 5. Proposals 6. Conclusion 7. Impact Value Assessment 8 Appendices 2. Recommendation It is recommended that the Executive Sub-Committee review and note the content of both the National and local reports.
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3. Background/Context 3.1 In June 2024, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education announced a National Thematic Inspection of local authorities in Scotland. The focus of this thematic inspection was to review how local authorities support schools to improve. This National Thematic Inspection enabled HM Inspectors to explore current priorities for improving school performance across all 32 local authorities in Scotland. The Inspectors identified what is working well and heard about challenges that local authorities encounter and improvements that need to be addressed to ensure effectiveness across Scotland. 3.2 Visits to local authorities took place between September and November 2024. The visit to Perth and Kinross Council (PKC) took place during week beginning 9 September 2024. 3.3 During the visits, inspection teams met with senior officers and central teams in local authorities to hear about local priorities and approaches to quality assurance and school improvement. HM Inspectors also met with focus groups of headteachers and school leaders, teachers, representatives of professional associations, elected members and chairs of parent councils. 4. Main Issues 4.1 Through the National Thematic Inspection, HM Inspectors gathered evidence on the following themes: • How local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through implementing effective improvement planning and standards and quality reporting. • How local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through self-evaluation and quality assurance. • How local authorities support schools to improve the quality of education through professional learning. • How local authorities deliver universal support and challenge for all schools, and targeted support for specific schools to improve the quality of education. 4.2 The report makes a number of national recommendations: • Ensure that all schools receive high-quality, consistent support through robust universal provision. This should reduce variability within and across local authorities and secure equitable outcomes for learners. • For schools requiring targeted support, implement robust action planning, monitoring and accountability. This is essential to ensure that necessary improvements for learners are secured at pace. • Prioritise leadership development for middle leaders, particularly in secondary schools, where improvement outcomes are less consistent, with a focus on the principles of self-evaluation for self-improvement.
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• Establish a national professional learning programme for local authority central officers. This will help to build capacity and professional knowledge in school improvement and effective support and challenge practices. • Develop flexible models of support that address the specific needs of rural, remote, and island schools. • Embed local authority collaborative approaches to foster collective accountability for school improvement, ensuring these are consistently grounded in robust self-evaluation, and lead to accurate understanding of individual and collective improvement priorities. • Improve the strategic use of data at both local authority and school levels. This includes developing staff capacity to interpret data effectively and use data-driven insights to inform self-evaluation, improvement planning, and resource allocation. 4.3 At PKC level, the review identified that: • The advice and guidance to support school improvement is clear and comprehensive with clear expectations set for the completion and submission of standards and quality reports and school improvement plans. • Quality Improvement, Learning Teaching and Assessment, Literacy and Numeracy Frameworks were identified as providing detailed and useful tools to support improvement. • The responsive and risk-based approach to providing support and challenge to schools along with formal Quality Improvement Reviews are helping to identify more accurately schools’ capacity for continuous improvement. • Through these approaches to quality improvement and support for the effective use of data, the local authority is supporting headteachers to be more robust and accurate in their self-evaluation. • Professional learning programmes have been reviewed to ensure a focus on improved outcomes based on impact. There is effective engagement with national professional learning offers with successes and impacts being shared across the authority. • There are appropriate supports for staff at all levels including coaching and mentoring approaches where appropriate. • Headteachers value the role of Quality Improvement Officers and their interventions, with teachers reporting that they are very visible and supportive of schools. • Recruitment and retention of staff was identified as a challenge affecting the capacity for school improvement, particularly in rural areas. Recruitment to certain secondary subjects including Mathematics, Computing and Home Economics was also identified as a significant challenge. • Managing additional support needs and inclusion were also identified as a challenge for some schools with this also potentially impacting on staff capacity for school improvement. • A more structured approach to the use of the network of Associate Assessors could benefit staff across the Authority.
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4.4 There were a number of areas identified as effective practice worth sharing. These included: • The approach to engaging with parents following school inspections. • Approaches to school improvement are well developed and streamlined with the responsive and risk-based approach enabled by well- developed and considered systems and processes. • Effective use of the National Model for Professional Learning and Improvement Science Methodologies which allow staff to develop their knowledge and skills in key priority areas. 5. Proposal The content of the National Thematic Inspection and the PKC report will be reviewed by senior leaders within Education and Learning and any identified actions will be incorporated into the Education Improvement Plan 2025-26 which will be presented to Learning and Families Committee on 27 August 2025. 6. Conclusion The Executive Sub-Committee is asked therefore to review and note the content of the report. 7. Impact Value Assessment Once the review of these reports has been completed, any identified actions will be included within the Education Improvement Plan for 2025-26. An Impact Value Assessment will be completed at that point and included within the report for Learning and Families Committee on 27 August 2025. 8. Appendices Appendix 1 - Local authority approaches to supporting school improvement: A national thematic inspection report from His Majesty’s Inspectors of Education, 12 March 2025 Appendix 2 - National Thematic Inspection: Local authority approaches to supporting school improvement, Summarised Findings, Perth and Kinross Council