Estyn - the body responsible for inspecting local authority funded or maintained nurseries, and schools in Wales - removed summative gradings in early 2022, and is now ‘reviewing how further changes could improve education and training’.
From September 2024, Estyn said inspections would be ‘leaner and more focused on what drives improvement’ and be ‘manageable for all providers and complement their own processes of evaluation and improvement’.
The inspectorate said it would ‘explore how broader inspection activities can be tailored to better support improvement across individual providers and sectors’.
Estyn plans to have more regular contact with providers, and offer more up-to-date feedback for parents and carers. It is also looking to bring external inspection and providers’ internal evaluation processes closer together, and to use resources ‘where they are needed most’, such as with settings that need support and monitoring for improvement.
