Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR) – Secondary – Ofsted 2018

In December 2018 Ofsted updated their Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR) for Key Stage 4. Ofsted inspectors will use these reports when preparing for inspections and forming key lines of enquiry. All data in the IDSR is sourced from the Department for Education (DfE). Schools should note that the IDSR may include ‘areas to investigate’ that are not substantiated with supporting data in the IDSR itself.

The IDSR is designed to show how well past cohorts demonstrated characteristics of good or better performance through a brief overview of data and clear visual displays.

The first page of the IDSR lists the ‘areas for investigation’ inspectors will use. These are broken down into key categories; Overall progress 8, EBacc, Overall attainment 8, Subject entry and/or attainment, behaviour and finally destinations. As with primary inspections there is likely to be a focus on absence and exclusions from inspectors.

The report then moves on to provide context for the school or setting.

With regard to subject specific data the IDSR provides an overview summary of relative progression in the following key areas; Overall, English P8 element, Mathematics P8 element, Open P8 element, EBacc P8 element, Science VA, Languages VA, and Humanities VA over the last three years. This indicates where progression was significantly above or below national overall. The report then moves on to provide greater detail for each of those areas with the following two graph types to demonstrate cohort progression.

The final page of the Ofsted secondary IDSR focuses on English Baccalaureate (EBacc) entry and attainment. There is some time before government’s ambition that 75% of all pupils should begin studying the full set of EBacc subjects by 2022. Inspectors will however investigate the current entry rates, and subjects with particularly low entry rates will be highlighted.

Further guidance from Ofsted on the IDSR 2018 for primary education can be found here.