Ofsted Parent View toolkit for schools

This toolkit explains Ofsted Parent View. Schools can use it to encourage parents and carers to share their experiences of their child’s school.

Introduction

Ofsted Parent View is an online survey that allows parents to give their views about their child’s school. Parents can complete the survey at any time. By ‘parents’, we mean any person with parental responsibility for a child at the school.

Ofsted Parent View is also the main mechanism for parents to give their views to inspectors at the time of a school inspection.

You can access the survey directly from the Ofsted Parent View site or from the homepage of Ofsted website.

Schools can encourage parents to use Ofsted Parent View to give the views on a school either during an inspection or at any other time of the year.

This guidance is also available in:

• Ofsted Parent View toolkit for schools(PDF, 218KB, 7 pages) for printing
• Ofsted Parent View toolkit for schools(MS Word Document, 84.5KB) format for editing

Changes to Ofsted Parent View

From September 2019, we are updating what we ask in the Ofsted Parent View survey so that it links more closely to Ofsted’s new education inspection framework.

The survey continues to ask parents how strongly they agree or disagree with statements about their child’s school, though the focus of what we ask parents has changed.

We have removed and adapted some of the statements. We have also added new questions including a question for parents of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This reflects the new framework and responds to requests from parents for a question in this area.

You can read the statements used before September 2019 in our old toolkit.

Ofsted Parent View questions

The survey asks parents to respond to 14 statements and questions.

1. My child is happy at this school.
2. My child feels safe at this school.
3. The school makes sure its pupils are well behaved.
4. My child has been bullied and the school dealt with the bullying quickly and effectively.
5. The school makes me aware of what my child will learn during the year.
6. When I have raised concerns with the school they have been dealt with properly.
7. Does your child have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)? (yes or no)

If yes, the survey asks parents how strongly they agree with this statement: ‘My child has SEND, and the school gives them the support they need to succeed.’

8. The school has high expectations for my child.
9. My child does well at this school.
10. The school lets me know how my child is doing.
11. There is a good range of subjects available to my child at this school.
12. My child can take part in clubs and activities at this school.
13. The school supports my child’s wider personal development.
14. I would recommend this school to another parent. (yes or no)

Unless otherwise specified above, all the answer options to the statements are:

• strongly agree
• agree
• disagree
• strongly disagree
• don’t know

For statement 4, ‘My child has been bullied and the school dealt with the bullying quickly and effectively’ parents can also select ‘My child has not been bullied’.

For statement 6, ‘When I have raised concerns with the school they have been dealt with properly’ parents can select ‘I have not raised any concerns’.

Schools with boarding and residential provision

We have 5 more statements for parents with children who board or reside at these types of schools:

• maintained schools and academies
• independent schools that are not members of associations
• some non-maintained special schools

These statements are:

• My child enjoys boarding/the welfare experience.
• My child is warm enough and comfortable in the residential accommodation.
• The experience of boarding/welfare helps my child’s progress and development.
• I can easily contact the staff who care for my child.
• Boarding and welfare is well organised and managed effectively.

Free-text response

The survey includes an additional question during an inspection. This allows parents to use their own words to express their views about their child’s school.

The free-text question asks: Do you have any additional comments on any of your answers?

We do not publish the responses to this question.

We warn parents not to use this for:

• urgent issues
• safeguarding concerns
• complaints

It also explains that:

• comments are confidential and anonymised
• we will not contact parents about their comments

Engaging with parents

You can use Ofsted Parent View poster (PDF, 139KB, 1 page) to help you raise awareness and encourage parents to share their views.

Guest accounts

We can set up guest accounts for you to use with parents on a computer or tablet device in school. With these guest accounts, parents can use logins created for the school to make it easier for them to give their views.

These are a good way of encouraging parents to complete the survey, particularly at parents evenings and school events.

Email [email protected] to set up guest accounts for your school.

This can make it easier for parents to give their views. Please give five working days’ notice before you need to use the accounts.

Your school’s network may be set to block access to secure HTTPS sites. If so, you will need to remove this restriction to be able to view Ofsted Parent View on your school network.

Viewing results

Once a school has received 10 survey responses, the information will be available to view in Ofsted Parent View for:

• schools
• parents
• the general public

Ofsted Parent View displays data about each school in percentages and easy-to-understand graphs.

We save the results for each school in Ofsted Parent View at the end of the academic year. This gives headteachers and governors a useful year-on-year picture of parents’ views.

Schools will also be able to sign up to the Ofsted Parent View site to receive regular email alerts about responses once we make the results public. You can choose how often you want to receive alerts, for example daily, weekly or monthly.

National data

We publish national response rates for all schools for both maintained and independent schools 3 times per year.

Ofsted Parent View gives response rates for maintained schools by phase.

The report details:

• responses to Ofsted Parent View by question and response
• average number of submissions per school nationally
• total number of submissions received to Ofsted Parent View in the last 12 months

Using parents’ views

During inspections

We ask the headteacher to notify parents about the inspection and invite them to complete the Ofsted Parent View survey.

Inspectors will review the responses from Ofsted Parent View throughout the inspection to ensure that they take all parents’ views received during the inspection into account.

If the response rate for Ofsted Parent View is low, inspectors may take steps during the inspection to gather further parents’ views.

Inspectors will consider and weigh parents’ views against a range of other first-hand evidence they gather to make their overall judgement about the effectiveness of a school.

Other evidence includes:

• lesson visits
• discussions with pupils, teachers and senior managers
• progress and attainment data
• other relevant information

Read our guidance on how inspectors make their judgements.

Outside of inspections

Parents can give their feedback using Ofsted Parent View at any time during the year.

We use this information as part of our risk-assessment process, to help decide when we should inspect a school.

Ofsted Parent View only keeps a parent’s most recent survey responses. If a parent updates their responses in the survey for a school more than once in an academic year, only the most recent responses will show.

Security

Ofsted Parent View is set up securely.

Parents must:

• register with a password
• verify their email address
• accept the terms of use

The log-on process needs to be simple to encourage parents to use it. Parents use it responsibly and the risk of abuse is minimal.

We have systems in place to flag signs of misuse.

If a school has a concern about responses on Ofsted Parent View, the headteacher should contact [email protected]. We will investigate the issue within 24 working hours.

Use Ofsted Parent View link and images

You can add a link to Ofsted Parent View on your own:

• website
• school newsletter
• emails and letters to parents

Schools receive a higher number of responses from parents when they have actively promoted the survey with parents.

You can download Ofsted Parent View logos, links and poster.

Published 9 July 2019
Last updated 29 August 2019 + show all updates

1. 29 August 2019 Added Ofsted Parent View poster for schools to use to encourage parents to share their views on their child’s school.
2. 9 July 2019 First published.