During the departmental review process, JMC quickly assessed what our primary needs were and responded immediately. We feel much better equipped for the task ahead.
Judy Packham, Director, Springboard Education
JMC Departmental Reviews : Supporting your journey to Outstanding
As a Head of Subject, taking part in a departmental review is the perfect way to understand how your processes and teams will react and ‘hold up’ during an Inspection, giving you the time to make any necessary adjustments within your organisation based on an honest, critical evaluation of your processes and practices.
Benefits of a Departmental Review by JMC
We provide schools with a subject review service delivered by quality-assured and respected reviewers with high levels of credibility and relevant experience. We have teams of subject specialists supporting the following types of school:
State Schools, Colleges & Other Educational Providers:
- Faith schools
- Free schools
- Academies
- City technology colleges
- State boarding schools
- State Special Schools and SEMH Schools
- GFE & HE Colleges
- Other Educational Providers (including Apprenticeship Providers)
We really found the work you did last year very useful and it’s something we would like to implement on a yearly basis.
Michael Johnson, Vice Principal for Curriculum and Quality, Derwentside FE College
Independent schools:
Non-Association Independent Schools
“ I can’t stress enough how useful the whole process has been for us as a school”
Hannah Pomroy, Deputy Head, Ampleforth College
( Non-Association Independent School)
We support the following:
- Independent Special Schools & Colleges
- Independent Schools
- Independent Faith schools
Please see our additional page for Non-Assocation Independent Schools, Special Schools and Alternative provision.
Independent Schools inspected by ISI
Unrivalled Leadership Experience in State Schools & Multi-Academy Trusts
The collective depth and breadth of experience of our review team is unrivalled. Our reviewers are often former Headteachers, many have worked at Executive level in Multi-Academy Trusts.
Amongst our review team are:
- Former Senior Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI)*
- Former Ofsted National Subject leads
- Current Ofsted Inspectors
- Current ISI Inspectors
- Former Senior Local Authority School Improvement Advisors
- Former Education Directors of Multi Academy Trusts
- Former DfE National Leaders of Education (NLE)
- Former Headteachers & Executive Headteachers
*NB Current HMIs are prohibited by Ofsted from carrying out any school improvement work
The specialist reviewer will be your first point of contact once you have decided to take advantage of our departmental review service. They are designed with subject improvement in mind, your specialist reviewer will act as an informed guide to help your school prepare effectively. Our reviewers offer a mixture of training, coaching and mentoring throughout the process.
The departmental review will encourage both reactive and proactive improvement in the quality of education provided by school.
The review will help to standardise teaching, enable benchmarking and comparison in improving the quality of teaching and learning.
Has your school, academy or PRU already been visited by Ofsted & placed into a category such as serious weaknesses or special measures?
We can support you in putting together an action plan / submission to the DfE, as well as carrying out an external review or monitoring visit . Find out more here
JMC Post Ofsted Support Team
Format for Departmental Reviews
We pay particular attention to team composition ensuring that our reviewers are subject specialists with extensive quality assurance and /or inspection experience.
The departmental reviews are conducted over 2-3 days depending on the size of the department
We will agree the format and programme for the departmental review in advance of the visit to your school.
Use of Evidence
The specialist reviewers judgements on the education quality criteria are based as far as possible on first-hand evidence and include the following activities:
- Subject Deep Dives into Curriculum areas such as Maths, English, Literacy / Reading Science or Humanities
- Meetings with the Subject Head to discuss the curriculum, enrichment and support, assessment and feedback, and outcomes
- Collaborative observation of lessons ( Specialist Reviewer & HOD) and scrutiny of samples of students’ work
- Panel discussions with pupils
- Work scrutiny with teachers and pupils
- Analysis of documentary evidence, including performance indicators and self-evaluation
- Consideration of any significant changes or overt progress over recent years.
Department Review Report
You will receive both verbal feedback and a comprehensive written report which can be presented to the Headteacher, relevant senior leader and Subject Head
How to book a Departmental review
For a quote or to learn more about our departmental reviews, then don’t hesitate to get in touch using our enquires form
2 Replies to “Departmental Reviews for Schools, MATs & Academies”
Comments are closed.