Inspectorates of Education (except for the Irish Inspectorate and policy here may
be changing) do intervene in schools that are judged to be failing. Ofsted, for
example, categorizes schools as being in ‘special measures’ if the school is evaluated
as inadequate and does not have the capacity to improve; or it gives a school ‘a notice
to improve’ when it is performing less well than expected. Schools in special
measures are required to work with the local authority, and if no improvement
follows, they are under threat of closure by the Secretary of State. In the Netherlands,
schools are monitored intensively when they are not performing up to the required
Educ Asse Eval Acc
standard. School boards are expected to develop an improvement plan in which they
address the weaknesses that have been identified in the inspection visit. The Dutch
Inspectorate monitors the implementation of this plan. In Sweden, the schools are
given a certain amount of time to amend identified shortcomings, and the implementation
of improvements is inspected at a follow-up visit. In Styria and Ireland, all
schools have to develop an improvement plan for the next time period, even if they
are not considered to be failing. This plan serves as a target agreement between the
principal and the inspector, and school inspectors check the implementation of these
targets after 1 or 2 years. However, there are no consequences in place for schools
that fail to implement these targets. In the Czech Republic, failing schools are
monitored more frequently and are obliged to implement corrections that have been
identified by the Inspectorate. Table 2 provides a summary of inspection characteristics
of the Inspectorates of Education in our study.