School Profile
Summary
From the academic year 2005/06 onwards, governing
bodies will no longer be required to hold an annual parents’ meeting, nor
produce a governors’ annual report.
Instead, governing bodies will be required to complete a school profile
every year.
The Profile will be a concise, accessible and jargon-free document with the following
features:
*
an online system (held on a central website) with all the centrally-generated standard data (from the DfES and Ofsted) for the
school already provided;
*
the school’s own
narrative which allows parents to see how a school is performing in key areas,
including both academic results and the broader aspects of school life;
*
information as to how
the school is helping every student achieve their full potential, the ways in
which it supports pupils and what they are trying to improve;
*
how the school is
engaging with the wider community, including parents and carers and other
schools;
*
an excerpt from the
latest Ofsted report and what has been done in response to the latest
inspection;
*
plans for the future.
It is intended that this will be available to all schools from autumn 2005, for publication to
parents when the 2005 performance tables are published, early in 2006. Parents will
be able to access the Profile on-line from January 2006. Profiles can be accessed by schools and
governing bodies on TeacherNet and GovernorNet. Parents will be able to see Profiles on the Parentscentre.
The DfES is also changing the regulations for the
school prospectus, so that there is much more flexibility over what is
included, and schools will be more free to respond to requests from parents for
particular pieces of information. They propose to remove many of the detailed requirements
about its content. The only obligatory content of the school prospectus
will be the information about SEN and disability provision that is currently in
the governors’ annual report. It makes
sense to include it in the prospectus where it will be easily available to
parents.
As understood by Rita Gregory, Oct.
‘05