About Parent View
Introduction
Parent View is an online questionnaire that allows parents and carers to give their views about their child’s school at any time. It is also the main mechanism for parents to give their views about their child’s school to inspectors at the time of a school inspection.
The questionnaire can be accessed directly from the Parent View site at https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk or from the home page of Ofsted website at www.gov.uk/ofsted.
How Ofsted uses Parent View
During inspections
Ofsted asks the head to notify parents about the inspection and invite them to complete Parent View. Inspectors will review the evidence from Parent View throughout the inspection to ensure that all online responses received during the inspection are taken into account. If the response rate for Parent View is low, inspectors may take steps during the inspection to gather further evidence of parents’ views.
Inspectors will consider and weigh parents’ views against a range of other first-hand evidence they gather – for example, lesson observations; discussions with pupils, teachers and senior managers; progress and attainment data and other relevant information – to make their overall judgement about the effectiveness of a school.
From September 2015, there is an extra free-text question: ‘Do you have any additional comments on any of your answers?’ This is only available when a school is being inspected and these comments are not published.
A disclaimer for this question explains that parents should not use this for urgent issues, safeguarding concerns or complaints. It explains that users’ comments are confidential and anonymised and that parents will not be contacted about their comments.
More information about the way in which inspectors make their judgements can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/ofsted-inspections-of-maintained-schools.
Outside of inspections
Parent View can also be completed at any time during the year. This information contributes to our risk assessment process, to help decide if and when a school should be inspected. If a parent updates their responses for a school more than once in an academic year, the previous results will be overwritten so that only one ‘view’ for each parent, per school, is held.
Parent View questions
Parents are asked to indicate whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree or don’t know in response to 11 short statements. Question 12 asks whether they would recommend the school to other parents. The 12 statements and question are:
- My child is happy at this school
- My child feels safe at this school
- My child makes good progress at this school
- My child is well looked after at this school
- My child is taught well at this school
- My child receives appropriate homework for their age
- This school makes sure its pupils are well behaved
- This school deals effectively with bullying
- This school is well led and managed
- This school responds well to any concerns I raise
- I receive valuable information from the school about my child’s progress
- Would you recommend this school to another parent?