How to do your own subject deep dive

Follow our step-by-step guide to help you collaborate with staff to carry out your own subject deep dive, with a view to making improvements to your curriculum.

Last reviewed on 31 January 2022
School types: All · School phases: All
Ref: 39417
Contents
  1. Ofsted's stance on deep dives
  2. Internal deep dives in a nutshell
  3. Step 1. Identify areas of weakness in your curriculum
  4. Step 2. Decide which year groups to collect evidence from 
  5. Step 3. Collect evidence to find out why these are areas of weakness
  6. Step 4. Discuss your findings with staff 
  7. Step 5. Agree on your next steps 

Ofsted's stance on deep dives

Ofsted believes there are probably better ways than internal deep dives to "drill down to the quality of curriculum" yourself.

This is because a subject deep dive carried out by Ofsted is meant to be a snapshot in time – it's a chance for inspectors to look at the quality of education you provide in a specific timeframe when they inspect. 

If you'd like to carry out your own deep dive

There's nothing stopping you from doing so.

Follow the steps below to help you get the most out of it. You'll find links to our other articles to help you, such as our deep dive questions, audit tools and templates.

Internal deep dives in a nutshell

You shouldn’t use the deep dive to grade your staff’s performance or prepare them for an inspection (you can use