We wrote this article with the help of our associate education experts David New, Jeremy Bird, John Dunne, Jonathan Gower, Nina Siddall-Ward and Sarah Gallagher, and input from members of our in-house team who have experience with work scrutinies.
Decide on your focus and agree your criteria
Work scrutinies can cover a variety of things. For example, your focus might be:
- An area of concern you’ve identified
- A priority in your school improvement plan
- To check that pupils' work over time reflects your curriculum intent
- To find out if your pupils are learning the necessary knowledge and skills in a sensible order and developing incrementally
- Progress in a particular subject or year group
- A particular aspect of teaching and learning, such as marking or differentiation
- How a particular pupil group, such as more able pupils or those eligible for the pupil premium, are getting on in relation to other pupils
Why am I proposing this work scrutiny? What