Most schools meet the standards. The ones that don’t tend to stumble in the same places.

Preparing for inspection well is harder than it looks from outside. Most leaders work from a small sample: their own last report, a few from peer schools, and conversations with colleagues who have recently been through it.

ISI published 395 routine inspection reports between May 2025 and April 2026. Reading any single report tells you what happened to that school. Reading all 395 tells you what is happening across the sector.

This work turns the corpus into one usable synthesis:

• what gets praised, and what gets penalised
• the dozen recurring issues behind almost every “not all met” outcome
• recommended next steps and action points, mapped by theme
• the pedagogical patterns that recur across the cycle
• the framing most likely to earn a “significant strength”

Step into your next inspection with the evidence of 395 schools behind you.

A handful of patterns kept surfacing across the corpus. These eight stood out most. A useful starting point if you are preparing for inspection or trying to read what ISI is currently rewarding across the sector. The full report is available below.

Four ways to use the analysis: a free summary to orient, the full report for depth, or the report paired with a briefing call or strategy session for direct discussion.