'Quality of education': monitoring teaching and learning

Your board will monitor teaching and learning as part of Ofsted’s ‘quality of education’ judgement. Understand how to hold your school leaders to account on what teachers teach and pupils learn, and find some questions you can ask.

Last reviewed on 5 September 2023
School types: All · School phases: All
Ref: 4470
Contents
  1. Your role as a governor
  2. Questions to ask about teaching and learning
  3. Other sources of evidence to evaluate teaching and learning

Your role as a governor

 'Quality of education' is the key judgement that Ofsted uses to inspect the curriculum.

According to Ofsted, curriculum is made up of 3 central concepts: 

  1. Intent: what you want pupils to know, and be able to do, by the time they leave your school (in other words, curriculum planning)
  2. Implementation: how the curriculum is taught and assessed 
  3. Impact: the outcomes pupils achieve as a result of the education they’ve received – so, how the curriculum is making a difference

It's a fine line to walk as a governor. How do you satisfy yourself that the quality of teaching is sufficient without judging the actual teaching? Without marking their books, how do you know that pupils are learning – especially in those subjects that don't appear

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