School Suitability Assessment

To assist Head Teachers with swift and efficient reporting, understanding and identification of shortcomings in their school accommodation, noting the impact this has on operational efficiency in order to raise educational standards.

Introduction

Suitability defines how well premises meet the needs of pupils, teachers and other users and how they contribute towards raising standards of education.

Advantages

Oakleaf’s involvement ensures that full sets of completed, authorised and consistent information are supplied to the Local Authority for processing and analysis.

The Audit

Assessments cover all areas of an establishment and are carried out on a room by room basis.  The method of assessment aims to identify problems affecting the delivery of the curriculum and operational efficiency of schools, which might affect educational attainment.

The role of the auditor is to help the Head Teacher / Site Manager to complete a consistent, thorough and correct analysis without disruption to the school and staff. The ownership of the comments are therefore those of the School, not the auditor.

The Content

The framework is applicable to all types of school and covers the following aspects of teaching and non-teaching accommodation (including staff facilities)…

Problems will be categorised according to their impact on standards of education…

The Results

These are entered into the standard statutory DfES forms for consistency of reporting. The forms are then returned to the school for verification and approval by the Head Teacher before being delivered to the Authority.

The meeting with a senior teacher is an opportunity to check the layout of the premises for changes which have not been otherwise recorded.

It is expected that any changes to the plan layout of the school are recorded by the auditor and reported back to the authority for updating of relevant records and plans. Similarly the database of rooms is adjusted and updated accordingly for reference by all interested parties.

Once the checking process is complete the final documents are passed to the Local Authority. This is a correctly completed set of documents, ready for further analysis and processing and will provide the DfES with the relevant information to meet the statutory requirements.