SIAMS

About the Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools (SIAMS)

We have published this page to give schools a range of information to help you prepare for your SIAMS inspection. This includes

An overview of SIAMS
The Inspection Process
Useful downloads

You can also find useful information on the Church of England website
www.churchofengland.org/siams-school-inspections

An overview of SIAMS

The purpose of the SIAMS inspection is to help a school evaluate the impact of its distinctively Christian vision on both pupils and adults. This will involve exploring how your school’s Christian vision drives and supports major strategic and operational decisions and the impact that has on enabling all pupils and adults to flourish.

Church of England schools will employ a wide variety of ways of achieving a distinctively Christian ethos and character which will reflect their unique context. As a result of this, the SIAMS inspection will not look for a set model of what a Church of England school should look like. The inspector will take the context of the school into account and base their judgments on outcomes as opposed to processes.

The current SIAMS Evaluation Schedule (2018) has one fundamental question that is explored:

‘How effective is the school’s distinctive Christian vision, established and promoted by leadership at all levels, in enabling pupils and adults to flourish?’

This is then explored through seven strands

Vision and Leadership
Wisdom, Knowledge, and Skills
Character Development – hope, aspiration, and courageous advocacy
Community and Living Well Together
Dignity and Respect
The impact of collective worship
The effectiveness of RE

One overall grade is awarded which reflects the contribution of each strand to the flourishing of both the pupils and adults. There is no grade for each of the individual strands.

In addition, there is a standalone judgment for collective worship and in voluntary aided (VA) and former VA schools there is a standalone grade for RE – this is based on teaching and learning.

There are four grades that can be awarded:

Excellent
Good
Requires improvement
Ineffective as a Church of England school

The inspection process

Good and outstanding/excellent schools are re-inspected every five years (in the fifth school year following the end of the school year in which they were last inspected, schools will not necessarily be inspected in the same term as their previous inspection). Schools judged to be requiring improvement or ineffective are inspected every three years. Since 2013, the timing of SIAMS has not been linked to the school’s OFSTED inspection.

Keeping on Track visits

For those schools/academies that subscribe to the Partnership Agreement a mid-point monitoring visit (Keeping on Track) is programmed in. This takes the form of a half-day school visit by a diocesan adviser/inspector. The format of the visit consists of: