What Is Case Sampling in an Ofsted Inspection?

A practical guide for headteachers, principals, proprietors, SENCos and senior leaders

Of all the changes in the renewed inspection framework, case sampling is the one leaders find hardest to prepare for. That’s because, done properly, it can’t be prepared for in the way schools traditionally prepared for inspection.

You can’t produce a document that satisfies it. You can’t brief your way through it. It asks a simple question about a small number of real children, and the answer comes from the adults around them.

Many leaders tell us this feels exposing, and that’s a fair reaction. It’s also, in our experience, the most useful activity in a modern inspection, because it goes straight past the systems to the actual experience of a child.

In this guide we’ll explain what case sampling is, how pupils are chosen, what inspectors ask, why schools find it difficult, and how to prepare honestly.

What Is Case Sampling in an Ofsted Inspection?

Case sampling is where inspectors look closely at the experience of a small number of individual pupils who face barriers to their learning or wellbeing.

It sits within the inclusion evaluation area, which is now graded in its own right under the renewed framework. Rather than evaluating your inclusion systems in the abstract, inspectors follow specific children through them.

The question underneath it is straightforward. For this particular child, does the school know who they are, understand what gets in their way, and do something effective about it?

That’s a different question from whether you have a good process. Plenty of schools have excellent processes that work for most children and quietly don’t work for three.

How Are Pupils Selected for Case Sampling?

Inspectors choose them, not the school.

They’ll typically look across the groups the framework identifies: pupils who are disadvantaged, pupils with SEND, pupils known to children’s social care, and pupils facing other barriers to their learning or wellbeing. That last group is deliberately broad, and it’s the one schools think about least.

Selection draws on the information available to inspectors and on what emerges during the inspection. A pupil mentioned in a conversation, or one whose attendance pattern stands out, may well become part of the sample.

The practical implication is that you can’t identify your best examples in advance and present those. That’s the design working as intended.

What Happens During Case Sampling?

Inspectors build a picture of one child from several directions.

They’ll look at the records: the plan where there is one, assessments, attendance, behaviour, any involvement from other agencies. They’ll talk to the staff who work with that child, which might be a teacher, a teaching assistant, a therapist or a key worker. They may look at the child’s work. Where it’s appropriate, they may talk to the child.

Then they compare what’s specified with what actually happens. Does the provision named in the plan take place? Do the adults around this child know what they need and why? Is anyone checking whether it’s working?

In a special school or alternative provision this is close to the heart of what you do, and inspectors take context into account, recognising that published outcomes data may not show the progress your pupils are making.

Why Do Schools Find Case Sampling Difficult?

Three reasons, and none of them are about weak practice.

It can’t be staged. Every previous inspection framework could be prepared for to some degree. Case sampling asks a question that only the ordinary running of the school can answer.

It exposes the gap between the system and the child. Most schools have a good inclusion process. What case sampling finds is the child for whom the process was followed and the provision still didn’t happen, usually because a member of staff left or a timetable changed and nobody joined it up.

It relies on staff who don’t usually speak to inspectors. A teaching assistant who knows a child well will give a better answer than any leader. One who’s been told to be careful will give a worse one.

It’s understandable that leaders find that uncomfortable. It’s also, we’d argue, the fairest test of a school that inspection has ever contained, because it’s the test the child experiences every day.

How Should We Prepare for Case Sampling?

By doing it yourselves, regularly, and acting on what you find.

Take five or six pupils across different needs. Read their plans properly rather than a summary. Then look at what those children actually received last week. Talk to the adults who work with them and ask what this child needs and why. Where you can, ask the child.

You’re looking for three things: provision that’s specified but not happening, adults who can’t explain why a child gets what they get, and children whose needs have changed without the provision changing with them.

Do that every half term and it stops being inspection preparation and becomes quality assurance. Our Case Sampling for Inclusion service does exactly this independently, and EHCP Quality Assurance tests the plans themselves.

One thing not to do is brief your staff on what to say. Inspectors are experienced at recognising it, and a teaching assistant who knows a child well needs no script.

What About Pupils Without a Plan?

Worth a section of its own, because this is where schools are least prepared.

The fourth group, pupils facing other barriers to their learning or wellbeing, has no register and no paperwork. A child who’s a young carer, or whose attendance has quietly slipped, or who’s recently bereaved, may face significant barriers with nothing formal attached.

Ask your staff who those children are in your school. If the answer comes quickly and specifically, your inclusion culture is strong. If it takes a while, that’s the gap, and it’s a more common one than the SEND gap.

From Our Experience

When we case sample in a school, the finding is almost never a child nobody knows about. It’s a child everybody knows about, where something specified isn’t happening and nobody had joined the dots.

A therapy block that stopped when a therapist left. An intervention group that quietly reduced when a teaching assistant moved class. A support arrangement that was right two years ago and hasn’t been revisited since. Every decision was reasonable at the time.

Many leaders tell us they were confident going in because their tracking said everything was in place. The tracking recorded what was intended rather than what happened, and that distinction is the whole point of case sampling.

The happier finding is more common than people expect. We regularly meet teaching assistants who can describe a child’s needs, history and triggers with real precision, and who’ve never been asked. Those conversations are frequently the strongest evidence in a school.

A Common Misconception

“We are a special school, so case sampling will be straightforward for us.”

It’s an understandable assumption and it’s the one we’d most gently challenge.

Being a specialist setting means every pupil has significant needs. It doesn’t automatically mean each of them is receiving what their plan specifies, that barriers are being identified as they change, or that the provision is still right for a child whose needs have moved since the last review.

Case sampling tests individual children individually. A school can be genuinely committed to inclusion as a value and still have three pupils for whom something specified isn’t happening, and it’s those three the sampling will find.

That isn’t a criticism of specialist settings. It’s the reason the approach exists, and it’s why checking real children matters more than describing your ethos.

Questions for Leaders

• When did anyone here last trace a handful of plans through to what those children actually received?
• Could a teaching assistant explain what one of our most complex pupils needs, and why?
• Who are the children facing barriers who have no formal plan, and can our staff name them?
• Does our tracking record what was intended or what happened?
• When a member of staff leaves, who checks what provision left with them?

Our Perspective

Case sampling is the best thing in the renewed framework, and we’d say that even though it’s the part schools find most exposing.

It moves inspection away from documents and towards the experience of an individual child, which is where the truth about a school actually lives. A system that works for ninety-five per cent of pupils and fails three is a system worth knowing about, and no amount of policy review would have surfaced it.

Do it yourselves, every half term, and act on what you find. Not because an inspector might ask, but because each of those children only gets this year once, and finding the gap in October is worth considerably more to them than finding it in an inspection two years later.