Education: Who watches whom?

Independent school inspectors work closely with the Office for Standards in Education, which awards contracts to registered inspectors to inspect state schools. They use the same methods and examine many of the same features.

There are two main types of independent school inspection.

Most schools use a system devised by the Independent Schools Joint Council, in which retired members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate lead teams of headteachers and senior teachers from the independent sector.

A minority of schools in the Headmasters' Conference, which includes all well-known public schools, have a separate system. For these, the team leader may be a serving head who leads a team of senior teachers all from independent schools.

State schools are all inspected by teams of trained inspectors led by registered inspectors.

All state school reports must be published in full.

Reports from the independent school inspection system are not automatically published. Most parents of pupils in independent schools receive a summary.