This guide gives an overview of the inspection data summary report (IDSR) for initial teacher education (ITE) providers and inspectors.

Overview of the inspection data summary report (IDSR)

This guide is for initial teacher education (ITE) IDSRs.

The IDSR is a PDF file showing data for Ofsted inspectors to use when preparing for and during inspection. The IDSR is designed to align with the ITE inspection framework and handbook. It provides inspectors with insights into data published by the Department for Education (DfE) and collected by Ofsted.

Access your provider’s IDSR

Providers can access their IDSR through a link that we have emailed to the provider’s given contact.

ITEIDSR 2021

We have focused on the same guiding principles for the ITEIDSR that we followed for the schools’ IDSR that we launched in September 2019.

The ITEIDSR has been designed to:

  • reduce the time spent preparing for an inspection
  • interpret data for inspectors
  • minimise the inspector’s focus on small groups, which can distract from discussing how the provider meets the needs of all trainees

The ITEIDSR highlights important data. Inspectors use this data as a starting point for conversations with partnership leaders.

The ITEIDSR contains:

  • basic provider details
  • partnership context information
  • details of the most recent inspection of each phase, including a link to the report
  • characteristics of new entrants, such as age, degree qualification grade and ethnicity
  • summaries of the results of the trainee online questionnaire
  • data on outcomes, including qualified trainee status and employment outcomes

Provider details box

The provider details box on the first page of the report shows the following data:

  • provider’s name
  • provider’s unique reference number (URN)
  • provider’s UK provider reference number (UKPRN)
  • the local authority in which the provider is located
  • provider’s postcode
  • provider’s phone number
  • type of partnership
  • phases of education that the provider offers
  • total expected number of trainees in 2020/21
  • total expected number of partner schools/colleges
  • provider’s website URL

The provider self-reports most of this information in the annual partnership return. Therefore, the information may not be the most up to date (see the ‘Data sources’ section).

Note that the number of trainees and the number of partner schools are the expected numbers for 2020/21 provided by partnerships in summer 2020. Therefore, these may not exactly match the actual numbers for the year.

Partnership context

This section provides information on the number of trainees attending the partnership over time and the training routes they follow.

Number of trainees by phase across time

This section provides the total number of trainees by phase for the past 4 years. If the provider has undergraduate trainees, then trainees in all years of their course are included in the total.

Partnerships self-report these numbers through the annual partnership return.

The data for 2019/20 and 2020/21 is populated using ‘expected’ numbers provided by the partnership before the academic year started. As a result, the data may not exactly match the actual number of trainees who started courses in those academic years.

For primary and secondary phases, the national averages presented are specific to the type of partnership. For example, we compare primary higher education institution providers with primary higher education institution national averages. For the early years and further education phases, there were not enough providers by sub-type to carry out this calculation. Therefore, the national averages presented for these phases are for all providers and are not specific to the type of partnership.

Expected trainees by route

This section presents the expected number of trainees by route. Partnerships self-reported these numbers through the partnership survey during summer 2020. Therefore, they may not exactly match the current trainee numbers.

Expected schools by phase

This section presents the expected number of partner schools for each phase. For further education, the IDSR includes a list of colleges if the partnership has provided this information.

Partnerships self-reported this information through the partnership survey during summer 2020. Therefore, the information may not exactly match the current schools and colleges totals for each partnership.

Latest inspection

The IDSR provides information on the latest inspection of each phase, including a URL to the partnership’s Ofsted inspection reports page. Where phases were inspected separately, the separate inspection dates and outcomes are shown.

The IDSR takes the latest inspection data from Ofsted’s official statistics on initial teacher education: inspections and outcomes.

Recruitment data

This section provides recruitment data that the DfE collects through the initial teacher training (ITT) census.

Recruitment by characteristic

This section presents recruitment information broken down by characteristic. It relates to new entrants in the 2020/21 academic year.

The IDSR creates sentences for the following characteristics:

  • undergraduate entrants
  • postgraduate entrants with a 2:1 or higher in their degree
  • postgraduate entrants from a minority ethnic group
  • postgraduate entrants aged over 25

The IDSR will always show a sentence providing the proportion of undergraduate trainees.

For postgraduate entrants with a 2:1 or higher and postgraduate entrants aged over 25, the IDSR includes a sentence when the partnership’s percentage is in the highest 20% of all partnerships or the lowest 20% of all partnerships. If a sentence is displayed in grey, it means that either the percentage was not exceptionally high or low compared with other partnerships or there were 10 or fewer trainees in the cohort.

For the recruitment of postgraduate trainees from a minority ethnic group, the IDSR includes a sentence when either the number of new entrants from a minority ethnic group is zero or the partnership is in the highest 20% of all partnerships. In other cases, the sentence is displayed in grey.

Subject of new entrants in 2020/21

The chart in this section shows the subjects studied by new secondary trainees in 2020/21 in descending order. The numbers shown include both undergraduates and postgraduates.

The IDSR presents information collected through the partnership survey relating to further education subject entries below the chart.

Trainee online questionnaire in 2020

Findings

This section summarises the responses that trainees provided in the online questionnaire that we carried out in summer 2020.

There is a sentence stating how many trainees responded to the trainee online questionnaire. The IDSR compares this number with the estimated number of trainees for the 2019/20 academic year, which is taken from the 2019 partnership return. Because this number is an estimate, the number of responses exceeds the estimated number of trainees for a small number of partnerships.

The IDSR shows the overall proportion of positive responses given to all questions in the survey. This is alongside the average positive responses for all partnerships. A positive response is where a trainee responded ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ to a question.

The IDSR also highlights those questions that more than 10% of trainees responded to negatively (‘disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’). Questions are only highlighted if there were more than 10 respondents to the questionnaire.

Some questions in the trainee online questionnaire are available to all trainees, whereas some questions are specific to phases. If a question that is flagged as having had higher negative responses is phase-specific, the IDSR indicates the relevant phase.

Respondents by route

This table breaks down the number of respondents to the trainee online questionnaire by the phase and route of the trainees.

Qualified teacher status and employment outcomes

This section provides outcomes data that the DfE publishes in the annual ITT performance profiles.

Qualified teacher status outcomes

This section presents the proportion of trainees that were awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) at the end of their course. The data relates to the cohort completing their course in the 2018/19 academic year. The data is shown for all postgraduate trainees and also broken down into primary and secondary phases.

The IDSR creates a sentence when the partnership’s ‘awarded QTS’ percentage is in the highest 20% of all partnerships or the lowest 20% of all partnerships and the cohort is larger than 10. If a sentence is displayed in grey, it means that either the percentage was not exceptionally high or low compared with other partnerships or the cohort was 10 or fewer.

Trainees who did not complete their course

This section shows the number of trainees who did not complete their course. The data relates to the cohort finishing their course in the 2018/19 academic year.

The IDSR presents the data separately for undergraduate and postgraduate trainees. The numbers are broken down into those who were not awarded QTS and those who were yet to complete the course. For postgraduate trainees, the numbers are also broken down by phase and route (the DfE does not publish this breakdown for undergraduates).

Employment outcomes (state-funded schools in England only)

This section shows the proportion of the 2017/18 final year trainees awarded QTS who were employed in a state-funded school in England within 16 months of qualification. The data is shown for all postgraduate trainees and also broken down into primary and secondary phase.

The IDSR creates a sentence when the partnership’s ‘teaching in a state-funded school’ percentage is in the highest 20% of all partnerships or the lowest 20% of all partnerships and the cohort size is larger than 10. If a sentence is displayed in grey, it means that either the percentage was not exceptionally high or low compared with other partnerships or the cohort was 10 or fewer.

Data sources

Partnership return 2020

Ofsted collects the partnership return from all providers annually. We sent the most recent partnership return to providers in the summer of 2020.

The following data comes from the partnership return:

  • phases of education that the provider offers in 2020/21
  • total expected number of trainees in 2020/21; this includes the total numbers in the provider details box and the number of expected trainees by route in the partnership context section of the report
  • total expected number of partner schools or colleges in 2020/21
  • names and URNs of the expected further education settings or colleges in 2020/21
  • the subject of new further education entrants in 2020/21

As partnerships self-report the information in the partnership return and we collected this before the 2020/21 academic year, the data may not exactly match current information.

‘Find postgraduate teacher training’ service

The provider website link shown in the provider details box is from the publicly available teacher training course API. The API is part of the Find postgraduate teacher training service.

Websites have been manually added for any provider that does not have a working website listed in the application programming interface.

Existing data

The other data that the IDSR presents in the provider context section comes from Ofsted’s existing data. This information comes from a variety of sources, including previous partnership returns, notifications and data from the DfE.

Inspection outcomes

The IDSR takes the date and outcome of the latest inspection for each phase from our official statistics on initial teacher education: inspections and outcomes.

Trainee online questionnaire

The IDSR takes all information in the trainee online questionnaire section of the report from the latest questionnaire responses for the provider. We collect these responses from providers annually. The latest trainee online questionnaire is from July 2020 and was completed by trainees carrying out their courses in the 2019/20 academic year.

DfEITT census data

The DfEITT census provides the recruitment characteristics data in the IDSR.

The current statistical release provides provisional figures on the number of new entrants who have started an ITT programme in England in 2020/21 by:

  • school subject
  • training route
  • training region
  • a range of trainee demographic factors

The statistics cover those training to teach through both postgraduate and undergraduate routes, as well as a separate section on those carrying out early years ITT.

The DfE collects the ITT census annually and it counts those trainees registered on a course on the second Wednesday in October. For 2020/21, this was Wednesday 14 October 2020. The collection remained open until 3 November 2020 to allow providers time to input and check their records. The ITT census covers first-year trainees in England.

For more information on the DfEITT census data, see the methodology section of the ITT census website.

DfEITT performance profiles

The DfEITT performance profiles provide the QTS and employment outcomes information in the IDSR.

Information in the IDSR on QTS outcomes relates to the 2018/19 final-year cohort for each provider. The DfE published the latest data on 30 July 2020, which is for the 2018/19 academic year.

Information in the IDSR on employment outcomes relates to revised data for the 2017/18 final-year cohort for each provider. This is because employment rates are calculated from the proportion of qualified trainees who are employed in a state-funded school in England 16 months after qualifying. When the DfE published the latest performance profiles data, 16 months had not passed since the 2018/19 cohort’s course completion. Therefore, the latest data available is an estimate.

The statistics cover those training to teach through both postgraduate and undergraduate routes, as well as separate sections on those carrying out early years ITT and assessment-only training.

The DfE collects ITT performance profiles each year for trainees in the final year of their ITT training. This year, the DfE collected data on the database of trainee teachers and providers. The main collection period was from September to November 2019. However, in some cases, further changes were made directly by the database of trainee teachers and providers team in agreement with providers.

Conditions of use

The IDSR conditions of use and storage are that:

  • the IDSR is to be used only for educational and analytical purposes and for informing inspection, not for any other purpose
  • data presented in the IDSR is to be shared only with those who need and are authorised to have access to the information
  • the IDSR should be saved in a secure location with limited access

Data protection

When accessing the data in the IDSR, you must recognise the privacy of that data and always comply with the Data Protection Act 2018. The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You must ensure that you use the data that you have access to for the purpose for which the service was set up and that you do not use the data for any other purpose. You must ensure that the data is processed securely and that it is not subject to any unauthorised use or disclosure.

Published 30 March 2021 Contents