It’s been a while since youth work was formally inspected. Work to develop a standalone form of youth work inspection by Estyn is underway and youth work inspection will be reintroduced from late 2024. The reintroduction of inspection follows the introduction of the Youth Work Quality Mark for Wales. In this blog, we will explain what inspection is and how the Youth Work Quality Mark complements it.

Youth work has been considered as part of local authority inspections, but introducing a stand-alone inspection for the whole of youth work will help to highlight the important contribution this education field is making to the lives of young people in Wales. It will also help to underline the legislative basis for youth work, including its statutory basis, and the importance of maintaining a vibrant voluntary youth work sector.

Estyn colleagues, along with representatives from across the youth work field, are in the process of refining the detail of what inspection will actually look like. A process which will continue until the pilot inspections are completed in early 2024. This collegiate approach will ensure that the inspection process is supportive and meaningful, as well as being a key driver for service improvement.

When we work with young people, the quality of our interventions are often hard to define. That moment of engagement, when a young person has turned an emotional corner, grasped an opportunity, or worked out a solution to a problem are the highs in many youth workers’ careers.

These moments are often the result of many hours of planning, reflection, development, or change. Listening and responding to young people is critical. These breakthroughs are examples of the principles and values of youth work making a real difference to a young person. Sometimes, the youth work sector itself generalises this by justifying it as ‘just part of the job’.  We must not lose sight of the fact that youth workers often go that extra mile to help and support young people. These moments, and the preparation for them, should be celebrated. Understanding and evaluating the impact of the work we do is a crucial part of self-evaluation and supports organisations to further improve their youth work.

High-quality youth work has a crucial role to play in supporting many young people to achieve their full potential and successfully negotiate key transitions between the ages of 11-25. Through informal and non-formal educational approaches, effective youth work practice builds the capacity and resilience of young people, and can change their lives for the better. Through participation in youth work, young people gain confidence and competence, develop self-assurance, and have the opportunity to establish high expectations and aspirations for themselves.

The Quality Mark for Youth Work in Wales enables organisations to celebrate these moments, and the hard work and endeavour it takes to achieve them. It aids service improvement through reflection and review. The voluntary nature of this process demonstrates a commitment to excellence via a route of self-assessment and peer assessment. Achieving the Quality Mark brings many benefits to organisations. Most notably, having a badge of excellence which shows you they are truly delivering a service to young people which you, your peers, and Wales can be proud of.

Youth work inspection will enhance the recognition of youth work in the eyes of those with significant influence, such as the Welsh Government, senior management of organisations, external funding bodies, and others. Inspection in particular aims to have this kind of influence on the education field, inside local authorities, schools, the FE sector, other employers, government, unions and funders. This is achieved by promoting the status of youth work alongside other education professions.

The intention is that the reintroduction of inspection provides public scrutiny and recognition. In turn, it is hoped that this will raise the profile of youth work, providing the whole field with a platform for improvement and opportunity. All statutory education services, and their governance bodies, are required to be publicly accountable via the inspection process, including local authority youth services. Voluntary sector youth work groups will also be included.

Inspection also provides public feedback on youth work for young people and the wider community about the youth work happening in their area. The Quality Mark assessment does not result in a published report, but inspection will. However, both will be focused on highlighting innovation and good practice. Any concerns arising are highlighted in a supportive and empowering way to help organisations provide the best possible services for young people.

The Quality Mark has a self-assessment element which is available for all youth work organisations in Wales to use regardless of their size, where they receive their funding, or whether they then take the step to being externally verified. Estyn will use the self-assessment and improvement planning processes that organisations already have in place as the starting point for inspection and providers won’t be expected to produce any additional documentation before an inspection.

Because of the legislative requirement to inspect youth work, the main key difference between Quality Mark and inspection is that the Quality Mark is voluntarily applied for, whilst inspection is mandatory.

Like the Quality Mark, the inspection process will involve uploading evidence to a virtual area. Estyn will also provide a number of guidance documents with the provider in the same way. There is no expectation that providers prepare documentation specifically for inspection, only to share their internal reporting and quality assurance reports. The process for assessing the Quality Mark and the inspection process helps to focus on the importance of effective self-evaluation. Inspection can be seen as a way of validating the types of service improvement that were prompted and encouraged by Quality Mark assessment. During an inspection, inspectors primary evidence base comes though meetings with young people, youth workers, and other key partners, and observing first hand youth work happening.

Like the Quality Mark, Estyn’s inspection teams will include experienced current youth work practitioners who are trained as peer inspectors. This role is valued by practitioners and peer inspectors say that their experiences on inspection are really useful professional development. Opportunities for practitioners to train as peer inspectors will be advertised on Estyn’s website.

The Quality Mark and inspection processes can support an organisation’s own self-evaluation and quality improvement processes, helping to demonstrate the effectiveness and commitment of our youth workers and volunteers. They also help ensure that youth work in Wales is high quality, making an impact on young people’s lives and that of their communities.

Annual Report summary findings 2021-22

This year, for the first time, we have published our summary findings early in the autumn term on what we’ve learnt from our inspection and engagement work with schools in the previous academic year. To support schools, we have recently published a set of self-reflection prompts for primary school staff. These provide a useful tool to aid staff discussion around the effectiveness of their school’s approach to embedding the Four Purposes. To support this further, I want to reflect on some of the features of the most effective practice inspectors have seen during their engagement and inspection activity in recent years. 

What works well?

The most effective schools ensure that their curriculum is driven by clear a purpose and a sound understanding of the skills, attributes and characteristics they want their pupils to acquire by the time they leave the school. To achieve this, they understand that how they teach, and why they teach what they do, is just as important as the content of the curriculum. 

Although the language is relatively new, we know that developing the characteristics defined within the Four Purposes has been a priority for effective schools for many years, and inspectors have reflected this in their reports over time. Our most recent inspection framework, as outlined in ‘What we inspect’, makes specific reference to the Four Purposes and uses much of the same language. However, previous frameworks have also recognised the importance of positive attitudes to learning, the development of pupils as active and considerate citizens and the development of attributes, such as confidence, resilience and empathy. 

The most effective schools recognise the need to build on their existing strengths and ensure that their approach is driven by a thorough understanding of the needs of their pupils and their context. One size does not fit all and, as with many aspects of school improvement, what works well for one school may not be appropriate for another. However, our in-depth engagement with schools across Wales allows us to draw some general conclusions about what works best when working to embed the Four Purposes in your school.
 

Leaders

• Organise purposeful opportunities for all staff to work together to develop a shared understanding of what the Four Purposes mean in their school and how they aim to reflect this in teaching and learning
• Build purposeful consideration of the four purposes and the school’s shared understanding of what these look like in their context, into their self-evaluation processes and use this to support improvement planning
• Prioritise the aspects of the Four Purposes that are most relevant to their school, its pupils and their context
• Realise that developing pupils as ambitious, creative, ethical and healthy citizens has always been a feature of effective schools and this means that they work with staff to build on existing strengths
• Recognise the importance of effective assessment for learning (AfL) techniques in embedding many of the attributes contained within the Four Purposes, ensure that staff have a sound understanding of how and why AfL is effective and use these strategies to support pupils to develop as self-aware learners
• Ensure that professional learning supports staff to fully understand the principles of metacognition that underpin effective learning and many aspects of the Four Purposes
• Work effectively with receiving secondary schools to ensure a shared understanding of longer-term goals and to support transition
• Engage effectively with parents to ensure that they understand the benefits of developing the Four Purposes with pupils, the school’s approach and how they can best support their children
• Always focus clearly on how new initiatives impact on pupils.
   

Teachers

• Collaborate to plan for the growth of these attributes in pupils in developmentally appropriate ways as they move through the school
• Are clear about the purpose of their teaching in lessons and over time and understand how this fits in with the longer term goal of developing learners that embody the four purposes
• Develop an understandable and relevant language of learning that is not limited to the terminology of the four purposes, but is expressed in a way that is developmentally appropriate to their pupils (child friendly language)
• Carefully consider the best activities to develop the four purposes in both the short and long term and work purposefully with pupils to integrate their ideas where appropriate 
• Reflect on how well pupils are developing these attributes and use their findings to inform future teaching and learning.
   

All staff

• Recognise when pupils demonstrate these attributes and provide praise and encouragement to support pupils to recognise them in themselves and others
• Recognise that the embedding of these attributes is a long and progressive journey and have a shared understanding of the characteristics, learning attributes and behaviours that pupils will demonstrate by the end of their time in the school.
   

What works less well?

As well as those positive aspects outlined above, inspectors have also identified practice that is less effective. Much of this involves the use of superficial strategies that have little impact on outcomes for pupils and where staff do not have a clear understanding of what they are trying to achieve. Often, it also involves schools skipping the important initial stages of developing a shared understanding of what the Four Purposes look like for their pupils, in their context. It also includes, focusing too much on individual purposes in one-off lessons, developing bureaucratic tracking systems and overly praising pupils for limited progress against the purposes in individual lessons, for example focusing on ‘being ambitious’ in a single lesson or, ‘being creative’ in another, rather than developing an ethos of learning where pupils develop and apply a range of attributes and skills, where relevant, in lessons and over time.

Further reading

• Early insights from the Chief Inspector’s Annual Report 2021-2022, Estyn 2022
• Blog: Building on strengths and removing barriers – preparing for the Curriculum for Wales, Estyn 2021 
• Blog: Supporting schools to improve teaching and learning, Estyn 2020
• Curriculum innovation in primary schools, Estyn 2018 
• Improving teaching, Estyn 2018
• Metacognition and self-regulated learning, Education Endowment Federation 2021