Challenge Partners is a practitioner-led national network of schools that improves school performance through peer-to-peer challenge and knowledge sharing.

Each school in Challenge Partners receives an annual Quality Assurance (QA) Review. TheQA Review is a peer review involving senior leaders from other schools in the partnership. The review has a whole-school remit and focuses on teaching and learning, which enables practitioners to have deep conversations about the quality of learning in the school being reviewed. All outcomes are agreed between the school and the review team as part of an ongoing professional dialogue that seeks to unpick and articulate effective teaching practice and school improvement strategies. Review reports are best viewed as a summary of conversations between peers during three days spent in school. By nature of being a collaborative peer review, the QA Review is different from other external inspections.

Due to the review’s focus on teaching and learning, the review does not consider areas such as safeguarding or governance and so its outcomes are not directly comparable to an Ofsted inspection.