The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), which runs the inspection process, commissioned a survey to examine the reactions of pupils in middle and secondary schools to visits by inspectors.

"That the event was less momentous for the pupils than their teachers could be gleaned from the fact that fewer than half of the pupils responding were aware that their school had been inspected since they arrived at the school," Ofsted says.

Over half of the younger children did not know whether their school had been inspected. This fell to just one in five (19%) final year students, who will have had a greater chance of experiencing inspection than the younger children.

Are you an inspector then?

A significant number - 39% - said they had spoken to one of the people carrying out the inspection, either about their work or about the school in general.

The survey found that awareness level of children in middle schools - 67% - was much higher than the average.

Of those that were aware of an inspection, one in five believed that the standard of teaching improved afterwards, while three in 10 thought they learnt more in class and nearly four in 10 thought their school had improved in general terms.

The survey, by the MORI organisation, questioned pupils at 179 middle and secondary schools in England and Wales, with 4,245 pupils aged 11 to 16 completing questionnaires.

MORI concludes that the inspections "appear on the whole to have made a positive contribution to standards in schools, according to the views of pupils."

They say "the clear implication" is that there is an association - in some young people's minds - between inspections and changes in teaching and learning.

"Inspections seem to help boys in particular with their learning - of particular note, given the recent debate about the relative performance of the sexes," they add. Teenage girls typically outperform boys across all age ranges.