Is Ofsted a stitch-up?

[frogs]

My children's school has just had ofsted in.

Over this week, all normal activity has been suspended, as far as I can tell, in favour of an elaborate charade designed to show the school in the best possible light.

No homework has been set or marked, no reading books changed, music club cancelled apart from for a few select kids and an unnecessary church service today for a feast day which wouldn't normally merit a whole-school church outing. There have been extra performances and assemblies with carefully-selected pupils, and little groups of mainly high-ability children, with a few strategically-placed SN kids have been taken out for one-off sessions to design webpages and other activities which they would never normally get to do.

My oldest child is in a class where the teacher normally never stops shouting -- she reports that no voices have been raised all week. The headteacher has apparently gone over every teacher's lesson plans for the whole week with a nitcomb, to ensure that nothing can go wrong, and the children have been repeatedly told that Ofsted are there to inspect them rather than the school, in order to ensure good behaviour.

Is this normal practice in schools? And can Ofsted see behind this kind of show? There are many things we like about the school, but quite a few real concerns, and am really shocked to see what a performance the school have put on to cover up the daily reality.

[wheresmyturkey]

Ofsted will sniff it out as fake dont worry.......they speak to kids and there should also be a parents evening with the inspectors so you can have your say. Did you return your ofsted questionnaire to the school?

[Caligulights]

That's why they're only going to get a couple of days notice in future, so that they don't have this much time to prepare.

IMO they should have no notice at all. OFSTED inspectors should just turn up on the day. Otherwise, of course schools and nurseries will prepare for an inspection.

[frogs]

Yeah, returned the questionnaire and added a bit on the back outlining my concerns. Decided to send it to the contractors direct, though, as the school didn't supply envelopes for them, and the retuned ones were sitting (open) in a pile in the school office! It would be only human nature for staff to look through and discreetly remove the negative ones, wouldn't it?

The trouble with the meeting is that the school is a very close community (church school) and lots of staff were there in their capacity as parents. So hard to be really frank.

[wheresmyturkey]

Thats a real pain frogs..........hopefully your questionnaire will not be the only honest one though.
My dw is a teacher and has been through many an ofsted and she says that they tend to see through facades so hopefully this will be true for your kids school.

[Roisin]

Our Ofsted wasn't like this at all - it was very much a normal week as far as I could tell. In some ways it was more normal than it would have been - it was the penultimate week of the summer term, but Ofsted wanted a 'normal' week, so they had to reschedule sports days, trips, all sorts of stuff into the preceding and following weeks, so that Ofsted could experience a standard week. My boys were aware there were 'important visitors' in school, but nothing more than that. The teachers were stressed about it of course, but the kids weren't.

[bambi06]

lucky schools..i`m a childminder and we dont get notice apart from sometime in dec..or if someone has made a complaint they do a spot check and it s very thorough..1-1 for anything up to 4 hours!!

[frogs]

Quick bump for the teachers -- any experiences?

[popsycal]

Hi frogs, the only bit of your post which rings true to me is: The headteacher has apparently gone over every teacher's lesson plans for the whole week with a nitcomb.

Our school don't do this, but I know of many that do.....

[PamiNativity]

Frogs, I've wondered about this too. I was speaking to the Head of my old school the other week and she was telling me how relieved she was that the inspection had finished because it was so much extra work and stress etc. I can understand that it is stressful to be under a watchful eye and know that if you make a mistake then it will be noted, but I don't understand why there is extra work. Surely if Ofsted expect lesson plans or whatever, then these should be done all year round, not just when there is an inspection?
I am not having a go at teachers here, honestly, just wondering whether Ofsted's expectations are so unrealistic that schools put on a show especially for the inspection.

[popsycal]

Lesson plans for ofsted have to be in intrictae detail

9am - open the door to the children
9:01am - take register
9:02am walk to the white board...

Ok so I am exaggerating slightly - but you have to do this for every single lesson for OFSTED....you don't have to do this for the lesson plans you submit to your head each week....

[popsycal]

and i can spell honest (just not type very well)

[Caligulights]

Does anybody actually ever stick to lesson plans? And should they, in the real world?

[popsycal]

Lesson plans are your ideal...obviously it would be ridiculous to stick to it if the kids weren't 'getting' what you were trying to teach them. I think of them more as a working document which you amend as you go along if need be, using your professional judgement, and using the outcome to inform further work.

Did that sound pompous?!?! :)

[frogs]

Adapting lesson plans as you go along sounds very sensible, and it's what I do in higher education as well -- tho' obviously there's less direct interaction with the students in a lecture theatre, so you have to infer from the glazed expressions whether or not they understand!

Popsy, in your experience, are Ofsted good at sniffing out what the school is trying to hide, or are they likely to be taken in by a slick performance? Presumably there are some schools which are struggling so much they can't keep up a convincing performance even for Ofsted week, so I guess things could be worse! It's just that we need to take some things up quite seriously with the headteacher, which will be much harder if they've just had ofsted in saying everything's hunky-dory.

[popsycal]

I only have direct experience of one (good) school but have friends in a wide variety of schools....I think if a school is badly struggling, OFSTED will notice.....but the ones which 'plod along' may get away with it (IMHO)

A few questions....

1. do you know what the school's 'areas for improvement were from the previous inspection as they will focus greatly on these?
   
2. is it s 'short' or 'full' inspection - basically, if the last inspection was ok, it will be a 'short' one and it is much more an inspection of 'paperwork' than of teaching
   

apparently

[frogs]

Well, it won't have helped that the only experienced teacher is the nursery teacher, and all the rest are new to the school, mostly new to the country as well, with the exception of the Y1 teacher, who's gone back to Oz for 'family reasons'.

I guess in common with most inner-city schools there are serious staffing issues (tho it is a 'good' school), but it seems to me that these are not always being handled as well as they could be (inexperienced teachers put in with notoriously difficult classes, with predictable results, etc.).

It seems to me that there's been a very conscious attempt to minimise the amount of time inspectors could observe normal classes going about their daily business. I can see why he would want to do this, but it does seem dishonest. Maybe one day they'll change the system so that schools get no notice at all.

[MariNativityPlay]

But the inspectors will surely have a quota of "normal lesson" observation they have to fulfil, so hopefully they will spot this charade, Frogs. It epitomises everything that's wrong with the current Ofsted set-up IMO - I'd like to see no-notice inspections too, both in schools and in the daycare sector.

[popsycal]

Just a thought - maybe you need to raise your issues with the school before the ofsted report is issued....it does take some time

[ButtonMoon]

Agree with Popsycal.....Just remember that all schools get notice and are all able to a similar amount of preparation....and there are still some schools coming out as excellent and some that fail. OFSTED inspectors are very good and asking the right questions to pupils and staff to find out the real deal. At the school where I work, it was the pre-inspection visit and feedback from parents that set the whole tone and agenda for the BIG inspection. One colleague of mine once said that OFSTED is for teachers to show the best that they can do!!! (Not sure I entirely agreed with her though) Mostly at our school the staff who were bad/good during OFSTED were bad/good all the time. When you read the report there shouldn't be any shocks really......our head was poor (the kids, parents and staff knew it) and no amount of time or preparation or warning/bribing kids or cover ups could disguise the fact to OFSTED!!

[PamiNativity]

Thanks for explaining about the lesson plans, Popsycal, it makes sense now. The Head told me that the staff had worked flat out for 6 weeks in preparation and I was astonished.
Agree with Marina about no notice inspections. I think that nurseries don't get as much notice as schools - is that possible? Also, at dds' nursery, the Ofsted people pounced on random parents to ask them their views on the nursery, which I thought was good (although most of the other parents have very unrealistic expectations of nursery, so perhaps not so good. Nursery had primed dh to be in the right place at the right time but it didn't work out!)

[popsycal]

I think childcare provdiers get much more vague notice - ie 'some time in October'.......

[tatt]

our school's offsted was better than I expected - and worse. The insprector asked soem very sensible questions/ led the discussion well at the parents evening to get both positive and negative feedback. They then followed up the positive far more than the negative.

No homework in an offsted week isn't wise - isn't that a government requirement now? As for changing reading books - that's normally a major problem in one class but - surprise - they got changed in offsted week :)

[fisilhohoho]

I'm a fan of inspection (wrote a paper on it for my MA). I've been through an inspection this half term (HMI, not Ofsted) and found it a very exhausting experience, but also very rewarding. As an inner city school we have a lot of children who do not get many positives in their lives and unfortunately schools like ours who will take and educate absolutely anyone do tend to have a bad reputation in communities (parents like me look at the intake and exam results and draw their own conclusions!). So it was wonderful for the school to get such a positive and wonderful write-up. As a staff we were committed to making sure our fantastic children were given the acknowledgement and positive reputation that they deserve.

As head of department it is my task to check through the lesson plans of every teacher in my department for every lesson during the week. I found this a very positive experience. I learnt nothing new, but I was able to share the good practice in the department and continue to support those who struggle. We are usually so busy that we don't get to give this our foremost attention - and I really appreciated the chance to.

As a newly qualified teacher I wrote at least a side of A4 for every single lesson I taught - it was the only way through. As I became more experienced I could make notes for myself which I knew they meant, but could include a whole 20 minute slot of activities in a line or two. Now I write about 5 lines for each lesson. But when an inspector is in the room I have to change my shorthand back into the old longhand. She has not been inside my mind for the past 9 years, so I have to let her know what I mean by "sts indi wk p68". The sentiment and what I've planned doesn't change, but I'm communicating it to an outside audience. This is why planning for an inspection takes so much time and is so draining. But it is also why it gives me, as a leader, an excellent opportunity to have an insight into every member of the team.

An inspector once told me that they expect schools to put on a special show for them. They suspect that there is a lack of loyalty and commitment to the young people and their learning if they don't. If they can't be bothered to make the effort on this of all occassions... But they also say that they can tell within minutes of walking into a school what it is really like, and they can sniff out what the school is like on a day to day basis. We also once had an Ofsted inspector say to the senior team "we know you put on a show, but we would like to see how staff would normally deal with students poor behaviour rather than having you suddenly turn up wherever there's disruption." To which the head replied, truthfully "yes, we are putting on a show, but you happen to have picked on one thing that has not changed at all - we're always like that." So they are so used to looking past the show, sometimes they actually get it wrong!

I don't know if anyone's made the job interview analogy, but think about the effort you make for a job interview. I am always (well, nearly always) all those things that I write in my letter of application, yet I don't write them all down every morning before starting work - I just do them anyway. But to inform a future employer about me I do write them down. I always wear a suit to work and carry a briefcase, but when I go to a job interview I make sure my collar isn't wonky and I have my most flatering shirt on and the hair behind my ear isn't poking out as it is wont to do. I'm not lying to the interviewer, I'm just getting "me" across in a short period of time! Inspections are the same.

Now I'll shut up (but I'm impressed I'm still interested in this subject so many years after my MA!)

[Hulababy]

Don't worry - OFSTED does find out the fakes, and they know schools do this sort of thing. That is why they ask heads of departments questions, speak to teahcers, ask for feedback from parents, and speak to puoils in and out of class.

We have the HMI inspectors in this week. :(

I never change the way I do things just for OFSTED. I am sure my kids would pull me up on it and make sure the inspector knew!

[Hulababy]

FWIWW too - I know that for our last OFSTED (which put school in special measures) all lesson plans had been done in detail and in advance, and checked by HoDs and senior teachers too. As my advisor from LEA says: a detailed plan is great; but a detailed lesson plan does not equal a good lesson.

OFSTED will look for much more than a lesson extravaganza. They'll look for past assessments and how they have been used in planning. They''ll look at policies and how well they are used. They'll look through evidence of activities that have already occured. They'll look at pupils work, including marking in terms of comments and freqency. All sorts of things.

I ahve to say that I don't like OFSTED. I am conscientious and work hard, but I do not enjoy being watched and assessed. It makes me feel uncomfortable. As a result I am not relaxed in my classroom and don't have the same repour with the kids as I normally do. Whilst I have never yet had an unsatisfactory lesson, and many have been much better) I still think I do better without the stress of an inspection.

However, I do know some teachers who do not put in the effort normally and are not considered as great teachers, but they know how to put on the act. They can do the show man act and can come out of OFSTED good (as an individual).

I think the current system has major flaws.

TBH I often wonder whether OFSTED would be more reflective if a couple of inspectors just turned up at a school one morning and came in to look at some lessons and to talk to people involved with the school - no warning and therefore less stress.