How bad is this on a scale of 1 to 10?

[roisin]

Ofsted like schools to consult their students and do "student voice" questionnaires.

• ds2 is in yr9 and they duly filled in a questionnaire. Many of them are unhappy about a number of issues in school at the moment, and included these in their questionnaires.
  
• The school then held an assembly and - among other things - reminded the students that there are other schools, and they could always move if they're not proud to be there.
  
• Individual students (including my son) who had mentioned individual teachers, members of staff, or the HT had interviews with Head of Lower School or other senior staff to discuss.
  
• Then today (maybe 6 weeks since the original questionnaire) they had to re-do their questionnaires! And this was done in their form room with their form teacher, the Head of Lower school and the Deputy of Lower school prowling round the classroom, looking over their shoulders to see what they were writing!
  
  It's not just me is it? This is like something from an Orwell novel? I am outraged. Or am I overreacting?

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

No, it doesn't sound great to me!

Do you agree with your Ds's point of view?
Would you consider contacting the school and asking them about the questionnaires to see what they say?

[cardibach]

ON the scale of 1 - 10? 15. It shows a lack of respect for the pupils and a real fear that the issues the pupils raise will be confirmed by OFSTED. It is also cheating - if they are prepared to do this, what is happening with GCSE/A level coursework?
I would write to the inspectors directly and tell them this is happening. And I hate OFSTED and all it stands for.

[roisin]

This is not happening during an inspection, but schools do use this kind of info for when Ofsted do land.

One problem is I only have one second hand account. ds2 claims his original form was not rude or disrespectful or silly, but who knows? And maybe others were silly?

We do agree with ds2's views that the school has deteriorated since new head came 2.5 yrs ago.

Shipwrecked - I don't know if I want to contact the school about it. Do you think I should?

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

I agree!

I worry that their way of dealing with a problem appears to be stamping on it and sweeping the bits under the carpet!

Contacting OFSTED is a good idea.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Sorry cross posts.

Contacting the school is up to you... It does depend on the extent to which you agree with your son to be honest.

I can understand not wanting to if this is their way of dealing with issues.

There may not be an inspection now, but these results are what they are planning to show a team if they do come

[BackforGood]

Like Cardibach - I'm no fan of OFSTED, but that is actually shocking, and I would be giving serious thoughts to letting OFSTED know this is what the school are doing.
Anyway, OFSTED inspectors would expect to see a small % that were immature, and quite possibly rude or facetious, surely ?

[PoppadomPreach]

Yes I was also going to say tell OFSTED - the school doing this basically nullifies the point of the questionnaire, so the school should not score any "brownie points" by ticking the bos that says the survey has been completed properly.

Definitely a 10 I'd say.

[Mondrian]

How do other parents feel about this?

[RedHelenB]

Individual teachers should not have been named on questionnaires HTH.

[roisin]

I spoke to a couple of parents after the first assembly they had on it, and we were all similarly eyebrows raised about that.

I haven't spoken to other parent yet about the re-doing of the questionnaires.

[Hassled]

You're not over-reacting.
Why weren't the questionnaires anonymous?
I think you should contact the Chair of Governors about your concerns. He/she will fully understand quite how badly this would go down with Ofsted.

[Mondrian]

Must follow it up, preferably with other parents on board.

[BackforGood]

Tiggy

[roisin]

RedHelenB - ds2 named the Head Teacher under the question:
If you could change one thing about this school, what would it be?

[AvrilPoisson]

The questionnaires are supposed to be anonymous!
I would report them to ofsted.

[StoicButStressed]

OMG. As a parent of 3 and as a former Parent Governor of very large senior state school, I'd rank it as 11/10. It is utterly APPALLING and wholly unnacceptable. Even if your DS was 'silly'/whatever in his first one, the OFSTED crew are well capable of weeding those ones out and aggregating the whole process of scoring and assessing.

I would NOT report it to the school (if Head is shite enough to do this, then can be pretty certain he may somehow take it out on your son which would be pants both per se, but also ESP. with GCSEs on horizon) - unequivocally WOULD though report it as a matter of urgency to OFSTED; ideally collectively with other parents, or if feel need to for fear of retribution - can't believe actually felt the need to just write that last bit - annonymously but being clear as to WHY feel need to to remain anon. (as that speaks volumes in itself) AND the fact that other parents have confirmed events as reported to you.

NB: FWIW, I have no idea why someone would post that individual teachers shouldn't be named? If the only opp. students feel they have to be honest about a teacher is the OFSTED opportunity, how is that wrong?

Whilst 99.99% of teachers are INCREDIBLE, & often going well above and beyond the call of duty (& salary...); the ones that AREN'T great are:
i) uber bad for school; morale; pupils; &
ii) INCREDIBLY hard to remove (bitter and angry recollections of this when we needed to try and remove a teacher - obviously for very very solid reasons as is NOT something any Head or Board of Governors would do lightly - but was virtually impossible in SPITE of the impact they had on their colleagues as well as all else)

[Nickmom]

My daughter's school was in a really bad way. Headmistress quite hated by parents as she was rude and ineffective. All parents filled out forns detailing the silly things which went on and the issues with several young teachers who did things like spend half their class time checking facebook. The school got an "outstanding." With reviews saying all parents were very happy. I would say don't waste your time.

[senua]

Parents can give Ofsted their feedback through Parent View. I don't know how true it is, but I have heard them say that enough negative comments will trigger an Inspection i.e. outside the normal review cycle. The only drawback is that the questionnaire is not anonymous (but it doesn't take much computer knowledge to set up a hotmail/gmail in an, erm, imaginative name).
Mobilise the parents!

[roisin]

According to the website, Ofsted has access to the email address, but not the school.

[admission]

The school is simply deluding themselves as to the "current student voice of the school" and making themselves a very poor example for all their students to follow.
Yes of course there would have been some stupid comments, they are teenagers, but I bet most of the comments were actually a very good indicator of what is happening in the school.
The school needed to do something about the comments that were sensible and then have another questionnaire so that they could gauge as to whether they had taken the actions or not. If they treated the students like young adults they find they respond like adults to future questionnaires.
Ofsted do use the Parent View site to gauge opinions from parents about the school, so a few comments about why the school felt it appropriate to scrap a questionnaire that gave the wrong answers would I suspect lead to a few interesting questions. An Ofsted inspector could ask to see the results of the questionnaire if is was spelt out exactly when it was done on Parent View. School might find themselves with a bit of explaining to do if they have ditched the original answers in favour of the "right" answers.

[BooksandaCuppa]

1. This should absolutely have been anonymous. It is at our school.
   
   
2. If the students have concerns, they should at least be listened to. That is the whole point of the exercise. We recently had a whole school meeting to discuss the feedback from a recent student survey with all staff taking seriously the issues students have raised.

[miffybun73]

10 - that's terrible. I'm really

[roisin]

My decision as to what to do is further complicated by the fact that dh has a new job and we're moving (long way); so ds2 is only there for 5 more weeks. This means we could say:

a) it's not our concern any longer, or
b) we've got nothing to lose, le's give them both barrels
c) if we upset the Head of Lower School now, she might give a reference to the new school marking him out as a trouble maker.