School given a poor OFSTED - what to do?

A report will not outline what subjects are under threat! Maths or English to go! Obviously not. The curriculum is a matter for the governors, not Ofsted. Sadly, parents rarely know if teaching is good. They are not the ones being taught. They do not know how good teachers are in other schools. It is a very difficult judgement for a parent to make if a child has just started at a school.

I think there have been some ludicrous suggestions of how Ofsted operate on this thread. The crucial info you can look up now is the data on the progress the children make at the school contained in the data dashboard. This will alert you to what Ofsted may have wanted to check out before they arrived. For the latest info on how Ofsted inspect, look at the Ofsted Insoection Handbook . If the school had any doubts as to improper inspection techniques they would have argued about the outcome of the report. It appears they have not.

When the report is published, see how it compares to the data dashboard and see how it might impinge on your DD. It has become more difficult to get Outstanding. Good is what the majority of secondary schools get. It is rarely just a "management thing". Rarely is a school requiring leadership improvement if everything else is perfect. That really makes no sense. It may be that some children do not make enough progress or that some teaching is not good enough.or both. It could be that the school is not assessing progress accurately or that it does not know what its weaknesses are and is therefore not addressing them.

Poor Reports can make a difference if good teachers leave and this really can impinge on the individual child, especially if good recruits are not available. If a school is poor at assessing and reporting progress, they may not, accurately, be able to tell you how well your child is doing. That could be one of the problems. Do report back when you seen the full report.

I'd wait for the report - OFSTED are cruel. Our school was inspected last year (without a doubt we're a 'Good' school) but the judgement was constantly on a knife-edge with 'Requires Improvement'. The report will outline clearly which years/subjects are under threat or whether it's a policy-wide issue affecting everyone. It could be purely a management thing and the teaching is still good. I hope that helps.

Ofsted are in for two days. Most of the morning of day 2 is spent in laying out the judgment, and the afternoon in debriefing the headteacher and chair of governors. That leaves one day to observe lessons and meet a representative sample of staff and students across the school. There simply isn't the time to go through files and files of evidence and I disagree with pp that Ofsted are obsessed with exhaustive record-keeping. If teachers are being asked to do this, then it is by senior leaders who think that this is what Ofsted want, not by Ofsted themselves.

Ofsted will triangulate what they are told; if the HT tells them that every child writes in purple ink, they will ask similar questions of staff and students and make their own observations to check that this is happening. If it isn't, then they will drill down further into monitoring and evaluation evidence.

They will be familiar with the school's performance data and website before they arrive. In most cases this will inform the areas they wish to examine before they come. Judgements aren't a foregone conclusion but the inspectors will arrive with a hypothesis to test.

There is a huge focus now on safeguarding, particularly on radicalisation. I am aware of recent inspections where inspectors have checked that staff are familiar with the government's 'Prevent' training, for example. It's possible that safeguarding could be a limiting factor on a judgement for a school with otherwise excellent teaching and outcomes.

OP, as a parent, I suggest that you look at the DFE performance tables for the school and check how pupils like your daughter (in terms of KS2 SATs results) do when they leave in y11. Read the report when it comes out, and if you have concerns, request an appointment with the headteacher. If I were otherwise happy with a school in your situation (teaching good, staffing stable etc), I'd probably only withdraw my DD if there were serious safeguarding concerns in the report.

Incidentally, I have never heard of a school being expected to maintain records of pupils' sexual orientation.

It doesn't sound as if you know how bad the grade will be? Requires improvement used to be satisfactory, and isn't that bad.

My DC's school had Outstanding at its last inspection, but that was 8+ years ago, I'm not even sure it has ever been inspected since my eldest joined the school (and officially isn't even the same school as it became an academy...).

From my days in state middle leadership, and countless OFSTED training days, the school is usually graded prior to arrival based solely on results. They then look at the same results on beautifully coloured spreadsheets for a couple of hours on Day 1.

One time, the school was borderline 3/2, in the days when satisfactory actually meant that, and SLT blagged their way to a Good. We certainly shouldn't have got one. I then went to work in an Outstanding, where resulfs were amazing but everything else was hideous.

In short, the OFSTED reports are highly spurious, and have an innate lack of (OFSTED buzz word coming up....) consistency.

If your dd is happy there, keep her there.

What grade did the school get in the last inspection?

OK if the head knows from Ofsted that it is due out next week then they may not have jumped the gun too much.
The fact that they want to share with you areas for improvement is probably a good sign that the school have accepted the issues highlighted and are already making appropriate changes.
Your daughter is in year 9. Any move to another school may give problems over courses being studied and you don't know how your daughter may react to a new school. Unless there are very significant issues that relate directly to your daughter I would stick with the school.

It is worrying that the headteacher is reporting back to parents about the inspection outcome apparently before the report has been released by Ofsted. There is a very clear protocol that the governors and staff are informed of the expected outcome of the inspection immediately after the inspection. However that is deemed confidential because until the moderation of the report has taken place against the data / information /observations made by the inspection team, the outcome of the report can change.
So why does this head teacher think they are above this protocol and is releasing information to parents before the report is available to be distributed?

Bollocks.

What's Bollocks bertrand Russel? Maybe you are not familiar with how ofsted operates.

Were you happy before the inspection? You have had nearly 3 years at the school.... Trust your own judgement! The inspectors were there for 1/2 days.

Read the words in the Ofsted report and then see how happy your DC is and how well they are progressing. Talk to the form tutor if need be. DD's school has just been downgraded but it has been an excellent school for her both emotionally and academically.

Is the school an academy?

If not, you can safely disregard ofsted.

(The school will be an academy by Easter).

My last ofsted inspector thought my lesson was great, although he did ask what I was doing to challenge the gifted students. After he'd spent 50 minutes watching me bang on about C/D borderline grade descriptors to a group clearly identified (on my lesson plan, data seating plan & all the other gubbins in the pack of bumf I handed him) as lower ability.

Then he bimbled back in to the same class the following day because he thought perhaps he really should see some high flyers too, & still had it in his head that my motley crew were top set. Didn't recognise me or the kids until one of them commented that they all felt really special, sir, what with you coming to see us twice....

"An ofsted inspector a few weeks ago let us know before a visit that he would be picking up on one specific group of students to compare their achievement to the school average. "homosexual" was one of the possibilities on his list, but in the event he chose "Vietnamese""

Bollocks.

OP, my inclination would be not to ignore the OFSTED, but to look at GCSE results over the past few years (including trends), figure out when the report comes out what they've been marked down on, and think about whether you're happy with your dd's progress generally.

DD's school is on annual visits from the inspectors. But the particular thing they fall down on is poor relative performance by lower ability boys. Since I have a top set girl, I'm not that worried from a personal POV. (Actually, I think there are complicated reasons to do with intake for lots of their 'problems', but that's another matter.)

Blue have you name changed - were you charis?

there is no record kept of gay/ straight pupils in schools.

absolutly there is BertrandRussel, it is supposed to be recorded on your class profile, along with trans pupils.

Personally, I have always refused, along with many of my colleagues but the instruction is there. And we could technically be disciplined for our refusal. Or picked up on it by ofsted.

An ofsted inspector a few weeks ago let us know before a visit that he would be picking up on one specific group of students to compare their achievement to the school average. "homosexual" was one of the possibilities on his list, but in the event he chose "Vietnamese"

"What ofsted want above and beyond all else is good record keeping, to the extent that you are able to find the information on what you said to each pupil in each lesson,, including what proportion of boys/ girls you spoke to, as well as what proportion of gays/straights, immigrants/natives travellers/ forces children, etc etc etc."

Well, this bit, for a start. Oh, and there is no record kept of gay/ straight pupils in schools.

Former teacher here.
Base your own assessment on the school for your daughter on the following:

Is she happy?
Does she have friends/people to be with (my dd spent a lot of time with staff, it worked better for her)
Is she making progress?
Those should be fairly easy to answer.

Then look at her GCSE options, and get all the teacher info on them from the exam boards. Follow her progress, make up anything missing, share the journey with your dd if she will let you. Give her whatever support you can - it might be a trip out to see something relevant, extra theatre visits to support her understanding of how plays work, whatever. Things that help her have a full understanding of what she is doing in class.

which bit of it do you not think is true Bertrand Russel? I assure you it is all 100% true of my own experience, and from what others have said to me my experience is pretty standard.

Blue- much of that is simply not true.