MNHQ here - AMA with Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver, 8th June, 7-9pm

[RhiannonEMumsnet]

Hi there,

We’re delighted to announce an AMA with Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector at the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, on Monday evening (8th June) between 7 and 9pm.

Sir Martyn has worked in education since 1995 starting as a teacher and joined Outward Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) in 2009 where he became Principal of Outwood Grange Academy and then a National Leader of Education (NLE). In 2016, Sir Martyn was appointed Chief Executive and Accounting Officer for OGAT, a role he held until he started at Ofsted in January 2024.

Please post your questions below and join him on the thread on Monday evening to hear the answers.

As always, please remember our guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Thanks very much for your questions tonight everyone - I tried to get through as many as I could, but typing has never been my strongest suit… It’s been a pleasure to spend a couple of hours in your company. Thank you Mumsnet - Goodbye for now!

@MartynOliver - I can’t see your response to this, though you have said you have answered. Please can you repeat your answer.

‘Question 3 – Unequal Inspection Conditions
How can inspections be considered equitable when some MATs can deploy senior leaders, specialist staff and additional teachers across schools during inspection, while maintained schools have no equivalent support available from local authorities?
Is Ofsted inspecting the school's normal capacity, or the resources that can be assembled for inspection week?’

If you are now looking at local and regional factors when inspecting a school, why was this not happening some years ago. Schools in certain areas are facing very specific challenges and it’s unjust to make judgements based on factors and experiences that others don’t have. Doing more on this should have happened years ago,

It has never been equitable.

I can’t imagine what the ‘high hopes’ are based on since the proposals would clearly make the situation far worse.

This was the question I was looking forward to seeing answered too. I wonder whether, as school improvement partners work across trusts and in clusters of schools, it is no different to, for instance, an executive head of two small rural schools needing to simply suck up that they'll be fronting x2 sets of inspections? I'm immensely grateful that schools in our trust benefit from the expertise of our cross-trust senior leaders - they are very present and involved in all of our schools day to day and know the pupils and the data as well as actual members of staff so contribute a lot to inspections. But I understand that this is not the case for local authority schools, for instance. Good question.

I tried to get through as many as I could, but typing has never been my strongest suit…

Seriously?

Many of us are teachers, and I for one call that a poor excuse for not engaging.

I might try that as an excuse for why my reports are late: it's not because of my absolutely ridiculous workload, it's because I'm a slow typer.

Mind you, that's probably the fault of some teacher somewhere.

Well this is huge.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5507367-mixed-sex-changing-rooms-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-part-3-were-really-cooking-now?page=1