Labour to scrap Ofsted

[noblegiraffe]

Labour have announced that they want to scrap Ofsted inspections, get rid of school gradings and replace it with a system of ‘health checks’ done by local authorities, with inspectors only being sent in if problems are found.

www.bbc.com/news/education-49785130

Given that calls for years to scrap the extremely damaging ‘outstanding’ grade have been persistently ignored because parents like it, what will parents think about all grades going?

Do we trust standards will be maintained under a much lighter system of inspections?

The LA land was sold off to developers.

I'm finding the other statistics much more useful now I'm looking at primary schools eg, SATs results and EAL figures (didn't want DS to be the only non-white DC in the class)

And looking at the school website to know how many clubs/sports there are.

The LA land was sold off to developers.

And in this conspiracy, how did Ofsted benefit? And why would replacing Ofsted with LA inspections stop this from happening?

I would much prefer reform of the current system so that a national standard is kept, and there is less room for incibsistency across schools. All children should be getting the same care and opportunities if possible.
Looks like a great way for labour to get the teacher vote though.

Thankyou for correcting me.
I was going by the fact that many years ago approximately 25ish I worked in a as an un-paid assistant which I loved and the school who did have a few months notice
That`s clearly changed
But again thank you.

I stand corrected.
Thank you for the info.

Brilliant. Long overdue. Offsted is a punitive spot check which doesn't give as good a picture as a local inspectorate would have.

There was a time, years ago, where you had about six weeks notice of Ofsted, they stayed for a week and graded every teacher’s performance. The report catalogued those teacher performances, so although teachers were not named individually, everyone in the school, the parents and the community, knew what the grades were.

If you have a school that works effectively with children with SEND, it’s likely that the overall results will not be as high as a school with fewer children with SEND. Personally, I think that catering well for children who are at a disadvantage for whatever reason is a good thing, but it may not demonstrate top GCSE and A level grades.

There was a time, years ago, where you had about six weeks notice of Ofsted, they stayed for a week and graded every teacher’s performance.

I think ‘performance’ is a key word here. Schools have been encouraged to put on a ‘performance’ because they used to have 6 weeks/ three days/ now still a days notice. A day where OFSTED come in is hardly a ‘regular’ day at school. I think it would actually be a lot less stressful for schools if they just appeared without notice - but then had realistic expectations about what a normal school day is.

When you get the call the lunchtime of the day before, you really don’t have time to put on a show. Books that haven’t been marked can’t be marked because the kids have them, and there isn’t enough time to plan and resource all-singing lessons for all your classes.

If department heads don’t have their documentation, then it can’t be scrabbled together at the last minute.

Bit surprised not to see parents on here concerned about how they will know where to send their kids without Ofsted gradings given that was the reason why (so we were told) the outstanding grading wouldn’t be scrapped.

Parents will just go on exam results?

My friend works in a school that is "outstanding" but because of that, and the fact that exam grades are constantly very good every year, they've not been inspected for over 6 years. During that time there's been a whole change in SMT with a new headmaster 5 years ago. My friend reckons if they got inspected now or in the last few years they'd be lucky to pull in a 'good' . Behaviour and standards have slipped so much. But on paper they're still outstanding.

A day where OFSTED come in is hardly a ‘regular’ day at school. I think it would actually be a lot less stressful for schools if they just appeared without notice - but then had realistic expectations about what a normal school day is.
I can only speak for myself but it is absolutely a normal day for me. One Ofsted inspection I was due to be doing a controlled assessment and that's exactly what I did. They wandered around. I had my silence assessment sign on the door, the opened the door, saw me marking at my desk and 32 GCSE students doing their controlled assessments in exam conditions.

We had the call at lunchtime the day before.

Outstanding schools slipping in standards due to not being Ofsteded for a long time is an argument for not scrapping Ofsted isn’t it?

I wouldn't say so.
There's more evidence surely in favour for an independent inspectorate that is fit for purpose than abolishing it in favour for some box ticking exercise.

When you get the call the lunchtime of the day before, you really don’t have time to put on a show. Books that haven’t been marked can’t be marked because the kids have them, and there isn’t enough time to plan and resource all-singing lessons for all your classes.

Perhaps it’s different in secondary, I can only speak for the primary school I worked in as a TA and another one I later worked in as an NQT - in both the teachers stayed in school until about 10 o’clock and arrived at 6.30 am the next day - definitely not the norm. Perhaps it’s down to how SLT handled it, but the expectation was definitely that you spent a lot of time going over your marking and paperwork and preparing ‘perfect’ lessons for the next day.

puff
That was very different to my last Ofsted inspections in secondary and it sounds more like how SLT are feeling about the inspection than anything else.

If a school is doing the right thing day in and day out then there's a little bit of inevitable prep (Eg. I'd check I had my relevant documents to hand in case I'm asked / double check my lesson) but nothing massive.

Ofsted aren't even interested in perfect paperwork. They want you to be able to talk about teaching and learning.

Parents will just go on exam results?

No good for establishing how good a school is handling SEN. Doesn't help you work out if the kids come in at a high level and coast (good exam result school) or go in low but out perform expectations significantly (still one of the lowest school in respect of exam results).

Puff - even on the day OFSTED called our school was still only open until 6pm, when ASC ends. It didn't open any earlier either - 7:30am. So, by the time the children had left and then arrived the next day the teachers and LSAs had a maximum of 3.5 hours in school, and part of that was taken up with a meeting of all staff just after school finished, and a short 'meet the inspection team' in the morning.

Parents will just go on exam results?

We are an infant school. Our reported results are limited.

Doesn't help you work out if the kids come in at a high level and coast (good exam result school) or go in low but out perform expectations significantly (still one of the lowest school in respect of exam results).
Progress 8 tells you that, though if you are a secondary who has feeder primaries who are creative in their application of SATs rules then you're starting behind before you start.
Recently I taught a child who was apparently greater depth. They had a reading age of lower KS2 and they would have been expected standard on a good day. That child was then destined to spend years "underperforming" regardless of how hard they worked because they were never greater depth to begin with. They told us they had help for their SATs and would also go into a room with a teacher and they'd redo their writing in the afternoons and the teacher would tell them where to put the punctuation and so on.

It's a symptom of a systemic problem driven by high stakes accountability.

Equally, judging GCSE progress based on SATs in Maths/English is a flawed measure too.

There's no perfect system.

Generally I find that school reputations plus results make the most accurate picture. I'd sooner send my child to a local good school that still have staff teaching in their specialism, broad curriculum and a range of enrichment than the so called recently outstanding one down the road who have narrowed the curriculum from y8, have staff out of specialism, have gone very MAT corporate, prioritise gaming the open bucket over ensuring all students get a real chance at a broad curriculum, and seem to have a knack for losing certain students by mid y10. The former is always oversubscribed, the latter still has a not so good reputation.

Its part of Corbyns policy to make everyone equal at the bottom, class warfare.

If you scrap Sats then their is no Progress 8. If you scrap Ofsted then Schools that are RI will never have the chance to show they have improved.

Parents will have no choice but to judge schools on their results. High achieving kids will coast. Parents of low achieving kids will have no way to know which schools are best at supporting them.

And the LA will not be interested in unbiased 'health checks', whatever that means , as they will say whatever is needed to save them the most money.

Not to mention how they will fit (and afford) all those ex private school children into the state system. Time for middle class parents to push house prices up even more around 'good' schools and leave working class parents to populate the inadequate 'bog standard' schools.

Everyone equal at the bottom.

My final year of teaching was in a school where the whole year was on constant alert for OFSTED coming. They didn't make it round that year, being over stretched with so many schools like ours getting caught out on the data when it changed to progress 8 which didn't suit the areas in which our cohort which had done well under the previous targets that had previously earned us Outstanding. We had to be constantly OFSTED ready. Termly "Mocksted", learning walks, MAT inspections. Constantly turning around double marking loads, frequent assessment cycles and data analysis. It sucked the joy out of teaching, and frankly I owed my own young children far more of my time than I could give them. I could return to teaching in a climate focused on actual teaching and learning, not accountability and data.

It's not particularly OFSTED or SATs that are the problem, it's the way they are used as political sticks to beat schools and teachers with. Any system with punative outcomes for schools struggling with difficult circumstances is going to pile excessive pressure on to management and feed into the classroom. I felt in the final year that I was losing my integrity. Everything had to be done to add up to the right number.

I joined while they were in special measures and would have considered sending my children there (fringes of catchment) Now they are on the quest to maintain Good, I'm not sure if it would suit my child. Too much pushing and not enough pastoral nuturing (anxious child with high functioning SENs). Unfortunately our nearest catchment school is also a hoop jumping school that leaps from one initiative to another to keep the necessary data as the targets/ OFSTED decree.

I didn't read the OFSTED report when applying for primary school. Stable, positive reputation, good vibes from children at my community group, good vibes from a visit. That means much more to me than 24-48 hours checking what you see against the SEF.

In my supply years, I had a run of schools visited or recently visited by OFSTED. Some fudged certain pupils off site to avoid problems. Some optomistic/deluded management teams turned on the staff when they made the mistake of being honest which contradicted the SEF.

Inspections do need to happen, but it needs to be in the spirit of support, not a battle for survival. The best schools tend to be stable places, and constant reform and battling to survive is not good for anyone except trashy headlines and spin doctors.

Can't comment on schools but work in a Nursery so soon as you get the calls its a case of set everything up. Make it all perfect. They must know! Seems silly to give notice. Not that much was done differently but was time to change things around if needed.

When was in college and due ofsted suddenly had these learning objectives that never use to have and didn't have again.