Does a bad ofsted really = bad school?

[Soboredsorry]

This is more thinking out loud than anything but does an Ofsted report really determine how good a school is for your child?

Neighbour is thrilled her daughter got into the school in the next town, when I asked why she didn’t want the school on our road (about 30 secs from her door!) she scoffed and said ‘have you SEEN the ofsted’

My kids go there so it did sting, and she did backtrack but it got me thinking... does an inadequate inspection really mean your kid won’t do as well there as they would’ve at a ‘good’ school? What really makes a school good or bad? What do you all think?

One of our local schools is outstanding - and very very loud about it. The way the parents go on you'd think they personally had the ofsted rating themselves.

My kids don't go there - could have had a place but I know they get their stellar results by deterring and making the lives so uncomfortable of children with SN that they leave or don't join, and that they basically spend year 5 and 6 teaching completely to the SATs tests.

My kids go to the school round the corner that gets slagged off by the outstanding parents, gets less good results - but where the head refuses to just reduce the end of juniors to SATs coaching, where the children with SEN end up going because of the behaviour of the other school and where they let the kids have a childhood with some really inventive work they do. The pastoral care this school has given the kids over the time that school has been closed has been amazing - while the preening over the mountains of worksheets the outstanding one has given out has dwindled as lockdown's bitten and kids have started to struggle.

If a school has a reputation for nurturing and pastoral care, particularly for children with SEN, there will be parents who will disregard it because they feel that the support for SEN is detrimental to progress. Quite often SLTs will have the same opinion. Parents whose children have SEN may choose the school because of its support for disadvantaged children. The difficulty is that the academic profile of the school might be lower. That doesn’t mean that children won’t do well academically though.

I think children being happy will help them to thrive and do well. I’d prefer that than outstanding hot housing and unhappy children, although some do get on well in those circumstances.

IMO an Ofsted outstanding school simply refers to a school that knows exactly what Ofsted is looking for and ensures that it has the evidence required at the next inspection.

My teacher friends all say this.

Outstanding means little unless it was very recent. I did some supply work at an ‘outstanding’ school and the behaviour was terrible and the level of work teachers were setting didn’t seem right. Their last OFSTED had been over eight years ago. I now work in a nearby school so know they recently had a reinspection, possibly because of their terrible sats results, and they are in special measures.

My child attended an ‘outstanding’ school, but it wasn’t a very nice atmosphere and he didn’t receive much support with his SEN. We switched to a new school that didn’t have a good ofsted rating and he’s come on so much. The school really supports him and always tries to bring out the best of him.

New school has recently had a much better grade too.
So in my opinion it doesn’t really matter. Go off the vibe of the school.

Don't Ofsted inspect "everything" over 2 days? How can that show the true picture? How long do they spend in the classrooms scrutinising teaching/learning?

My kids school went from good to inadequate. By that point it was a shocking school and every single word of the Ofsted was spot on. It’s easy to sneer at Ofsted reports but by the time it gets to inadequate you can be fairly sure there are some pretty serious issues going on. I believe the school is now much better again but I wasn’t hanging around to find out. I knew the school was terrible and didn’t wait for an inspector to tell me something I’d known for the past 2 years

You can 'fail' an Ofsted on purely compliance matters so for example if you don't have signs next to the sinks indicating whether it's drinking water or not. It doesn't matter how good everything is or isn't if you've missed that regulatory tick on the drinking water they can classify you as unsatisfactory across the board.

From experience... so take a close look at the reason for the poor grading.

It completely depends on the reasons for the poor report and what they are doing about it. We chose a school that was 'requiring improvement'. I know lots of people who opted for the 'good' school a few miles in the other direction because of the ofsted. Actually the reason for the ofsted report was just a lot of turn over (old headteacher left, governor vacanies, was a bit disorganised) and also because it's a small school and their test scores were a bit lower. In a class of 8, if one child doesn't do well in testing, it pulls the overall average down significantly. The whole school only has 100 in reception to year 6. My friend's school has 100 just in reception!

It's been an amazing experience. It's a lovely small school and the pastoral care is excellent. The new headteacher put in a lot of effort. It is now 'good'. The other 'good' school a few miles away is now know for behavioural and safeguarding issues, which is a much more serious issue.

I have to say though I probably wouldn't choose a school that was consistently marked as inadequate though. I would imagine there must be some serious leadership issues, particularly with all the changeover to academy status, that no one seems to be dealing with.

Local school was outstanding, even had it engraved on the office windows, but it hadn't had an inspection for six years. Ofsted came in last year and it's now Requires Improvement. I'd rather hear from the Head and their vision etc than a rating that is outdated.

Never personally take much notice of ofsted ratings my kids went to a primary that often never had the best ofsted but things they were criticised in where stupid , sometimes some schools just don't suit certain children so as long as mine were happy and doing well themselves I was happy with that
My sons secondary gone from good to requiring improvement and I would say they have actually got better from when my first son was there until now and again what they were marked down for was again silly reasons in my opinion and not things that would affect my children .

Read the detail!!!! If it’s compliance that’s one thing. If it’s as our school was that pupils aren’t making progress, that KS2 are not producing work that is differentiated, properly marked and of a reasonable standard, that the books are empty, that the teachers are dealing with their own children lower down the school and leaving the class alone, that there is no secondary preparation, that 7 children out of a class of 30 have left due to poor pastoral care, that children can’t spell, that there has been no PE, run for the hills. It’s in the detail. Sometimes it isn’t enough that the children seem happy and sometimes it needs a brutal and realistic Ofsted to hammer home that the school has been run into the ground

Having gone through many OFSTED inspections, i can assure you a lot of it comes down to the inspectors mood and wether she gets on with all of the staff. We were marked down for the most unbeleviable reasons, 1 member of staff couldn't sing, another member of staff ignored the inspectors question because she was in the middle of explaining a task to the children. The inspector blatantly lied and said morning registration was chaotic, she hadnt set foot in our building until 45 minutes after registration, which was confimed by the Guard house ( military base, she had to sign in) We appealled the decision but they wouldn't admit publicaly that the inspector lied.
I would take every single OFSTED report with a massive pinch of salt

I can see the local primary school from our 2nd floor window, so there was no way that DD1 was going elsewhere. Not sure it was in Special Measures at the time, but not a good school. I met with the new head teacher and liked her a lot.

But a mum who lived across the street from the school, sent her children to a school about 20 minutes away. Fine, her choice.

However she said to me, 'I can't believe you've sent DD1 there...'

Fast forward 4 years later and is an, 'Outstanding,' school, people trying to get their child into school, estate agents listing school as a, 'feature..'

Oh and the mum who commented about my choice of sending DD1 to school, is on waiting list... :)

When my son started his high school they came back with one of the worst Ofsted reports in our area. The school was very open, they worked hard to address the issues and introduced a number of measures to improve.

My son wasn't the best student but they worked really hard with him and he ended up getting good GCSEs and a good rounded education.

The school have managed to implement all of their improvements and are now one of the better schools in the area.

A bad Ofsted report is not necessarily the end of the world, it can mean that the school will work much harder.