Grammar School goes from Outstanding to Inadequate. What next?

[Harrysutton]

My dd attends a grammar school in the north west which has just gone from outstanding to inadequate. The report is a terrible read, the report is on the school website with a letter from the Chair of Governors but no other comms. Would you expect a meeting for parents to allow an open discussion and would you be pushing for more communication?

My other realistic option ie the only not over subscribed and the one I'm in catchment for is the Valley leadership academy so it's a potentially a choice between 2 not very good choices or i find a way to move within the next 6 weeks.

With respect, you have completely missed my point.

@Magnanimouse suggested that overwhelmingly positive responses on Parentview might suggest that there is something strange about this Ofsted report.

@NEFEHD observed that this dataset is drawn from a grand total of 24 responses, representing less than 2% of the 1291 on roll.

I pointed out that this was just the 22/23 Parentview, drawn from an academic year that is all of three weeks old and likely now heavily biased by parents with a positive view of the school who wanted to record some kind of response to the Ofsted report. There is still one respondent who states that their child does not feel safe at school and this is one child too many.

I was attempting to make the point that the data on Parentview is totally inadequate to refute such a damning report, which is amongst the worst I have ever read.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets

I used the 286 responses from the 21/22 school year. These will have been completed at the time of the inspection as there is a letter goes home asking parents to complete it.

It raises questions, not answers and it doesn't refute the inspection report alone.

Appalling report, very shocking

Has anyone been to the parents evening yet? I have one later this week. Hoping it’s not the deputy head presenting. Is there an opportunity for questions??

We got an e-mail telling us when our years was, a form to fill in to say if you were coming and whether we had any questions. So I don't think there will be any questions tomorrow evening.

I went tonight.
It was a shambles. Yes, Deputy Head presenting (now acting head)

We submitted questions but barely any were answered and they absolutely skirted around the controversial ones.
I have way more worries and questions now.

The Chair of Governors is still in place (nepotism very obvious here)
The Acting Head was the Pastoral lead for the last year! He said he struggled to manage the 1200 pupils and didn't have enough resource, but they are only advertising 3 pastoral vacancies literally today.
They had an independent inspection (focusing on the government findings that sexual abuse is rife in schools) last November and said they are sorry but they did not respond quickly enough.
This could all result in them losing their grammar school status and having to join a multi academy trust.

I had asked, amongst other questions:

What was the severity of the incidents and the consequences ?

They absolutely didn't answer this. Just generalised on what constitutes harmful sexual behaviour.

They spent too much time focusing on the fact that the Covid absence meant the pupils came back and didn't know how to respectfully speak to each other.

The emphasis is on the pupils and the parents, not the school fulfilling its basic requirements.

I fully expect in this modern world for children to be exposed to these behaviours. It will
happen. But this school have repeatedly failed to properly deal with the behaviours and continue to deny they are completely responsible.

As a single academy trust, there are pretty much self governing.

I don't think grammar schools are being particularly targeted. There have been similar ofsteds at Comps that have been in the news

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-62980290.amp

www.somersetlive.co.uk/in-your-area/beechen-cliff-school-bath-rated-1739351

The government have said they want to have more grammars anyway so there wouldn't be the motivation to target them

we submitted questions so let’s see if they are answered.

covid is an easy excuse. I can’t believe they have the pastoral lead at the time of the inspection in charge of the whole school.

COVID isn’t an excuse for safeguarding fails and in any case all schools had to deal with COVID. All schools aren’t getting this rating - therefore that excuse is bollocks.

@Harrysutton - when is your meeting ? We are very close to pulling our daughter out even though I know she'll be devastated

@NEFEHD who is the acting head? Got to say there was nowhere near the number of children at the exam on Saturday as I expected. If people don't apply and start pulling children out then they will have to act fast. just wish I had confidence considering how long that other school has been rated inadequate

@BaronessEllarawrosaurus - DM'd you

They've downgraded outstanding 'leafy' comprehensives,too. Again, the school I'm thinking of took high achieving, MC DC and turned out high achieving MC DC, ready for the local outstanding sixth form.

Classroom behaviour is very good, therefore teachers can teach.

That's why I sent my DC there. Not worried about the downgrading of an excellent school from 'outstanding' to 'good'. I can see what OFSTED are up to. No doubt they do their job brilliantly given their brief.

Not worried about the downgrading of an excellent school from 'outstanding' to 'good'. I can see what OFSTED are up to.

Not all downgrades are the same though, there's a bit of a difference between a downgrade of 'outstanding to good', and 'outstanding to inadequate with huge concerns over safeguarding'.

Folk seem to think there is some great conspiracy here. Amanda Spielman went on the Today programme to state that she expected the number of 'outstanding' schools to halve after Gove's exemption clause was overturned. Grammars and leafy comps comprised many of those outstanding schools and therefore are more noticeably affected.

Downgrading a school that parents are generally happy with from 'outstanding' to 'good' is absolutely no cause for concern. The case here is 'outstanding' to 'special measures' and I'm not sure a lot of posters have grasped just how incredibly unusual and serious this is. I have to say as a parent I would not be reassured by the measures described by current parents on this thread, particularly the existing deputy stepping in as acting head and the CoG remaining in role.

So I went to the presentation today. Very broadly it went like this:

very quick sorry
behaviour of pupils blamed
parents need to teach appropriate behaviour
covid had an impact on behaviour and school focussed on results
new behaviour policy to be introduced
parents asked to parent their children again
sexual harm is an issue across the country - ran through a national report
parents need to check what their kids are accessing and parent.

patronising and totally missed the point. Awful communication. A lot of disgruntled parents.

Can't find it now, but did someone say they don't have a single central record?! I mean, fuck me

It wasn’t complete.

I’m really struggling with this. This was our first choice school for our year 6 child who just sat the 11+ last week. We only have a few weeks to decide and what I am hearing about the parents meetings isn’t filling me with confidence.

@justabigdisco

The safeguarding and behaviour issues will be fixed very quickly as there is a huge spotlight on them, and the rest of the report was good so they have capacity to focus on this. LA safeguarding team will be all over them.

The instability from acting/new head, staff turnover and pupils being pulled out will last a good 2-3 years, so question that more.

“The rest of the report was good”

One section of the report is ‘good’, and a lukewarm ‘good’ which was mostly reliant on the students being bright and intrinsically motivated. The intake is going to change in the next few years as parents pull their children out and admissions become less competitive. That will be the test of whether the teaching is any good.

I am really surprised at the lack of change in leadership or governance. ‘Special measures’ means the existing team don’t have the capacity to make the necessary improvements.

Learnt nothing from the disgruntlement last night then.

Although it will devastate our daughter we are taking her out.

i have absolutely no faith and they are relinquishing responsibility.

NEFEHD That sounds like it has been an incredibly hard decision for you. I hope wherever your daughter goes next she settles quickly and you are all happier.

A safeguarding failure is a massive thing and I hope for the pupils there that this can be dealt with quickly and effectively, but this will take time and admittance that there is a problem.

In the letter to parents last week it mentions that the school "were aware of these concerns at the time of inspection". Does this mean they knew at least some of these problems existed even before inspectors came in? If that's the case then why didn't they start to at least formulate an effective action plan on how they were going to fix them BEFORE Ofsted came in, especially as they knew they were going to be inspected at some point?

Just found this in the report:

"Inspectors considered a range of documentation, including that relating to the
curriculum, pupils’ and students’ behaviour, leaders’ improvement plans and
leaders’ self-evaluation."

So they were rated inadequate even taking account any improvement plans they had already put together at the time? The report doesn't seem to read like a school that had already identified some major issues and had already started to at make effective steps to try and address them.