If your child's school is OFSTED rated "outstanding"...

[Dacadactyl]

can you see why OFSTED have rated it so? Are you and your children happy with the school?

I've just seen some stuff on here that's made me wonder about it (high staff turnover in some schools, poor behaviour etc) because it is not my experience of the schools my children attend.

Is my experience of having kids in these schools typical, or do some of you dislike your child's "outstanding school"? And why?

Also, if you are a teacher at an "outstanding " school, are you happy teaching there?

No need for a diagnosis for SENCO, definitely. DD was still waiting for a diagnosis and months after SENCO has started supporting us.

For* months.

You are correct re EHCP, I was responding to the OP's scene setting about the school

the number of pupils for whom the school receives PP funding is in line with the national average.

The proportion of children with SEN is above the national average

My point is that a high proportion of children with identified SEN doesn't automatically mean it's a deprived area.

To answer your original question, OP, the school that my children attend has an Outstanding rating, awarded under the old system many years ago now. However, it's the same Head since then, and there is low staff turn over. It's noticeably efficient and effective in its dealings with parents, the PTA, outside agencies etc etc. The children are happy, engaged and well behaved. The school welcomes parents in, to read with children, and volunteering in other ways. Achievement and progress is always above or very above national averages. I've had great support from teachers and the SEN team so far too.

However, some of the reason for all that is the local demographics, and I think the self-selecting cycle described up thread. The PTA and parents are very actively engaged en masse.

We moved our child from an "outstanding" school. It was rated in 2017. In our opinion when they are reinspected they will be lucky to get requires improvement. A change of head did untold damage and we pulled our child after 1.5 terms. The school didn't give a shit, our child was miserable, the majority (not all) of the parents and kids were downright nasty and so cliquey. We moved to a "good" school and they have just been rated "good" again and it's a world of difference. Outstanding means fuck all.

My kids went to an outstanding primary. It was shit and they hated it.

Yes all the schools are outstanding (primary) and secondary grammars and they truly are.
Primary and one secondary recently reinspected after a long time and kept the outstanding.
The primary has a low turnover of staff and staff send their own kids there (admission allows for that). Lots of educated middle class TAs and a supporting parent group, lots of clubs, one to one music, small support groups etc. Annual parent surveys and the headteacher is outside every day so if anyone is worried about anything she is completely approachable. They also have lots of volunteers from parents to local secondary school children from grammars, private schools and comps and do their bit for trainee teachers which is important.

no, that is not true, because a diagnosis doesn't affect whether a child is classed as having SEND in school. Most children with SEND dont have any sor t of diagnosis - and few schools accept private diagnosise about anything anyway

I must be articulating this really badly! I know that a diagnosis isn't necessarily for SEN input - but any school will have children flying under the radar who have neither diagnosis nor support.

I am trying to point out that a high number of children with known SEN doesn't necessarily correlate with a school being in a deprived area. What is sadly more likely is that children in deprived areas are less likely to have enough support.

Incidentally, If private diagnosis meets ICD-10 criteria it must be accepted by schools.

I like my dcs' outstanding primary school. But it hasn't been assessed for ages afaik. It's on the strict side and is a RC school. I don't mind either of those things, but I know one mum removed her DC as she didn't like it. She sent her to a school which I actually worked in and it was very modern / progressive, but I personally didn't like how it was run, so I think some of it comes down to personal taste.

I've also worked in an outstanding secondary school. Again, it was very strict and I think it worked well. They weren't dickish about it. They let students go for a wee if they needed to etc, but they have detentions for any infraction from year 7 and made them ask if they could take off their blazers etc. The theory was that if the students had stupid rules to break they wouldn't break the big rules? Sounds bonkers, but I must say it worked. That school had amazing behaviour and no prison scenes walking between classes which was nice for me!

it depends what you mean by "accepted".

I've had whole filing cabinets of private diagnosis at times, and never even opened a drawer. The school might have "accepted" it, as in, taken it out of parents hands and filed it, but that is all.

I had one student who filled an entire filing cabinet drawer on her own - all private assessments, all ignored. Realistically, we get snowed under by private assessments, and no one has the time to even open them.

The TAs give us a 10-20 word summary after knowing the child for a few weeks, and we used that. And shorten it to fit into the register

Yes and their results show that all children achieve year on year.

I don’t know whether it’s still the case, but the school I was at, was known for working effectively with children with SEN. The head wasn’t happy with that, but I felt that we were a nurturing environment for children with SEND and that I was doing my job properly. At first, Ofsted agreed, but as the criteria changed, less so.

I don’t regret doing my best for disadvantaged children though.

One thing I would say is that if my child had SEN I wouldn't be so keen on the primary DS is at.

I have no idea whether it's actually any good for children with SEN, but from what I see I would be unsure of it.

At our outstanding primary there was always a real push to identify SEN early and head of SEN was always either teaching in Reception or another KS1 class. In fact, the rumours were more that some parents did not want the referrals and didn’t see the point.
Small intervention and daily reading was put in place from Reception and kids behind in Maths or Reading would be encouraged to attend extra classes before school. The school was great at getting extra attention and funding for any children with SEN and all health needs were fully supported.
If the head is good at paperwork they tend to also be good at lobbying the council etc for the required extra funding for certain kids. If the school has already been outstanding for a really long time and is also a school that is looked up to locally, then perhaps the Council & other applicable bodies listen more.
educationadvocacy.co.uk/sen-funding/
People always go on about how underfunded state schools are but certain schools have managed to have their CAPEX needs met very well and also their SEN pupils supported successfully with 1:1 who are appropriately trained.

Yes. One of the best performing non selective state schools in England
consistently, they are very pushy and aspirational (so it's not suitable for everyone). They haven't been rated for over a decade, I wonder if they'd get it again because I gather it's much harder to get it these days, but the results speak volumes and we are very happy with it so far.

That is secondary, our primaries have been Good we don't have outstanding around here, have been happy with them.

I'm a teacher, worked in 4 schools and have experience of others through my training etc.

First school "good"- I actually think it was an excellent school which suffered from being a non-grammar school in city with some good grammars. Probably, overall, good was a fair judgement- the school was improving from some past issues. I really liked it though! SEN support seemed very good.

Second school "outstanding"- a historical judgement from 2010, I worked there in 2018/2019. Worst school I have been in for behaviour of students, very affluent catchment which ensured headline results were good. Support for some students with SEN seemed very poor. This is not their fault but the school buildings also felt very crowded and poor corridor behaviour probably made it feel worse! Most of the staff working there were new since the OFSTED judgement. It wasn't the same school as had received that judgement.

For interest, they had a recent Ofsted, which rated them "good" and commented on a dip in progress and recent changes to the behaviour system. I think this Ofsted is probably fair BUT I think if their results were lower, they would have probably got "requires improvement".

Third school "inadequate"- This is a bit of a weird one, because if you read the report, most areas of the school were "good" but one specific aspect of safeguarding was not up to scratch, so therefore only the inadequate judgement could be given- which is reasonable, because safeguarding is very important.

When I first joined the school, it was a good place to work, staff were mainly happy, kids were mainly happy, results were good given the very mixed catchment. But it was taken over by a MAT as a result of the judgement, and they went with a bit of a broom sweeps clean approach, which the school possibly did not need. Being taken over by a MAT also impacted our budget and we lost support staff, I'd say SEN provision became worse, over time the new MAT approach wore staff down, lots of staff left, behaviour got worse and it became a bit of a vicious cycle. By the time I left, it was not a nice place to work and a lot of the students were unhappy. It's very much the opposite of the Mumsnet narrative that inadequate schools get loads of help and money to improve.

Current school- "outstanding". This is a judgement from 3 years ago and the school is in many ways very good. Results are great although the school is also very good at advising students on "suitable" courses. It's not selective, but certain courses within the school are. Pastoral care is very good, SEN support is less so, but only because of numbers- the school has grown a lot since the outstanding judgement and the SEN team hasn't grown with it. The support for students with existing diagnosis/ECHP is good, but getting new support for a student can be an issue.

I do think, because of the judgement, the school has been through some somewhat unsustainable growth- it was oversubscribed for the first time this September (location means this wouldn't normally happen) so space etc is an issue, and we'll likely be oversubscribed again next September. If this continues to happen it could put pressure on the school. We also have students with increasingly long commutes, and ironically this means they can't take part in all the good things the school offers.

Anyway, I do think it's worth bearing in mind Ofsted do provide more than a one word judgement. It's better to read the whole report (and note the date) than just base your opinion of a school on one word.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl thanks for your thoughts. Yes I've read the report and agree with every word of it (except for the bit where OFSTED seemed to think the number of exclusions were too high. Personally, I think this approach is part of what keeps the school outstanding.)

DS’s primary has been outstanding for about ten years and honestly could do with another inspection - it is lovely, but I don’t think it is right that any school can be rated once and then rest on its laurels for the next decade.

Things I like:

High academic standards (sats scores are excellent)

Support for children struggling (extra phonics interventions before and after school, good SEN support etc)

Actually seems to walk the talk with kindness, respect etc - headmaster is a very earnest “trendy vicar” type, and that permeates the whole school

Great music, dance, drama provision.

Great afterschool clubs - arts, sports, cooking, gardening, chess, languages

Interesting topic work supported by lots of school trips and theme weeks

All of this in a fairly deprived area of Lambeth.

Things I don’t like:

The communication is terrible - school nativity date moved with two days’ notice, sports day announced the night before, various other requirements just never communicated at all. They expected the children to pass on messages verbally - sorry, no four year old is going to do that reliably.

A school that was inspected and graded as outstanding on a certain date has not been “outstanding since …”. It simply has a grading of outstanding from x years ago. If that pre-dates the present curriculum (2014) and/or the current headteacher, it honestly isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

Decide on your priorities for your child and visit those schools within travelling distance to find the best fit for your family. Also read the newsletters (most schools put them on their website) going back over a period of time. They will tell you a lot about the current issues in the school and the tone the headteacher takes with communicating with parents.

Primary that DD now 16 went to was rated inadequate the year before she started. Within 3 years the new head had turned it around to outstanding, it's still outstanding now that DS 5 has started. Consistently the best performing school in our city. It's a lovely school, sticklers for the rules, but know every single child inside and out. Most of my DDs teachers were the ones there when it was inadequate and most are still there (which was very weird as they all remembered me from 5 years ago when she left!). I think the standard of teaching is consistent, so I think leadership and how the school is presented is more to do with the rating than actually how good the education is iyswim?

@SnowdaySewday this is an interesting perspective because I was unaware the curriculum had changed in 2014.

Both of my children have done/are doing well at the primary so from that perspective (along with the holistic side of it, which I am also happy with) the school seems to remain outstanding to me.

The secondary school my DD attends (currently year 11) can do no wrong in my eyes.

Outstanding by ofsted but beyond S**T

Do you mind me asking what issues you and your children are having with the school? Primary or secondary?