First headteacher refuses to be Ofsteded in boycott

[noblegiraffe]

There has been talk on twitter over the weekend of a boycott of Ofsted in protest at its ridiculous system of stressful high-stakes inspections and public shaming, following the suicide of a headteacher in January after her outstanding primary was downgraded to inadequate.

This morning the first brave headteacher has put her head above the parapet. Ofsted called to notify of an inspection tomorrow and the head said no.

twitter.com/florascooper/status/1637760884243066881?s=46&t=vKGM6xpoeW3wdlaVVVagQA

She is calling for people to come to the school tomorrow morning to support the boycott (details on twitter).

I hope this becomes the catalyst for a serious review and reform of the inspection system.

Good.

Blimey. Good luck to that HT and her colleagues, I hope they get support.

Every teacher I know is anxious about Ofsted. They could change the process so it is more interactive/supportive and less judgemental. In our DC school the head was expecting to go up from good to outstanding. It went down to "requires improvement" and he was never seen in the school again. His mental health took a huge hit. It's a brutal process.

Good for her!
I can't see any reason why a more soft-touch style of check-up shouldn't be used. Why does a Head need to be publicly named and shamed? Why not a quiet word in the ear and a requirement to rectify any issues within a certain timeframe?
Job done.

My dh was a parent governor and even he was on the receiving end of an ofsted grilling, he said it was brutal.
Very brave HT I hope more follow suit.

Good for her! I've long suspected Ofsted is a blunt instrument.

As parents though we have to hold our hands up and recognise that we are part of the problem. The amount of emphasis parents place on an ofsted report when picking a school for child, its no wonder head teachers mental health is knackered.

I totally support her approach!

Schools Week have talked to the head schoolsweek.co.uk/head-plans-to-refuse-ofsted-inspectors-entry-following-ruth-perry-death/

Absolutely @whattodo1975 ofsted reports should not be held up as the Holy grail to education
Parents need to look beyond that

I admire her and hope her union and sensible MPs support her.

Schools do need a way to be held accountable though, if ofsted is abolished there will be something else implemented. The results will be the same, a report will be generated detailing whether the school is meeting the requirements to properly educate and safe guard students. I don’t agree with abolishing that accountability.

No one thinks schools shouldn’t be inspected or held accountable.

No one.

Abolition is the wrong way to go - the system needs to be reformed. But I do agree with refusal of entry; nothing else will be listened to.

Having dc with SN I’ve found the best schools generally score low in OFSTED inspections.

The worst schools scored outstanding. My own sample is small, but it seemed to be the case for other families I got to know on FB groups.

I hope this starts something that can make real change for schools. Good on her.

She does right.

The amount of rubbish we had to do just to tick boxes for Ofsted.
As professionals, we knew damn well none of it actually benefitted the children at all.

One of the worst parts for me was as a primary school teacher, being expected to lead a subject and then do a 'deep dive' where I had to know my subject inside out, have it all perfectly planned out.
I had three subjects.
I only work three days.
One of them is French and I can barely speak a word of it.
The level of knowledge we needed was ridiculous. Yet we get paid no more and hardly given any extra time. We had to do it all in our own time.

Wow. That's erm, <searches for right word, probably fails> drastic,

It's good to have a higher authority to monitor schools but inspections are so high pressure and snap shot (of individual teachers possibly not paperwork) and stressful and the system doesn't seem to be working for staff nor monitoring schools for parents and kids where a school is failing to support them.

@noblegiraffe that is what it comes across as towards those outside the sector though. If there is a clear plan on how to aim for those reforms the majority of people will likely support schools in refusing ofsted access until the reforms are brought about though, if schools just start refusing access to ofsted without having a clear goal in place then people are going to start worrying about what’s going on in those schools. This seems to be something that having unions involved in would be beneficial.

i think it's ridiculous - schools taking 3-4 days to prep for ofsted visits and stressing all the staff and pupils out. Does that come from ofsted or the culture of schools and head teachers?Its a culture of fear because of the government maki g Inadequate schools academies - so the head pushes and stresses

it's d DofE not ofsted

I'm in 2 minds about this.

I think schools need to be held to extremely high standards. They are forming future generations.

I see lots of comments like 'OFSTED are brutal' but aren't most situations where you're being assessed like that brutal?

-work reviews
-DLA interviews
-ESA applications
-immigration interviews

Even teens going through GCSEs are held to super high standards, so much stress is put on their shoulders to get good GCSEs but they can't protest against that.

Isn't stress just part of being accountable?

And surely short notice assessments are the best way to see how schools REALLY function?

Giving months notice defeats the purpose?

Thank you SO much for the support on this thread! It's honestly so lovely to see. I'm a teacher, and am 100% behind this boycott. I'm not calling for inspections to be abolished, but for reform. The current system HAS to change. This is really drastic, but we need Ofsted and the government to act now.

They get notified the day before inspection, not a month before.

Ah sorry, misread your post as saying they get lots of notice! Ignore me!

Ofsted.

Schools don't have '3-4' days to prep. They have around 20 hours from the call to arrival of inspectors, maybe 3 of those are school working hours.

Of course a school will have been preparing for months. Depending on leadership, sometimes to the detriment of other things. Those other things might be quality of actual education of children, or might be mental health of all staff.

You are right that academisation is the avoidable result if things go wrong, but if that were the case DfE would just say we're academising everyone and that's it.

Let's hope everyone supports this head I am a former head and the pressure is outrageous and unnecessary. All anyone needs to know about a school is are kids safe , happy and learning

The rest is politics , smoke amd mirrors.