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.

Not in my experience.

We have.

• Safeguarding advisors in the LA, who support and train staff.
• Education advisors also carrying out annual safeguarding visits, support to improve and follow up of actions.
• Education advisers who carry out investigations flagged up through Ofsted complaints.

• The Safeguarding Children Board, has an annual audit to be completed and monitored by governors and leaders and returned. The Safeguarding Board conduct a visit to check out the audit in a random selection of schools.

Of course, much of the above is carried out only in LA’s who still have advisers. Much of the school improvement funding from central government has been diverted away from LA’s.

Academies are responsible for most of the above themselves too.

In our maintained LA schools it isn't as if OFSTED is the only check to keep children safe.

Maybe not lying, but perhaps ill-informed. It's the sort of thing the right-wing press would say in a teacher bashing article, when they're actually just spouting rubbish. In what context did this come up with your DC? They can't be teachers, as if they were, they'd have well known that schools aren't given very much notice at all.

I have literally never agreed with @noblegiraffe on education matters - but in this instance, I do. Ofsted sees good teachers leave, and good candidates for teaching refuse to enter the profession.

And what is this experience? Are you saying that you have experience of Ofsted inspections where schools were given more than 24 hours notice? Do you work in a school?

As I said elsewhere, schools have to be preparing for OFSTED for years. Apart from when they've just been inspected (so are focused on what they have to develop and improve, based on the report) they're always preparing for the next one. And that just ramps up when it comes to the point that the schools is due or overdue for it.

It's your baby going past it's due date x a million. You know the inspection is due, but it doesnt come, and you wait, and you wait and you wait...and sometimes it can be two or three years overdue. And you've spent the whole time waiting for the lunctime phone call.

If you have everything in order there's nothing to be worried about 🤷‍♀️

What a ridiculous thing to say. Every teacher on this board (and TA) can tell you that there has never been more than 24 hours' notice apart from when the strikes were on. And that's been the case for nigh on a decade, if memory serves me right.

And there goes someone else who has never experienced an OFSTED.

I’m aware of that. I don’t think I’m getting my point across very well.

My point was that safeguarding might be better as a more cohesive and evolving area which could be supported and guided by a localised body which is then monitored by a national body rather than inspected by OFTED.

I think something has to change because currently, it’s not working for anyone.

If safeguarding is the area which OFSTED is most useful for, as argued by people in this thread, then we need to come up with an alternative that does the good parts OFSTED provide but also fills in on the parts that OFSTED lacks.

Well, it’s always going to be stressful and difficult. Anything involving scrutiny is. A wider discussion about the way OFSTED is handled is one thing.

But the idea OFSTED shouldn’t draw attention to serious safeguarding failures because it may affect someone’s mental health is not really a road I think we should go down.

🤝

Teachers were on strike last week, with workload being a huge factor in the industrial action.

How much does Ofsted contribute to teacher workload? How much of it is actually of any use?

The stress that Ofsted puts on headteachers certainly trickles downwards. The atmosphere in a school that is due an Ofsted is incredibly different to one that's not expecting one for a couple of years.

But the idea OFSTED shouldn’t draw attention to serious safeguarding failures because it may affect someone’s mental health is not really a road I think we should go down.

No one is suggesting we should.

@Treaclehair.. Agree on the heads.

We've had a school run like the mafia by one particular head filling the school with her family and friends! Their kids getting the best rewards.

We get 10 days notice in Wales. Used to be 20.

Then what are people suggesting should have happened here? I’m genuinely asking that, not in a PA arse way.

Multiple teachers (family and friends) have told me their schools bring out the Ofsted plans (perhaps they’re for when they have more notice, they didn’t say but they seemed to imply it was even for short notice.

The normal lesson plans are put on hold and the practiced ones are taught.

The main problem is that budgets have been cut to the bone and there aren't enough staff or resources to run a school properly, at the same time as ever more ridiculous targets are set.
I wish people - not just teachers - would start standing up and saying 'these targets simply aren't achievable with the budgets we have and if you want us to safeguard properly too' - of course no-one wants to admit that, but it's true.

This is exactly what I was going to write. The overarching stress in schools now comes from knowing exactly what is expected of you, knowing exactly what the correct standards are, but not having the staff or money or time or adequate access to outside agencies to put things in place to ensure everything is happening as it should be. Staff bust a gut in schools each and every day, from the lowliest paid to the HT, and so often, STILL you go home knowing that some things that happened that day were just not good enough no matter how much you did. And that next year, you will be expected to do even more with even less, yet you are not allowed to even mention this to Ofsted.

My school has sadly got to the stage now where we just don't have the money to support any more SEND children coming into the school. This is infants, so many are not yet diagnosed and so don't bring funding to enable us to pay for a one to one. But they NEED a one to one, so it has to come out of our main budget until such a time as they can get a diagnosis and extra funding. All that takes far too long. If an Ofsted inspector were to pick up on any aspect of our SEND provision as being inadequate, I would cry at the unjustness of it all.

Budgets are shit, I agree - but come on. Someone not doing pre employment checks isn’t because of not having enough money.

Totally not true
Ofsted looks t the sequence of lessons- the lesson before in books, the lesson they see and they look at the planning for the next lesson
You cant teach a 1 off lesson and demonstrate the sequential curriculum that is required for a GOOD judgment.

I've already answered that. The safeguarding element of the inspection was failed. Quite clearly. And that should have been part of the report, with immediate action needing to be taken.

But it should not have been the entirety of the judgement of the school. This is not an inadequate school. It does a good job of providing the children with a good education, behaviour standards and pastoral care.

As I said earlier, in the past, that would have been a single section that was inadequate, but the school on the whole would have got a Good (or at worst, a requires improvement). Ruling the entire school inadequate is entirely unnecessary and inaccurate.

i don’t believe this. Ofsted ask students if what they’re seeing is a typical lesson and how it fits in with their current scheme of work. You can’t fake a lesson.

But @saraclara safeguarding isn’t just some minor little detail. If a child isn’t safe in a school (and if pre employment checks aren’t done, you’re literally relying on chance) then it isn’t a good school.

It's not really 24 hours either, as you have the initial admin call to say Ofsted are coming, then the HT will have a phone call with the Inspector an hour or so later to discuss contact of the school and what subjects to do deep dives in, which in a Primary might depend on which subject lead is in that day.

How are people knowing what the detailed issue with safeguarding was in respect of this particular school?

...and in a primary school, bringing out a perfect lesson about the Romans isn't going to help if the present topic is Transport.

You're talking total rubbish @Verbena17