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.

Shall we apply that to children too?
It seems a tad hypocritical to me.

Yes, you are reaching, I agree. This could happen with parents who come in on a one off visit to read to small groups of children under supervision of the class teacher. Or accompany on a school trip. Children could very easily view that adult as safe because they came into school, and are a parent of someone in their class. No-one will have done a DBS on those volunteer parents if they are not left alone in charge of children unsupervised.

From the BBC:

"Flora Cooper, executive head of John Rankin Schools in Newbury, Berkshire, had earlier tweeted Ms Waters' plea and said she had refused access to inspectors who were due to visit on Tuesday"
"She tweeted: "I've just had the call. I've refused entry. This is an interesting phone call. Doing this for everyone for our school staff everywhere!"
"In a statement West Berkshire Council later said that following discussions the inspection would go ahead as planned"

I know no more than anyone else what's going on here, but looking at the last sentence I'd love to be a fly on the wall in a situation where the HT and LEA are saying completely different things on the matter

Hopefully, too, the inspectors can hang onto their objectivity when they finally get in there and have to asseess the HT's general approach ...

This. Then the blame and finger pointing begins. Not just from the HT, staff at every level think it there place to pass scathing comments!

Reaching or not reaching, is that really a reason to define the school as ‘inadequate’ when everything else was good? That’s the crux of the matter here.

I'm excited by this - I genuinely think this is the catalyst we need.

I'm 23 years in - old enough to remember when teaching was bloody great! I've been toying with getting out for a year or 2... but I have hope now!

From my humble experience the lead inspector debriefs the SLT and governors at the end of the last day of inspection. As a collective we are told not to discuss further until the report is published.

The inspection is also far less onerous for classroom teachers.

As a classroom teacher, I disagree wholeheartedly. The Deep Dive model of Ofsted on Primary schools, particularly small ones is hugely stressful. You could be Maths, history and French coordinators (and have no qualifications in any of them, not paid for any of them and given no leadership time for any of them) but expect to demonstrate leadership, take the inspector on learning walks and lead book scrutinies in all of them. The next year, someone might leave the school and you’re now in charge of Art, phonics and science. This model may work in secondary where the head of history, who has a degree in history, a TLR and teaches history all day talks for 3 hours about their subject, but I don’t believe it’s a good model in primary.

All that will happen as a result of this example is that schools will choose not to recruit teachers from overseas

Not just teachers. Our school actively weeds out any staff that fall within that bracket, which goes against discrimination laws, but you know what, I don’t blame them

It’s been reported in the press that the staff who didn’t know how to report safeguarding concerns were dinner ladies, so it didn’t matter as much as if they were teachers. That’s so wrong

Our lunchtime supervisors were asked the same and said they’d tell “LtEve” they were then asked “what if she was ill?” so they said “The Head” and of course were asked “and what if he was ill?” - 3 diff dinner ladies gave 2 more names (the deputy head and one of the teacher) and in the wash up we were told that they didn’t know who to report safeguarding to….
Thankfully the CE of the trust told them they were talking bollocks and trying to engineer fault (which they were) and that line was quietly dropped. I can quite believe the same happened at Caversham.

Our inspection this year came close to outstanding. What stopped us was attendance and parental engagement. We are in one of the most deprived areas in the country and have an extremely high traveller cohort. The fact that we average attendance in the 90s is frankly amazing, and the fact that we have teachers (and TAs and me) regularly reading letters etc to parents because they can’t read, complete forms for them, go online for them, print FSM vouchers and so on meant nothing - because only 7 parents completed the Ofsted survey which obviously means they don’t engage with us…

The reality is there is a lot of corner cutting.

In May professions like the police, ambulance, social work there are structures to support staff and maintain the confidentiality. That would have been a start.

Shiny, you're so right. In my tiny primary we're all leading multiple subjects and I'm the only member of staff who has a degree in one of the subjects I lead.
Doggo, scrutiny and accountability is a good thing, but yours is a false comparison; most other professional roles subject to regular review are not concerned with such a big number of factors largely out of the professional's control, over which said professional is expected to have influence. This is what makes scrutiny in education so tricky; you're depending on young children to be consistent, predictable and conforming to expectation -you can't guarantee that they will, with the best will in the world. Equally, as subject lead of several curriculum areas, I am expected to raise standards in my curriculum areas and develop colleagues' practice. This is laudable but really tricky when there aren't enough hours in a day, or money to buy the resources required or staff to support progress.
HairyMcLair, you're definitely on to something. My DC goes to a school judged Inadequate with elements of Requires Improvement, but they're brilliant at SEN. Other parents of learners with SEN and EBSA I know have similar experiences.

Oh, and Flora Cooper is a rock; absolute goosebumps reading her tweet earlier. I wish her and her staff so much courage and strength in the coming days. I have been deeply disturbed and saddened by the reports of the death of Ruth Perry, and could not say, hand on heart, that I'd be able to face an inspection team at the moment, while the profession reels from and tries to process Ruth's passing.
Hat off to Flora for acting with deep integrity and following the courage of her conviction.

I wonder what time all this happened there today-it seems only in the last few hours that it’s been suggested the inspection will be happening tomorrow. I hope the teaching staff there knew it was happening before they left work for the day.

Just throwing this question out to all working in schools/education how often are DBS checks carried out? For example if you have worked in the same place for more than nine years how many DBS checks do you have?

I worked for a children’s charity and social care. If I recall correctly it was repeated every 3 years. There was an admin/process to ensure they were up to date.

Best practice is to get them renewed every 3 years. So I've had 3 in 9 years.

Yep. I'm on my third and have been with my school for 7 years.

Won't she get suspended and how will that help her school?

Wasn’t the school in Reading one of those that people move into catchment for? So they pay more for their house etc so maybe head felt she let the kids down and more… ?

Yes, it was, I believe, the most over subscribed/desirable primary in Reading, and in the poshest part of town, and had been for years. Maybe a little complacency had set in the management team. (Obviously the death was tragic.)

erm… I do! Am I noone then? in your eyes

DBS checks came in in 2012. prior to that it was CRB

So anyone employed before may never have had a DBS
Anyone new into role will have had one on employment
Some people register with the DBS update service which keeps it 'live'
There is no requirement to have them done regularly.

It is not best practice to get them done every 3 years- indeed there has been a longstanding argument that it is a misuse of public funds. It has never been in any DfE or Ofsted guidance that this is either a requirement or best practice.

The best practice is to have all staff on the update service- but they have to register themselves and pay £13 a year.

I'm not sure how I feel about a H/T encouraging people to turn up to their school - I've always believed schools / playgrounds / school gates should be free from protestors of any kind - as much as I may agree with the Head trying to take a stand. It was abhorrent when anti-vaxers targeted school gates and I think the only way is to say any type of action (bar that by pupils themselves) is wrong.

As for Ofsted, well its a pretty broken system IMO. If Safeguarding is so important (and clearly it is) why leave it years until suddenly schools are tested on it? Much better to have an ongoing system of consultation/advice where school can reach out to get support and regular visits by trained "inspectors" who merely come to check everything is okay and working as it should. This IMO should be separate from Ofsted.

I hate to say it to all my fellow teaching colleagues but I do think the way forward is with more regular visits by inspectors (and I'd change the name of them straight away - "inspectors" sets the tone for it all) so schools are just judged on one visit every few years. It would be quite nice if there was some repeat visits by the same Ofsted staff as well rather than always sending a different inspector which can just mean shifting the goalposts. The problem with Ofsted inspections is they are too quick, too infrequent and too judgemental and always seem to start off from a "how can we catch you out" attitude. The only real way to change it is to scrap Ofsted, set up a new organisation with a more purposeful name and a different attitude. Inspections should be about celebrating schools successes (and yes some Ofsted reports do that but not many) and why schools work. To be honest I'm not sure the "rating" system is even needed, surely a school is either working as it should or not? There will always be things to improve, there is never "no action needed". Yes it would be a big shock to some staff to see Ofsted more than once every three or four years but over time it would likely lead to less anxiety, if indeed the visits were more supportive and less about quick box ticking judgements. I also think all Ofsted inspectors should be current Head Teachers / Senior leaders who are seconded for inspection times rather than career Ofsted inspectors who lose their grip on being in the classroom/running a school. I also think there should be a separation of Ofsted as inspectors and at the same time being the font of all "good practice" reports. This only serves as to ensure school desperately rush to do whatever Ofsted "reviews" suggest is good practice in fear or being marked down for not following it. Instead a more neutral body should weigh up the evidence from schools, inspections / school visits, academics, etc and suggest best practice.

Ofsted is broken and needs fixing but it is unreal to expect schools just to be left to get on with things (sadly).