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.

The secondary school my DC attended was judged as failing following an Ofsted. We all knew it - bullying, poor standards, no recognition of excellence (despite a tag line of Aspiration, Ambition and something else alliterative).
Anyway, Head bowed out, new one has come in, and things are changing. Sometimes it's a lifeline to a school and it's many hundreds of pupils. Otherwise, nothing would have happened in this school's case.
But if a replacement that doesn't tip teachers over the edge can be found, great.

Well Flora the head teacher didn't really think that one through did she!

"Executive headteacher & Executive coach. A survivor & warrior, rising like a phoenix - living my next chapter. The best is yet to come!" OH MY!

Later in the day she tweets "Please can people not come to school now in the morning. I have to protect our children, our staff and our community. Please for the protection of our children and staff." I mean didn't she actually consider what she was asking for in the first place.

Perhaps concentrate on teaching and running her school and less on calling others to arms before the facts of why the school failed it's Ofsted were known.... safeguarding is vital to protect children.

I agree. Failing schools must be called to account. The tag lines some of these schools come up with and the ridiculousness of the comments by the head of the school calling for boycott and turning up to support shows knee jerk reaction and lack of thinking skills.

It was the family of Ruth Perry calling on headteachers to refuse entry to inspectors that prompted this.

A 'rock' that encourages adults to turn up at her school en-mass to protest via twitter. What about the children there? Then a few hours later decides it is a bad decision and asks people not to come now. The Phoenix perhaps needs to think before tweeting.

"... a survivor & warrior, rising like a phoenix - living my next chapter. The best is yet to come!"

Dear god, where do they find these people? She sounds like a teenager rather than a supposedly professional woman, and that's before we even get to the issue of her planning to refuse a statutory duty

Hopefully she's had the sense to leave off the warrior/phoenix rhetoric when the inspectors were actually there - if not the report should make interesting reading

Flora the head teacher didn't have to act on the comments of the family though. She did later rethink and asked people not to protest at her school as she originally wanted.

Is it correct that the outstanding school had not been inspected for 12 years and then is called inadequate?

Perhaps the answer is to inspect more frequently so little issues can be sorted before they become issues that lead to inadequate ratings.

We know why it failed - it was in its report! One boy flossing, 2 kids having a playground scrap. Happens every day in schools up and down the country. Are they all inadequate?

She doesn't do herself any favours. Runs along the lines of the 'living my best' life at Mum-entrepreneur at MLM type slogans.

Come on - read the report rather than a couple of comments. Are you saying all schools up and down the country have arrangements for safeguarding that are not effective. Weak understanding of safeguarding requirements. I mean really, it doesn't help to pretend safeguarding concerns were about a couple of children flossing and a scrap in the playground.

"The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures.
They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school. These weaknesses pose potential risks to pupils."

"Leaders do not fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities effectively. They have not
exercised sufficient oversight and rigorous monitoring of safeguarding processes.
Leaders need to improve their own safeguarding expertise and ensure that roles
and responsibilities are clearly defined and understood by all staff at the school.
 Leaders, including governors, have not maintained effective oversight of
safeguarding. They do not have strong systems in place to ensure that recordkeeping and subsequent follow-up work are effective. Leaders and governors
must ensure that robust systems are implemented so that they are assured
actions taken are prompt and proper.
 Leaders have not ensured that there is always appropriate supervision during
breaktimes. This means that pupils are potentially at risk of harm. Leaders need
to urgently address these significant weaknesses in safeguarding arrangements.
 Leaders and governors’ oversight of attendance is not as strong as it needs to be.
They do not have an appropriate policy or systems in place to identify patterns
and trends quickly enough or connect these with vulnerable groups of pupils.
Leaders must address this swiftly.
 Staff expectations of pupils with SEND are not always as high as they could be.
As a result, some pupils with SEND are not achieving as well as they could.
School leaders need to ensure that the curriculum is consistently implemented
and that expectations of pupils with SEND are consistently high."

Where does the flossing bit come from?

You make a really good point about the gap being isolating @dimorphism

I think in terms of personality types there’s a pretty big correlation between the heads who will adhere strictly to the rule and not tell anyone else, and the heads who will take the outcome most to heart as a personal failing. Funnily enough they’re probably also the ones who would respond most positively to constructive criticism and support to improve areas of weakness if things were done that way.

The head teacher's sister made the comment to the press and it was reported int he Daily Mail

"Earlier this week her sister Julia Waters had told BBC South that inspectors said a boy doing a flossing dance move, from the video game Fortnite, was used as unfounded claims of the sexualisation of children at the school." However, reading the actual report it doesn't mention that at all in the report.

The patterns and trends bit ? No really sure

The thing is, the Ofsted-speak of the report IS the same as a few children flossing on the playground. Those are the snippets of evidence used to generate the conclusions.

From what I have gleaned:
-one member of staff / volunteer had a period when they were abroad, from which a detailed report had not been possible for a DBS. The error the school made was in not prepared a specific risk assessment with this in mind.

-Some dinner ladies did not give the ‘right’ answer to ‘who would you speak to if you had a safeguarding concern about a child’. They probably named someone sensible - eg the Head - but dud not name the DSL or (more likely) did not give the exactly correct answer when pressed on who to speak to in the very rare instance that the first 3 options were absent.

Onto these specific concerns were grafted - as ‘additional evidence’ - flossing as ‘overly sexualised behaviour’ , and two children scrapping, as ‘peer on peer abuse’. They also remarked on wet playtime supervision, not considered whether this might gave been affected by staff illness, absence or key staff being in meetings with or about Ofsted at the time (last Ofsted I had, all staff were pulled into the gall for a meeting with the inspector. Supervision of the pupils for that short period was not what it usually would be.

You have to have experienced Ofsted to understand what the serious pompous language may actually mean in practice. ‘The school does not value reading’ = ‘3 year 10 boys, asked at random at break time, admitted that they did not often read novels for pleasure’ is one I particularly remember….

Can I ask where you've "gleaned" all that information from cantkeepawayforever?

It's true the formal reports tend to be a precis of what they've observed and that not everything will make it into the written version, but apart from folk chucking around various allegations I've not seen any reference to the flossing/playgroup scrap at all

Happy to be corrected on this though ...

Mixture of reports from the family, news reports and the school’s letter iirc? A lot of the details have been released to the press by different people.

Flossing / playground scrap was definitely from the family.

I've known a few schools go into special measures for safeguarding only, and it's possible to get out of it pretty quickly, because record keeping and monitoring is a systems thing. Much harder to turn around curriculum and behaviour. Also, it is something you would know on the first day, because it's day 1 activity and a limiting judgement.

The family are (understandably) grieving and devastated.

The whole thing is becoming a bit uncomfortable though tbh.

It is wrong to use somebody’s grief to point score against an organisation many disliked in the first place.

Absolutely. However, I completely believe that the flossing and 2 child scrap were included as evidence in the grade given for poor safeguarding by Ofsted. Ime, the use of such small items as evidence for an ‘already decided’ grading is very common, especially if they are scrabbling to justify that grading in the face of challenge during or after the inspection. It is because this information rings so true that so many with experience of Ofsted are saying ‘yes, that is exactly how it works’.

The flossing and playground scrap was on the BBC South news report. I guess if Ofsted spoke to the SLT at the end of the investigation, it could have come from there.

But “Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school” has been glossed over a lot in the press and as a result, a false narrative is being repeated as if it’s a fact.

I don’t want to defend OFSTED particularly here, but I do think some people are being very naive in cheering on HTs wanting OFSTED suspended/refused entry.

HTs have next to no accountability. Refusing to allow OFSTED entry removes probably the only way they can currently be held to account.

This case is absolutely tragic, but safeguarding failures cannot be hidden away because of it.

So the narrative for that point around documentation from a single member of staff from a period of time overseas not bring available, and not then being covered by a specific risk assessment, is a false one?

I apologise for repeating it, if so.