Ofsted's new report cards for schools are a pile of bollocks

[noblegiraffe]

Changes are being made to the way Ofsted reports school inspections. Instead of grading 4 areas Inadequate, Requires Improvement, Good and Outstanding (overall grade has already gone) they want to grade schools on 9 areas, Causing Concern, Attention Needed, Secure, Strong and Exemplary

There's a video here explaining how it will look

There aren't enough words to express how much additional work this is going to create for schools. How many extra middle management positions to cover leadership in each of the 9 areas. How many extra ring binders of evidence, learning walks, mock Ofsteds. How many education consultants writing books called 'How to get Exemplary in "Developing Teaching".'

Oh but parents will appreciate the extra information - sure, is a school that is strong in 5 areas and secure in 4 better or worse than one that's exemplary in 2, strong in 3, secure in 2 and requires attention in 2?

And how is deciding whether a school is secure or strong anything but subjective on the day? You hope for rigorous rubrics? No, there are fluffy grade descriptors that are hard to decipher.

To illustrate this, a quiz has been put together. Can you decide whether e.g.

A) "Leaders continually monitor the progress of their pupil premium strategy and make helpful and proactive adaptations, as appropriate"

is better or worse than

B) "Leaders make sure that the delivery of their pupil premium strategy is sustained and monitored effectively, including through ongoing training and support for staff"?

I got 2/5 correct... you can see if you can do any better here https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-quiz-can-you-spot-a-strong-rating-from-a-secure-one/

The government consultation is running till April https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education-consultation-document#proposal-1-report-cards

Exactly. Why does everything have to going above and beyond and be 'relentless'. Why can't it just be meeting the required standards?!

The thing is - absolutely every educator knows that children's learning is not linear and even with the best will in the world and the perfect school and teachers, you won't just be able to push attainment levels up and up continuously. If this were true we would be able to add quantum mechanics and general relativity to the year 2 scheme of learning in say 50 years time.
If it isn't about attainment levels, how are we able to assess it?
Parent satisfaction? This would vary considerably dependent on the parent cohort
Student satisfaction? Feed the reception class ( or probably year 11) chocolate biscuits every day and see the ratings soar.
Hitting some kind of targets? ( Do these need to be different for different schools depending on the make up of the school population?)

Of course attention needs to be paid to where issues are missed, there needs to be research into best teaching and learning methods (without re-inventing the wheel) etc etc. Of course there needs to be proper safeguarding.

Teachers are also human though and can't just go on incrementally adding more and more tasks/issues. There is a sweet point where they will work at the optimum (and this will include time to study and reflect on their practice).

Politicising education just seems to tear it like some kind of gradgrindian machine that can continually be "tweaked" to improve output!

Hmm, it looks like someone at Ofsted just copied what the police do and knocked off early. Look at the grid in this news article!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qe1g4g751o

That really does look copied!

I do hope someone at Ofsted is actually listening to what people are saying and they decide to change their plans-it's going to be so shit and depressing if this consultation is here to stay

It's bad, isn't it? After Ruth Perry's death and the promises of change and the 'Big Listen' they've basically copied something from somewhere else that just shows how utterly rushed and poorly thought-through this is.

Here's a thread from Dan Lambert, a senior Ofsted inspector about the proposed changes https://x.com/dan_ofsted/status/1887188901220999531?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

I think he makes a very telling comment "Report card was a govt policy. Bigger than Ofsted alone." which suggests that they are not happy over at Ofsted about it either.

He says to make sure you fill out the consultation.

Hope this is the right place for this issue, help needed: so my school had an Ofsted inspection in Autumn 2022, it did not go at all well and we got the lowest rating possible.

New Head came in to 'turn things around' - we were linked with a MAT to be turned into an Academy.... all so far so standard, I guess.

But the news this week - well we were worried before these announcements - have thrown things into a real quandary..... nobody is telling us anything from Senior Management either

The school has definitely been improving and we have had interim inspection visits and published letters from Ofsted to confirm as much. We are now expecting a full Ofsted again, probably in May or June.

But what does this mean for us in the current climate? The new Head came with a mission to go from 'inadequate' to 'good' but now those grades have gone what could happen to us?

A colleague said to me the other day, oh we will get 'good' no problem but she obviously doesn't follow education news (possibly too busy to do so!) & I had to explain that it is just not possible, not because we haven't improved, I'm sure we have, but the system won't allow it....

A friend of mine recently showed me an Ofsted Report from her child's school that was 'done' around December last year. Ofsted avoided dealing with the end of one-phrase pronouncements by including a sentence in the report which went something like '....this school has maintained the standards we saw when we last carried out an inspection' the trouble was they got 'Good' last time so that was fine for them. Something similar for us, would be no good at all....

I personally think we should not get Ofsteded again until November/December 2025, how can we as the old system has ended whilst the new one is yet to begin, but the trouble is some staff (SLT probably) want it out-of-the way and not dragging on and on....

Talking of dragging on and on, due to issues at council level that I don't know the details of, the conversion to Academy status has not yet been completed. Yet another reason why I think the next inspection should be delayed: if a school is supposed to be better when turned into an Academy, won't Ofsted be unlikely to upgrade us (even if that is even possible in this state of flux we find ourselves in) when that change hasn't happened?

Can anyone out there predict what could happen, I am open to any possible ideas! I'm actually at the end of my tether with education and was hoping that Academisation might lead to some redundancy opportunities, that happened to a friend of mine some ten years ago, but will even the move to an Academy actually happen now as this Labour Education Sec is reportedly opposed to schools of that type. I think I have read that under Labour the mandatory conversion upon a failed Ofsted is now ended, but is that only for the future or could it be applied retrospectively....

I realise I am asking a lot here, but as I said nobody at work knows anything and before I try my Union, I thought I would ask here....

But what does this mean for us in the current climate? The new Head came with a mission to go from 'inadequate' to 'good' but now those grades have gone what could happen to us? @LeslieHyde70

Those grades haven't gone, just the overarching single headline grade. So your school would still be graded on

1. Quality of education
2. Behaviour and attitudes
3. Personal development of pupils
4. Leadership and management

and get a grade from Inadequate to Outstanding for each.

It sounds like the report that your friend showed you wasn't from a 'full' Ofsted inspection but a short one, where your school will be having a full inspection.

SchoolsWeek report that everyone in education hate the proposals but parents like them https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-report-cards-verdict-parents-and-school-staff-have-their-say/

I suspect because parents look at that grid and think it provides something meaningful and don't think any further than that. The fact that people in education can't distinguish between the grade descriptors really should give pause for thought.

Maybe I should fill in the consultation form as a parent as well-I certainly don't think it's a good idea

Parents might like the idea of it, but if they were asked 'would you prefer your child's teacher to spend their time planning lessons for your child and marking their work, or filling out paperwork and evaluation forms for the CPD sessions they have attended this year?', my guess is that they'd prefer that work time to be spent on something meaningful rather than box-ticking and 'evidencing'.

Yup. Or 'would you rather a qualified teacher for your child or do you not mind if they all leave as a result of this tosspot scheme?!'

Thank you, I did not know that. Useful information.

I wonder if this will be done fairly over the next six months - I'm going to look at the Ofsted website shortly and see if I can view some recent reports, as I have a theory: could it be that Ofsted grade on those 4 criteria: Quality of Ed./Behaviour/Development/Leadership and fudge it so all 4 get the same score (probably the lowest) in other words a one-word situation continuing, even when it officially does not.

I can see a situation where our school gets Outstanding for Leadership, but lower grades for the other 3, but will parents and other people in the local community classify us as Outstanding or will they use the phrase that appears mostly, next to all those 4 categories!?

Rare for a school to get outstanding in Leadership and Management if other categories are lower.

When schools were given a single grade that grade would be the lowest grade of the four categories, so you could have 3 Goods and 1 Requires Improvement and the overall grade would be Requires Improvement. This is partly why the single grade has been removed and the report card system proposed so we get away from parents just seeing the word Requires Improvement and actually seeing the areas that the school is good at

Under the consultation the short or ungraded inspection your friend’s school had are going

Don't forget to fill out the consultation!

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education