So what if my school is rated satisfactory by OFSTED

[Somarefuser]

Seriously, why should I care?
I have worked there for 5 years and the staff have been nagged and harassed at every meeting and INSETs. Whatever we do is never enough and the good is rarely noticed let alone praised. Most of us scuttle along trying to avoid the predators.
The school is rated good with outstanding features, as am I as a teacher, the children are happy and make good progress, there is a thriving PTA etc etc. The classroom level staff get on well with each other and support each other.
But I'm weary of being this battered by SLT every week. We are due an OFSTED in the Autumn term, and the pressure is being cranked up further.
I'm finding it hard to care about it. Why don't I just plod along in survival mode and why should I care if we are rated satisfactory for some tiny new detail of the 5,000 new details since last time is forgotten? There is a limit to how much I can take and I think I've reached it. I am no longer a company woman or even buying into the establishment jargon and ethos. So, what are the consequences to me of my school being satisfactory, and how can it be any worse than now?

DS1's school's just got "Inadequate". I was as it seemed like a perfectly good school to me. I'm wondering if I am missing some huge gap in the provision.

OP I do sympathise - I do feel for teachers as I would rather they were enjoying and immersed in teaching than getting stressed about endless analysis. I know I wouldn't perform well under those conditions. You sound very demotivated and lacking support.

It is a mistake though to assume that a satisfactory school would only be give that grade becaue of a health and safety concern or similar. There are schools that are graded satisfactory because they are just not up to standard . Teachers are not teaching properly, behaviour is poor and attendance is allowed to slide. I can look back to a time when I taught in a satisfactory school and can recognise that my performance for all kind of reasons was just that.

OP: you have articulated my viewpoint beautifully. Thank you.

I do my job for the kids in my classroom. I do everything I possibly can to get them success.

If management & ofsted (& politicians & parents) can't grasp that then I'm happy to disregard their uninformed judgment.

SLT are constantly telling us that if we work harder, longer, faster, smarter, and better with all the latest jargon and additional extras, then we will get there. The promised pot of gold where we will be able to stop and marvel for a while. But it's an optical illusion.

everyone feels like that.

I also think that the new Ofsted criteria are catching out coasting schools. I know when we went through Ofsted it was much harder to get the grade we were aiming for and because it was so pupil focused it was harder to put on an act for the day.

If management & ofsted (& politicians & parents) can't grasp that then I'm happy to disregard their uninformed judgment.

For the most part, I think parents can and do grasp that.

hunty, I saw your other thread. :( Our school may not be "outstanding" in the eyes of ofsted, but it is a genuinely caring, nurturing environment in which bullying simply isn't tolerated. I wish that all kids could learn in such a warm & positive environment.

Michael Rosen pretty much sums it up.

michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-head-of-ofsted-shares-his-most.html

By the autumn, it looks as though the 'satisfactory' category will be replaced with 'requires improvement'. The school will be re-inspected within 18 months. If it hasn't reached 'good' within 3 years, it will go into 'special measures'.

Then the governing body will be disbanded, and IEB put in place and the school given over to a - possibly for-profit - academy chain.

It's seriously shit.

It's all shit.
Our local primary was recently downgraded to 'satisfactory' due to this goalpost shifting. The worst example the inspectors could come up with, ie the only thing that wasn't 'good', was that some children didn't use rulers to complete maths tables.

No one should take ofsted too seriously, just more as a rough guide.

My experience shows it often rarely reflects reality

Ugh, sounds awful, I'm sorry you have to go through all that.

F'ing bureaucracy and govt nagging was the main reason I left the state education system altogether . That and the bloody national curriculum.

You sound so discouraged. I hope your SMT finds a way to motivate you all and not wear you down more.

More and more schools will be graded satisfactory, then needing improvement so that Gove has an excuse to hand it over to his cronies to turn in to academies

Could someone explain what is so bad about academies please?

I am not being facetious, i genuinely dont know what the new acadamy system is going to be.

YANBU!

At primary school, it really doesn't matter. At secondary school, I'd be a little more anxious about getting my child into a better schoool due to exam results. That said, some children can and do thrive in any environment. It depends on the child. I went from an fantastic private primary school of 200 children to an average state comp (250 in my year alone) and thrived. I went from a middle of the class child to one much closer to the top. This isn't bragging coz I ain't no Einstein but IMHO, it's all about the individual child.

Although, now, they're changing it, it's (as people have said upthread) a massive pile of shit!

Bogeyface, I'm sure others will disagree, but I don't particularly think there is anything always 'bad' about academies.

Sneezeblossom outlines the new connection between a 'satisfactory' Ofsted and the potential for a school to be forced to become an academy.

Nightingale primary in Haringey has just become the first school in which Gove used his powers under the Education Act Nov '11 to disband the governing body and replace with an IEB.

And to preempt anyone mentioning 'schools which have been underperforming for years', the facts of the situation are that Nightingale was given a 'notice to improve' last October having never before been in a Ofsted category, was taking measures to improve and had asked the DFE to wait until after the Ofsted monitoring visit due next month before they took action. Rather than respond to this letter, the DfE sacked their volunteer governors and have replaced them with an IEB headed by 'consultant' Deborah Absolam, who retired as DCS in Bexley on a salary of £175,000.

antiacademies.org.uk/2012/02/press-statement-by-former-nightingale-school-governors-sacked-by-gove/

But, as we're so often reminded on MN, this is a completely non-political move, solely about 'raising standards'.

I feel your pain, OP. I think the most worrying possible consequence is that potential parents look at the satisfactory Ofsted and think "Hmm, not sending my DC there." Which leads to fewer pupil numbers, less funding, another poor Ofsted, fewer numbers, etc. in a downward spiral.

F*ing Ofsted. Doncha hate them?

I take it you've not had your 'New Ofsted Inspection' Guidance INSET yet? We had ours Monday. So depressing.

Once an academy can they go back to not being one?

Though as a Satisfactory school with Good teaching, it's nice to know that to be Outstanding you have to have Outstanding teaching. There are schools where teaching is satisfactory but overall the school is graded outstanding. Which is shocking (in my humble opinion of course!)

I agree with the last post entirely.

I recently attended a course run by a current Ofsted inspector and he said, in not so many words, that Ofsted was nonsense and half the inspectors don't really rate it!
I was once rated 'satisfactory' in a lesson. Why? Several of the pupils had 'very untidy books'. Yes, they were all well below average intelligence and struggled to write at all.
Ofsted really is a joke.

It doesn't matter that Ofsted is a joke. The consequences of its political use are now very high stakes.

See above information about forced conversion of Nightingale school, Haringey.

Self-involved senior managers at any organisation which gets inspected tend to care deeply about the grade, because it has an impact on their career. The best senior managers care about quality, not the inspectors. It's one of the major problems with any inspection regime IMO.

OFSTED is a joke they make up their minds before they come and look for what they want to prove case in point. I worked at a school and at the May we had an inspection the two classes I was observed in were deemed unsatisfactory along with many others in the school and the school was put into special measures. I moved schools (I had already secrued job before OFSTED inspection) where upon I had to go through another inspection at the beginning of September where I was graded Outstanding in oneobserved lesson and good with outstanding features in another. As these were my first two jobs from NQT to M1 I was amazed that in only a few short weeks I managed to improve myself. Or should I say that the inspectors looked for and found what they wanted. As a result I do not put any stock in what OFSTED say or do and since leaving the profession disillusioned at the end of this year after 7 years I could not be happier. I will take my own initiative and look at the local schools myself before deciding which ones my children go to.

Ofsteds prioritieare very different to mine as a parent. My sons school was amazing, no complaints yet ofsted slated parts that no parent had issue with.

You own view and how your child is doing is important.

My neices went to a school where it was outstanding yet the bullying was rife as were drink drugs cigarettes and at least one pregnancy per year 11.

It's not the be all and end all.