to be confused about how Ofsted reach their conclusions?

[QueenOfFarkingEverything]

DD's school has recently been inspected and been found as 'requires improvement' overall.

It was rated as 'good' in 3/4 areas but the standard of teaching was rated as 'requires improvement'.

But. The report says that the majority of pupils enter the school achieving below the national average, yet by the end of Y6 they are leaving the school attaining levels significantly above the national average. It also says that "pupils' progress accelerates as they go through the school". The behaviour of pupils and the pastoral care are both noted as being excellent.

So... the teaching can't be that bad, can it?

I thought it was all about the results these days? If the children are happy and well cared for, behaving well, learning well, and going from below to above average during their time at school - then isn't that what matters?

The Ofsted report was never a deciding factor in where my children attend school (in fact this recent one is better than the one I read before DD started there). I'm just wondering out of idle curiosity.

OFSTED come to their conclusions by spending two days in the school, regardless of whether one of the year groups is away on a trip, or if there is a one off event like a traveling theatre visit taking up most of the day for the entire school, or if it's the last week of the summer term when everything is completely different to usual, or if there are teachers off sick so classes are bing taught by substitutes.

YANBU to wonder how they can make a valid and accurate judgement of a school.

They're full of crap. Ignore. (said as a teacher who has worked in two outstanding schools, and who removed her daughter from an "outstanding" nursery because the standard of care was seriously lacking).

Oh don't worry, I'm not actually going to change my opinion of the school based on it. I'm not overly happy with the school for various reasons but that's not to do with what Ofsted say.

Its just wierd

Especially when the school was praised for its strong leadership and organisation when I (and half the other parents) am of the opinion the head is a numpty and couldn't organise the proverbial piss up

Ofsted are full of shit. People who have never been professional teachers (or were but couldn't hack it sometimes) grading them...makes no sense whatsoever.

My brothers school achieved the best marks in everything except it's ethnic diversity. The school is in the country side. It isn't an enthnically diverse area. I'm not entirely sure what the school can do about that?

It is wierd, I'm wondering if we have children at the same school, your story is pretty much the same as mine!

I worked in a school that was previously given notice to improve and was at threat of closure if it went into special measures at the upcoming inspection.

Let's just say that when the Ofsted Inspector came round to ask me for my input as a teacher I was very clear about what I should say.

I am wondering about these ofsted reports too, what I see as a parent is very different to the report.

"My brothers school achieved the best marks in everything except it's ethnic diversity. The school is in the country side. It isn't an enthnically diverse area. I'm not entirely sure what the school can do about that?"

our school was criticised for this in the past too... as were all the others in the area. the fact that it is not an ethnically diverse area does not seem to matter, we should still have got the 'right' pupils!

The actual findings in the text of the report paint a different picture to the overall ratings

I mean there are criticisms of the teaching in there, and suggestions for ways it would be improved - but the facts about how the children perform, behave, and are cared for would lead one to think the teaching is good if not excellent?

I have noticed that grammar schools often suffer this as well.Because of the nature of their children, the teaching tends to be more 'chalk and talk' style than OFSTED like.That is what they have discovered works best and they have a big syllabus to cover, but OFSTED think everything should be FUN FUN FUN

Yanbu- my dcs school was a lovely school until they made it into an academy recently due to a poor ofsted report
Which was mainly low due to absences & due to not having enough electronical equipment.

At DSs school for the inspection before last the inspectors spent 20 mins in a classroom actually watching the teaching - the rest was spent looking at the paperwork.

They take no unusual circumstances into account which is very unrealistic and I have often heard teachers say that they chaneg everything just for Ofsted even though their normal practices are actually much better (just don't fit the criteria)

I have seen a nursery get and outstanding where the YR teachers from the feeder school have said they wouldn't let their own children step foot in it and seen other nurseries get a good due to an obsure policy not being up to date but with second to none care.

I would be concerned if a report outlined poor achievement or safety issues but other than that I pay no attention. I sent my DS1 to a satifactory school instead of our local outstanding school as I prefered the feel to it.

Ofsted is a serious waste of money the way it is at the moment but I believe we do need it but only if it works properly and does a usual job!

Its even worse when the inspector is being inspected. At our last preschool assessment this happened. It makes them much more critical.

DS1 went to an "outstanding" infant school where he was bullied mercilessly to the point where he was literally tearing out his hair and having nightmares. We were blithely informed that it was "six of one and half a dozen of the other" and that there was no bullying in their school (despite the evidence from their own dinner ladies that DS1 was being bullied and attacked for no reason in the playground!) The Headteacher was too obsessed with her precious OFSTED rating and "ticking the boxes" to actually give a stuff about the pupils themselves.

So we moved him to a "satisfactory" school. Strangely enough, he has stopped tearing out his hair, chewing his clothes and having nightmares. He is not being bullied. He is HAPPY. He even won a school prize in his first year there. The Headteacher may not be obsessed with paperwork, but she is a million times better at looking after the children in her care.

OFSTED reports mean diddly-squat.

So demoralising for staff that a Satisfactory grading will now be classified as Requires Improvement. Grades also seem to vary according to the vagaries of individual inspectors, which surely shouldn't be the case. Parents looking at new schools are often way too trusting of the Ofsted classifications and overlook schools that might be better for their DC.

Ds' school was OFSTEDed a few months ago. I consider myself quite well educated and literate but found the report was vague, contradictory and (to me, at least) it was impossible to make a meaningful connections between its findings and its conclusions. I hope it was more useful to the teaching staff and Governers but I just gave myself permission to ignore it.

My friend teaches at an OFSTED outstanding school and has categorically stated that she would never send a child of her own there because of the way bullying/bad behaviour is not dealt with. Although I am not against outside agencies looking at and reporting on schools I don't think the current approach is working well.

My friend's school got notice to improve purely due to attendance. You can try all you like but if they're not coming to school, they're not coming to school! Can't imagine parents would take too kindly to teachers turning up at their doors and demanding their kids go to school.

Report I read.
'children are happy in school and achieving well, positive response from parents' = NTI

Dd2 school recently got 'good' despite the long list of improvements noted since the last inspection rating of 'good'. The change doesnt exactly reward improvement.

Dd1 is in an outstanding school and I'm happy with it but visit a lot of schools and work with them and v few outstanding ones I would send my child to, lots of good and below ones though.

Under the new ofsted framework standard of teaching is really important, so that may be a key factor if it was rated lower than other areas.

Yanbu. I'm a teacher and often wonder the same, even after going through numerous inspections myself. They are worth squat (which obviously you understand) but they do confuse me, even after a half day inset on the new framework

Ofsted is a load of crap.

A year or so ago my DS's school got a pretty lousy ofsted report. It is a lovely school, DS has done well there, these ofsted reports are all bloody stats.

I think newer and tougher guidelines have come in now.

From your post I would guess that the lessons that were observed were judged to be satisfactory (which, I believe, is now labelled as 'requiring improvement'.) The new framework means that you can not simply teach an outstanding lesson any more. Under the old system, you could set a learning objective, teach your lesson and then review the learning objective at the end to prove that all pupils have met it. Usually, providing that the lesson had gone well, this would be sufficient evidence of 'outstanding' teaching and learning because the pupils had learned something within the lesson. Under the new guidelines you have to show sustained learning over a prolonged period of time. They look for evidence of prior learning in other lessons, the feedback given after each lesson and the development of several new skills. Usually, the inspector is only in your lesson for 30 minutes. It can be difficult to prove 'sustained learning over a prolonged period of time' in thirty minutes. Personally, I think the best thing to do if you are worried about the report is to phone the head and ask if you can visit. Our head will take parents around from class to class and show them what is going on in the school. You may only get to see a minute or two of a lesson, but just walking around the school gives you an impression of the type of place it is and you will know whether or not it is the right place for your kids. I am a teacher and I currently send my daughter to a nursery that has been judged as 'satisfactory with good features' even though there is an 'outstanding' nursery slightly closer to where I work. Why? Because when I went to look around the two nurseries I thought the staff at dd's nursery were warmer. Plus, when we left dd whilst we looked around I spotted her throwing a tantrum through the window whilst the lady tried to wipe her face clean. DD did her very best tantrum moves, and the lady simply adjusted her body position so that when dd threw her head back she didnt hurt herself, wiped her face, gave her a cuddle and distracted her with a toy. My gut told me that was the place for dd. You know what is best for your kid.

The teaching and learning judgement won't have been formed from the results, but from lesson observations and looking at marking, planning, policies etc. The results could be fab just because parents are all hiring tutors to fill in gaps left by the school, or to prep for the 11+.

I am an retired teacher - secondary. OFSTED was/is and ever will be a load of kak: the criteria were ever changing and the inspectors did not always inspire one with confidence. One asked a colleague in the 90s: 'Where are all the brown faces?'!! (In a MFL textbook - she thinks he may have been implying that the books were not sufficiently ethnically diverse - in an almost exclusively white country area with an extremely limited budget. There were far more travellers and gypsies who appeared in no text books.)
When the emphasis was on teaching, an extremely talented young male colleague was marked down for being 'too dynamic' on the grounds that he could not keep that up day in day out. Well, he did - made the rest of us feel knackered! Presumably they thought he was putting on a show for the day.
Then the emphasis shifted to 'Leaning' and teaching wasn't judged as such. One of my colleagues got an 'Excellent' for a lesson in which he did no teaching and the class spent the entire hour solving quadratic equations with minimal imput from him!
Oh, surprise, surprise! The emphasis is now on teaching...
Sorry to have drivelled on, but haven't had the opportunity in a long while.

I just find it amazing how many schools seem to need improvement, become academies and then all of a sudden are good/outstanding without any actual change in results or anything!