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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To send my son to an inadequate school?

56 replies

dollyplumislotsoffun · 17/04/2015 19:15

We are soon moving house to a small new development of about 30 family sized homes. Straight opposite is the village primary school. The school is newly built replacing the old primary in the village. Ofsted deemed it inadequate in its recent inspection and subsequently now has a new headteacher and special measures. My son is due to start nursery there in September. Do I continue and hope they turn it around in the next year or two? I'd really like him to be at the local school with the children who live near by, but equally I'm a bit concerned about it being a bit crap...

OP posts:
Rivercam · 17/04/2015 19:19

Sometimes schools in special measures have extra money and staff thrown at them, so are actually good places to be. Also, a new head can make all the difference.

Ofsted can pnly give a snapshot of the situation. Read it carefully. Does the concerns raised matter to you? Can the situation be re tidied easily. What's the local reputation of the school?

wedingbelle · 17/04/2015 19:27

I am a primary school teacher, I found out yesterday that my daughter has been allocated a Reception place in our second choice school which 'requires improvement' (first choice school was my own school). I did not let that negatively affect my decision to choose this school as I believe that they will be receiving significant support and funding to rapidly improve. Historically it has a good reputation and the 'monitoring visit' reports on the Ofsted site already show vast improvement. Visit the school, go with your feelings on the atmosphere, welcome and environment to make a decision. HTH!

NotallTravellersarebad · 17/04/2015 19:27

I was in your position a few years ago, the school went from inadequate to satisfactory, then special measures.... Just saying. A crap school doesn't always improve even with extra money, a school is only as good as its teachers, our is still crap 4 years on and doesn't attract or retain good teachers.

ConfusedInBath · 17/04/2015 19:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 17/04/2015 19:32

Our school has recently been given an inadequate rating, despite having been good and outstanding. Yet the school is a fantastic school with lots of pastoral care, extra curricular activities, has a lovely community about it, always oversubscribed and according to the teachers meeting all its targets. Ofsted reports aren't always a fair representation of the whole package and if I were you I'd ask around and see what other parents think of the place.

FrChewieLouie · 17/04/2015 19:34

What does the full report say? Is there poor teaching across the board, or are there good features? My dc school 'requires improvement', but the Early Years and KS1 provision has always been rated good or outstanding. Also as other posters say, there will be a strong focus on improvement, so the Inadequate rating might not stand for long.

But it's a gamble - I'd have doubts too, in your shoes.

LittleMissIntrovert · 17/04/2015 19:35

In the past I would have had concerns, but now knowing a bit more about schools, I would say it's probably not a bad thing, as they will have extra funding and more checks.

I also think it's a lot about how you feel, if you like it and the staff are nice etc that's worth a lot too.

DishwasherDogs · 17/04/2015 19:42

A school not far from here was in special measures a while ago and a HT from another school (my dc's) drafted in to help improve things.
In reality the teaching, pastoral care etc were fabulous, it was and still is an amazing school from an achievement point of view, but paperwork, community involvement and diversity (?) were not up to the standards OFSTED wanted. Obviously that's a little simplistic, but children were going to that school and doing better than at another school that was outstanding.

My ds is at an outstanding school and it's not as impressive as I was led to believe it would be.

Cantbelievethisishappening · 17/04/2015 19:42

My two went to an Ofsted outstanding school. One did well and the school utterly failed the other one. Ofsted only gives a snapshot. Schools often have to jump through impossible hoops. Another school was given a '3' for diversity even though it was a rural school where 100% of it's catchment were white. They were in no position to anything about that.... totally out of their control.

CloserToFiftyThanTwenty · 17/04/2015 19:46

Why is it in special measures? Are they things that can be sorted relatively easily or are they systematic problems?

QueenofLouisiana · 17/04/2015 20:07

I teach in a SM school, we are 15 months into our improvement and now have other schools visiting so that they can see what we have done so far.

The scrutiny means we teach consistently well, know exactly where our kids are and what they need to go next. There is a high expectation of achievement as we need to show great progress. I can honestly say where we are now is light years from this time last year. Our SATs level 4s are on target to have nearly doubled.

Staff mobility is an issue, not many people want to teach in a SM school so recruitment is a challenge.

At least you know the school is likely to improve. 'Good' judgements can be woefully out of date.

chrome100 · 18/04/2015 05:52

My local school is "inadequate". When I read the ofsted report it was because the head apparently didn't know what to do if an allegation was made against a member if staff. That's it! The teaching etc was fine. Ridiculous.

DevonFolk · 18/04/2015 06:15

I took a temporary job in a school which was under a notice to improve about 10 years ago. I received some of the best training and guidance while I was there thanks to our advisors and became a much better teacher for it.

I'm always reluctant to judge a school based on an Ofsted report, particularly if there's now a new head. Go and meet them and get a feel for the school. Ultimately you need to select a school based on what's best for your DC not what Ofsted says.

CycleChic · 18/04/2015 06:32

Have you read the report? What was your view before this came out- I'm guessing that you picked this development in part because you felt that the local schools were okay?
What I'd suggest is sticking to the plan for Nursery, then seeing what it's like when it's actually time to make a decision.

AnnaFiveTowns · 18/04/2015 06:44

Ofsted is a load of political nonsense. I would pay little attention to it. Go with your gut feeling; do the teachers seem warm and friendly? are the children happy? How much time do they get outside? What do other parents think of the school?

I have very little faith in Ofsted. Our primary school has gone from satisfactory to outstanding over the last few years and in my opinion I can see little change. The head, who we now share with another small school, was told that she would never be able to achieve an outstanding status for the school unless she managed two schools rather than just one. She took over the second school and the following Ofsted we had jumped to outstanding - with very little change to our school.

Ofsted is all about political hoops and very little to do with the quality of education for the children.

fairylightsbackintheloft · 18/04/2015 08:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tobysmum77 · 18/04/2015 08:08

yanbu, my dd's school although technically new due to it becoming an academy was in sm under its old guise.

As others have said it depends on why it is in sm. In our case it had always been 'good' but had been mismanaged over a few years.

Even so in terms of 'extra funding' if the school has been mismanaged and the place is in rack and ruin and the newest books are from the 1990s this is a big challenge for a new ht.

MrsMook · 18/04/2015 08:09

I'm working in a school that had recently plummeted to special measures when I started, and is now out and trying to get to good. This has been far better for my professional development than various good but complacent schools I have worked in.

I have little faith in OFSTED. It is worth looking into what the issues are, but even schools in very challenging circumstances can.be good places even where results are unfavourable compared to averages.

Foxy800 · 18/04/2015 08:14

My child's school went into special measures the year she started, within a year they turned it round and are now still doing really well, three years later.

Gileswithachainsaw · 18/04/2015 08:16

It depends on alot doesn't it.

People will tell you about all their SM schools which ofsted slammed but are now good or outstanding. yes that happens.

but my local school fir instance has bounced between SM and RI. never more. and although some parts have changed and early years is good further in up the school, the children don't do as well as they should. whatever improves have been made and noted in monitoring reports, results are still worse than alot of other schools. This school has never had a good reputation and is only viewed as an option now as we have another school that's worse.

It really all depends on what you are after. what are other parents like are they supportive of their kids education. are they involved in the school etc

Thymeout · 18/04/2015 08:27

Ofsted gradings can be v fluid. Some are politically motivated. Schools are downgraded to force them to become academies. And gradings can go down and well as up, so the school that is now Outstanding may well not be in a few years' time.

As pp have said, visit the school, read the report, talk to other parents.

Is the nursery part of the school? In my area, nurseries can share the same premises but have no connection to the school and attending the nursery gives no guarantee of getting a place in Reception.

Meechimoo · 18/04/2015 08:37

Ofsted results are reflected by exam results around here. The 'requires improvement' local school gets poor gcse results every year. So the crappy ofsted is results, not politics, based.

ilovesooty · 18/04/2015 08:44

Some comments on this thread concern me.

Diversity awareness is about much more than whether the school's ethnicity is limited in terms of its intake. If the H T doesn't know how to respond to an allegation against a member of staff that represents a major safeguarding failure.

As far as the OP is concerned I really wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure that in terms of Ofsted an improvement will be apparent soon.

slkk · 18/04/2015 08:45

I would start your dc in nursery and then make your decision about reception applications next year. By then you should have a sense of whether the school is moving in the right direction.

Black2catsgreen4eyes · 18/04/2015 08:51

I used to work in a special measures school and despite the money and the funding thrown at it, it remained inadequate largely due to the complete lack of any organisation of anything. There were good staff there, but they were unable to teach well due to constant change (for instance, we all turned up to Easter school - funded and paid for by the school - only to find no children as they had received text messages giving a different date.)

I wouldn't have sent my child to that school and it's made me wary of 'inadequate' generally: there's a huge difference between RI which can be a good school with a bad year, and 'inadequate' which is what it says on the tin!