To hate what the education system is doing to my son?

[MissHooliesCardigan]

DS1 is 15 and coming up to GCSES. He's at a school which was on special measures a couple of years ago despite most of the parents being completely happy with it. It's still on 'Requires Improvement' despite most parents loving it and the number of parents putting it as first choice going up by 200%. I'm not boasting but he is very bright. He's predicted to get 12 A* s in his GCSES. I really love the school and genuinely believe that the teachers care about the kids but I also know they're under huge pressure from OFSTED. DS1 is generally a laid back kid but, since the beginning of March, he's become a shadow of himself. He's lost weight, he's begun to have constant nose bleeds, he looks pale. I walked in on him last night in the computer room to find him slumped over the desk with his head in his hands. He had tears sliding down his cheeks. That was the first time I've seen him cry in about 3 years. He had to go into school for 6 days over the Easter holidays for revision sessions. He has to stay at school everyday until 6pm for revision. I know GCSES are important but they're not the be all and end all. And I really feel that the school are doing this to get their OFSTED rating up. I spent an hour just giving him a cuddle and telling him that I don't care if he ends up being a road sweeper as long as he's happy. I just hate the pressure that's being put on our children.

[MissHooliesCardigan]

Gin Yes, there needs to be accountability but not in the current format. I work in the NHS and the CQC is our equivalent of Ofsted. This is an organisation that inspected North Staffs and gave than a clean bill of health despite thousands of patients dying unnecessarily and elderly patients starving to death and drinking water out of vases. They also inspected the maternity hospital where 8 babies and a mother died due to a culture of midwives pursuing natural birth at any cost and refusing to call doctors to assist. This only came to light after the father of a baby that died of a totally treatable infection refused to let it go and campaigned for years to make it public. There was an undercover Panorama documentary a few years ago showing a private hospital for adults with learning disabilities being treated appallingly by staff. It was subsequently closed and a number of staff went to jail. They had recently been inspected by the CQC who didn't pick up any problems. They are not fit for purpose. But hospitals and care settings still quake in their boots when they're inspected. Our trust was inspected recently and all the managers were putting in endless hours of unpaid overtime in preparation. All clinical staff were conscripted to attend 'briefing sessions'.
Nobody who works in education or health care believes that they shouldn't be accountable but Ofsted and the CQC are not the answer. Who are they accountable to?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Of course there should be accountability, but it doesn't work the way we do it at the moment. An inspection report should reflect what really goes on in a school, not be full of snap judgments based on someone going into a classroom on inspection day, or looking at a set of figures and refusing to engage with WHY the figures might suggest a certain thing.

One of the most stupid parts of our recent inspection was a demand to interview those pupils who had a low attendance record. Firstly it was laughable because half of those on the list were not in school (duh), and secondly the teachers, who could have given the inspectors the reason why these kids were off so much, were not trusted to give the true picture. No, instead, the inspectors wanted to go directly to kids and grill them as to why they were off: these were kids whose parent was dying of cancer; one was struggling with transgender issues, one was severely school Phobic because of severe anxiety but did his best in a climate where CAMHS struggle to help the numbers of kids in these situations due to severe funding cuts (grrrr); another has autism and is clearly not suitable for mainstream school but the system is taking too long to assess him and place him where is best for him (and in the mean time his mother has had a nervous breakdown and is on a psychiatric ward). Etc etc. I could go on and on. It would damage these kids to have to sit in a room with an inspector an have to answer to them, but Ofsted aren't interested in the individual cases, or helping their situation. It's all about numbers. It's so wrong.

I think accountability should go back to LEAs (who already have school improvement officers anyway), and each LEA's system of inspection could be closely monitored by central government to check there is consistent across the country.