To wonder how much weight to give to Ofsted report?

[FunDragon]

We are halfway between two primary schools. One has an ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted and the other has a ‘good’ rating. The ‘outstanding’ one has that rating in all five of the areas they score. The good one is rated good in four areas and outstanding in one area. Overall I have a better feeling about the ‘good’ rated one for a variety of reasons. But my DH is heavily influenced by the Ofsted reports.

Neither my husband nor I have ever worked in education and I know absolutely nothing about the Ofsted inspection system so I am hoping that more knowledgeable people will be able to advise me. How much weight should you give to an Ofsted report when choosing a school? Does an ‘outstanding’ rating mean it’s automatically an overall better school? AIBU to pay more attention to other factors?

Thank you.

We chose a school with an Outstanding report. It was judged to Require Improvement at their next inspection, the year after my son started. Schools fluctuate in performance depending on so many factors so I would say don't worry yourself too much about getting your child into an Outstanding school.

The nearest school to us got an Outstanding Ofsted last year. The head is currently suspended and they’ve had to close the nursery as they admitted too many children and it was unsafe. Reception got through four teachers in 6 months and half the class moved to other schools. But it still appears as outstanding based on its last ofsted. The inspection is a snapshot of the school on a given week, and not necessarily reflective of the school as it is now.

The Good school sounds far and away the best choice for you!

‘The best school’ and ‘The best school for your child‘ are not always the same thing, and ‘the best school for your child’ is far more important in terms of happy learning, confidence and a happy social environment.

My son was at an "outstanding" school. He has SEN and they completely destroyed him. He had a breakdown and became suicidal. Moved him to a "requires improvement" school and he is thriving.

I can absolutely guarantee you that it would not get an outstanding grade now OP. A 2012 Ofsted report is not worth the paper it's written on! As a teacher and Deputy Head in a large primary school, I'd never even look at an Ofsted older than 6 months anyway. It's pointless! The staff will have changed from 2012...probably a different Head and senior leadership team. The entire curriculum has since changed, and the way inspections are carried out and reported on changed last year...so any inspection dated prior to September 2019 isn't really going to give you up to date information really anyway.

As an aside...and more personal to me...I would never want to teach, or send my own child to a school that places so much emphasis on getting that 'outstanding' grade. From bitter experience, they are usually schools that care more about results than people. Staff turn over is high...staff are unhappy and burn out quickly from the relentless and unsustainable performance pressure. I'm not saying every outstanding school is like that...there might be one somewhere that isn't 🤷‍♀️

Yep, we chose the Good school over the Outstanding one. The outstanding rating was over a decade ago and whilst I've not heard complaints about it, that was it's only pro about the Good school which we preferred in every other way. The good school was inspected again in Feb and retained their Good rating under the new framework. Could not be happier.

I'm a teacher and have worked in two 'Outstanding' secondaries. On the inside, while they were certainly both good schools, they had aspects that were problematic and I found it hard to recognise then from their Ofsted reports.

Ofsted reports are not focused on the experience of the child (other than academic and that's based on a small sample of lessons over a couple of days) and not on that of the parents either (they do do a survey but generally the sample sizes aren't large enough to be significant).

You have asked the right questions. Go with your gut. Ofsted don't know you or your child!

Can you look at previous admissions data to see how popular both schools have been? So near me there is an outstanding infant school that often has places available and a good primary that is one of the most oversubscribed in the county. Local parents are scrabbling to get into the good school because it is basically amazing and has facilities some preps would be jealous of. I wasn’t at the school when the last inspection happened but by all accounts the head was mightily pissed off with the ‘good’.

We used the ousted report and results data to help choose. It shows more than a grade once you drill down into it.

ignore Ofsted. One of our local schools is an absolute shit show, yet Ofsted outstanding. They know how to clean up for the day (quite literally, the place is disgusting normally, covered in litter, rubbish everywhere). bullying is rive, SENDs kids are made very aware of being undesirable etc. Yet Ofsted outstanding.
Another local provider just got a not great Ofsted review because of the kids not being happy and crying a lot. My oldest attends the setting and told me the Ofsted person (he didn’t know she was Ofsted) at him when he asked her to play. his words: today there was a mean lady in the room, she yelled at me and xx (other child), and we all cried. i don’t want to go if she’s there again. the report says the kids are noisy and appear stressed and unhappy. No shit sherlock, if you snap at a child on the autistic spectrum the result is rarely a happy child....

Ofsted ratings do not necessarily correlate to actual results. We chose a "good" primary over an "outstanding" one we were in the catchment for.

The outstanding school whilst having the latest tech and looking all shiny and immaculate was soulless

We also looked at statistics published by the papers eg attainment in maths/English etc and the demographic of the children. Funds spent per child, class sizes, attendance etc. You get more of a feel for the school that way.

I don't actually think the ofsted rating means much

The "good" school scored higher in actual attainment. It's a catholic school which is why I suspect it wasn't given an "outstanding" rating

Thanks so much for the replies. My DH is now convinced, although we are going to do the virtual open days for both and we have looked at the statistics for both (which unsurprisingly have swayed us in favour of the ‘good’ school - smaller class sizes etc). Just to clarify my DH does take parenting seriously, but I think in his head he saw the Ofsted ratings as being a bit like the star system used for hotels - like one’s a five star school and one’s a three star school! But obviously education is much more complicated than hotel ratings (for a start you can leave a hotel after one night if you don’t like it!)

Thanks again for the replies.

I think this has already been said but I would pay zero attention to an ofsted report from 2012. It's seriously not worth the paper it's written on in 2020.