Is outstanding always outstanding?

[Ann51abc]

My child’s primary is classed as outstanding. This is in London, quite a affluent area just for context. I do not feel, after sending my child for 4 years it is very outstanding. I kept this to myself as I didn’t want to be too negative and picky but recently found out lots of parents feel the same!

So my question is if your school is outstanding what actually makes it outstanding? I suppose recent headings would count as I know a few in the area who last had an inspection 10+ years ago.

The issues I feel in my child’s school are: no communication at all, this year been told she was assessed wrong last year (by a teacher) so she’s actually very weak in a few areas, nothing has been done to catch her up even when I’ve requested - I’ve been told the school don’t have the capacity to do this. Other parents have hired tutors so I suppose this is the only help my child will get so I also need to do. Not important factor I suppose but the receptionist that works there is so rude! Trying to get any information from her regarding anything is always met with huffing and puffing

If I'd had my time again, I would have chosen a good school over outstanding for my kids.

The outstanding school they went to left them both broken due to their SEND. It was all about the figures and the pretence of the pupil wellbeing when they looked the other way and told me they didn't have any 'needs'. The secondary school spotted those 'needs' very quickly!

My experience of working in schools is on the day/s that ofsted are visiting, they act like completely different schools. The head/some staff have spent the previous day running around tidying, sorting, preparing... you name it.

Imo Ofted should visit in the same way Environment Health do for catering establishments where they just turn up. They would get a much more accurate view of the school on a normal day.

My dcs primary was Outstanding and it really was when the old head was there. That rating was in 2008 though and the school rode that wave for years, even when the head left and the school went down hill. The school has recently been inspected and recieved a Requires Improvement rating.

The school I work at is classed as 'outstanding'. It's not. By a long shot. Should we be inspected again any time soon it won't keep that rating for sure

The school my kids go to is rated "requires improvement" as far as I can tell this largely relates to grades achieved. Because they are wonderful with the children, especially their mental wellbeing - which after the last few years is so important. My kids are thriving there, more than I think they would at the "Outstanding" school down the road which gave me the impression that they were far more focused on grades than letting the kids just be kids.

My son’s outstanding primary hasn’t had an ofsted forever and a day. They really need one! There are lots of things they will probably need to improve if they are ever inspected.

My dd was in an outstanding secondary but it’s now been graded “needs improvement” after their first inspection in over 10 years. It’s good this has happened as now they will have something to work on.

Not inspecting outstanding schools for years was an absolute disgrace IMO

I was a secondary teacher (head of maths, teacher-governor) way back when HMI ('Her Majesty's Inspectorate') was killed off, essentially because it was independent of the government of the day and hence felt able to criticise policy on evidence. HMI were far from perfect, but were so much better than OFSTED. I had later experience of OFSTED as my career progressed. They started badly, and then deteriorated.

OFSTED are now worse than useless ... and the criteria they try to use to assess schools are themselves generally detrimental to education. We perhaps should not be surprised at any of this given the crazy situation we have in which those setting the criteria and appointing the organisation that applies them have mostly had no experience, either as pupils or parents thereof, of the schools under assessment, and indeed share a strong vested interest in maintaining the startlingly unequal provision of resources within the nation's educational establishment as a whole.

There are good schools in UK, and outstanding teachers and head-teachers. But these schools are good, these teachers outstandingly good educators, in despite of the depredations of OFSTED and its old-Etonian masters. Nor do OFSTED reports in any way tally with good educational principles or practice.

So, if you want an outstanding school for your children, ignore OFSTED reports. Ask parents; visit schools; talk to children. There are, indeed, some schools that severely let down their pupils; unfortunately, an OFSTED 'outstanding' rating does not preclude a school being one of those. But, again, there are schools that nevertheless, despite everything, work as well as possible given dearth of resources; finding such schools and some are genuinely very good in spite of everything is difficult but not impossible.

This is a nightmare for parents. But, well, I tell myself, we have democratic accountability; they (you, MN people included) voted for it. Deal with it.

My kids go to an outstanding primary school, judged outstanding 2019 and 2011.

The teachers are amazing, the kids behave well, they send us weekly newsletters what they are doing, lots of clubs, lots of extra support for kids that need it, good results, the kindest staff.

I teach in an requirement improvement/inadequate school, teachers absolutely amazing, work so hard, kids just struggle to make progress as many speak 2 words of English when they arrive to our GCSE classes!

My sister was a primary school teacher for 25 years ,the school she worked in was in a deprived are when she first started working 90% were from a Pakistani background a lot of the children ,didn't speak English as a first language and some parents spoke very little English ,over the years the demographics of the school changed somewhat ,quite few immigrant families from Eastern Europe moved into the area for a lot of the time the population of the school was quite transient and pupils might only stay a year or two ,clearly issues like this are going to affect SAT results language barriers etc the school is never going to be on an equal footing ,with schools in a leafy middle class area with a stable population ,no matter how good the teaching is .

My dd went to an outstanding school up to year 4 , then to a good school for 5 and 6.
Both were good schools. Maths was a disaster though as they introduced shanghai maths. Dd was already 2 years behind due to development delay. She was utterly thrown.
Luckily we moved house. In "good" school she progressed so quickly that by the end of year 6 she got level 4 in SATs.
That school had a head teacher who stood by the gate and greeted every child and parent by name. He also made sure that when assemblies etc were on, dd was working away 121 on building skills.
As I say, both were good schools.

Our local school is considered 'outstanding' by Ofsted but Children's Social Services do not want any foster children going there and cringe when they hear of a child there - due to rather blatant classism and less obvious but still there racism and ableism.

In other words unless you are white middle class then your child will be discriminated against - but its still outstanding!

My kids went on to an ‘outstanding’ secondary which whipped them to achieve grades but drained the life out of many.

I'm so wary of schools like that. I know the school I went to was very focused on academic achievement, and when I went from a high achieving pupil to one who was either failing or barely scraping through, they jumped straight to trying to force me to drop out rather than trying to find out what was causing the problems (serious depression and self harm) and I will always resent them for that.

What Ofsted look for and what parents look for are not necessarily the same.

I'm a school governor and I'd Absolutely echo this. Ofsted are obsessed with whether a school is meeting academic performance indicators - indicators themselves that have been set arbitrarily by the Government and have little reflection on what education specialists think are reasonable.

A decent school takes a holistic approach and doesn't just focus on meeting Government imposed benchmarks.

My son's school is rated good. It's very average for results in the league table because it has a mixed catchment with a lot of kids from more deprived backgrounds. However, the Head is amazing. The pastoral care is excellent. My kid, who has SEND and who we fully expected would need to transition to a special needs setting by now, is thriving there. Kids can't learn unless they feel happy, safe and valued. I would absolutely choose a solidly average school with amazing pastoral care over an outstanding school that was basically a grade factory any day of the week.