To ask if it's now super hard for a school to get "Outstanding" from Ofsted?

[balloonsballoonsballons]

My DDs school has just received its latest Ofsted result. It's gone from outstanding to good.
Personally I'm not bothered or worried. The school is great, DD finished next July and has had a positive experience there. But I feel quite sad for the head and staff who work super hard anyway and will now be trying to work even harder. Of course they should strive to be the best, but is it realistic?

My understanding is that the parameters have changed. I'd be really interested to hear from those who know about these things to explain it to me.

I'm also curious to see if it has an impact on house prices? It's long been known as one of the best schools in the area with a tiny catchment so house prices in that catchment are higher than outside (again it doesn't bother me, we've lived here a very long time and intend to stay into our senior years, but i am surrounded by young families who've spent extortionate amounts on houses)

Please educate me!

Ofted visits were a very strange couple of days in the schools I worked at. As soon as they knew they were getting a visit there would be this mass panic and the headteacher/some school staff stayed late where they'd be frantically sorting through paperwork/cleaning/tidying. For the next 2 days it would be like a completely different school!

Ofted should operate like Environmental health where they just turn up without warning. I think that way you would get a far better picture of what a school is actually like.

You only get told the day before now so it's very different to how it was. Yes it is very hard to maintain Outstanding. The majority of Outstanding schools that are inspected are being downgraded.

From all the schools I've been in, I much prefer the good schools over outstanding. Outstanding = box ticking rather than reflective of day to day reality.

But they hardly get any notice, do they? Ofsted chose to visit our school during the extreme heatwave that we had in July which was just bloody cruel . It's an old building so trying to get through the days without everyone overheating would have been a task in itself. Imagine that plus the mass panic that is Ofsted too?

@TwitTw00 yes that's my understanding too. So what is the point of "outstanding" if it's pretty much unobtainable?

Ofsted are a bit odd imo. I live in an area with a massive orthodox Jewish population with their own schools. These schools are ofsteded but have the same assessments. The school is criticised for net teaching Internet safety at a Primary level, with absoloutley no understanding from Ofsted that orthodox Jewish children at primary level do not have any Internet access so it's fucking pointless teaching it then.

That's what I mean, they'd get notification the day before from ofted to inform them of their visit, then there would be a mass panic and the head/staff would stay late (as in to midnight) sorting the school out.

A (nother) new framework was bought in a couple of years ago and Outstanding is a v v high bar. Ofsted stated they were looking to half the number of outstanding schools. One could argue that as outstanding schools were exempt from inspection for so long that this is a natural ‘re-balance’ but the head of Ofsted has said that she expects it to be less 5% nationally.
It is interesting to note that (excluding London which has phenomenal amounts of funding ‘locked in’ that the rest of us can only dream of), the more deprived the area the less likely the school is to be graded good or outstanding. So be aware of what ofsted are ‘judging’ and just how much of it is truly under the control of the school

BTW … Ofsted call mid morning the day before they arrive so I’m not sure how any school could be ‘completely different’ 24 hours later.

This.

I think alot of schools ride on the coat tails of their Outstanding Ofsted for years and years.

My dcs Infants got Outstanding in 2008 and were oversubscribed every year. The head who had run it for 25 years retired in 2014 and the school went downhill, but they didn't get another Ofsted visit until 2021 where it was rated Requires Improvement.

Same with my dcs secondary school. Outstanding but hasn't had a visit for years.

I agree.

I hope it is hard to get an outstanding rating. It will then have some value should a school achieve it.

Schools get a call the day before. We had them in a couple of weeks ago. We had a call before 10am and they were there at 8 the next morning.
The inspections are different now to how they used to be. In the past you were expected to have a chair inside the classroom door with a class list that was annotated to show EAL, SEND etc and a seating plan. You were also expected to have your plans there. An inspector would drop in and watch a lesson.

Now they talk to the coordinators of maths, literacy and science and observe some of those lessons but they also pick something random like music or MFL.

The only way to get outstanding is to have a certain level of results. In some schools you could have outstanding teaching etc all day long and not get the required level of results.

You'd be surprised what they can do with 24 hours notice!

As a teacher of many years with experience of different generations of OFSTED inspections, it is now seen as fine to be 'good'. I don't think anyone really knows how to get 'outstanding'. My school has only ever been good but we work really hard to make our school the best it can be. Our head doesn't want to aim for outstanding as it's a pinnacle easy to fall off (also then a long time between inspections so things aren't likely to be maintained).

A few years back my dcs' primary got outstanding. The head told me it was a fluke based on the day in question. They were always a good school in our view as parents but hardly faultless. What does outstanding even mean? What's wrong with being good?

“what is the point of "outstanding" if it's pretty much unobtainable?”

There isn’t much of a point to be honest and you can’t achieve it unless you are in a certain demographic or you operate a zero tolerance/Michaela style approach which means you exclude any child with any issue, reduce SEND provision to virtually nothing and gain a reputation in your area for this so that no child /parent with any issues apply for the school. It’s ‘admissions selection’ by the back door but 3/4 years later you have no behaviour issues, very few SEND issues and you are applauded for your outstanding school in a deprived area. Meanwhile the schools around you are taking in those children and getting told they need to improve.

So I say again, be aware of what they are judging and what values you want for the school your child goes to

Ofsted need to keep moving the goalposts so schools can keep getting measured. Have the goalposts improved education is the question?

My DC school had an OFSTED visit in the summer in the middle of exams and heat and with less than 24 hours notice. They had been Outstanding (in 2009) and were graded Outstanding again. It was seen as a massive achievement as the bar is much, much higher.

So it is possible to get but not easy these days. FWIW I believe it to be an excellent school and very much deserving of the grading.

Don't know if it makes a difference but I should have said this is a primary school that I'm talking about.

What is the rationale for halving the number of outstanding schools / only 5% of schools getting it? Surely if a school is outstanding then it's outstanding, does it lose it because they've already met their quota?!

I just hope the team at DDs school are proud of themselves and the school because they should be.

Yes, it is. One factor is that they can't get outstanding unless their SEN provision is outstanding, which is pretty difficult to achieve given that LAs tend not to fund this adequately.

The Head of Ofsted has openly stated that she wants to halve the amount of primary schools gaining Outstanding.

Don’t forget that it’s government policy that EVERY school will be part of a Federation or MAT by 2030, and it’s much easier to impose this on a Requires Improvement school than on an Outstanding one.

Another interesting change is that schools now have to nominate a ‘Developing’ subject to the inspectors, thus clearly signposting an opportunity to pick holes. Anecdotally, schools had started choosing their strongest subject to put in the ‘developing’ box, and Ofsted are countering this by saying ‘We think you’re wrong - this subject is great, so we are awarding you Requires Improvement on your judgement!

My sister taught at an outstanding primary. My nephew with asd was a pupil. They kept him home for the inspection in case he misbehaved.

The whole system seems wrong.

Ofsted ratings are largely bollocks.

I have worked in several schools where behaviour was largely inadequate but who managed to pull it out on the day (through many means I don't want to go into...) and achieved a "good" rating.

I have also worked in schools where staff and pupils were happy and achieveing, but where a "good" was unobtainable because targets based on KS2 SATS (in the days where people were given LOTS of help) were unreasonably high, so actual, externally assessed results were crap compared to what a piece of paper said they shold have been.

My current school has been a nightmare to work in for the last few years - hardly any of the staff who worked there 2 years ago are still there, because the atmosphere is so toxic, and supply refuse to work for us. Yet we now have (another...) new behaviour system just brought in, the head has managed to play the game and kept Ofsted from our doors over the last year or so (there are ways of doing that), students hate the school but because our results were slightly better last year than in 2019 and behaviour is superficially improved we might scrape a good if we get away with the Covid excuse. We should be rated 4, but it's all about how you play the game, not reality.

To choose a school I would look at:
-exclusion rates
-staff turnover
-trends in results
-parent voice on SEND provision

The rest is, quite frankly, bullshit.

My daughter is at an outstanding OFSTEd rated secondary. It will be downgraded I'm sure in its next inspection. I'm not too bothered tbh!

Thanks all. As I said, I feel sorry for the staff. The previous head retired in 2020 so the new head started in Sep 2020 at the height of the pandemic. I can't imagine how tough that must have been for her. The school certainly hasn't deteriorated in the time that my DCs have been there.
Again I just think it's utterly ridiculous that Ofsted have decided only 5% of schools can be classed as outstanding.
To any teachers on this thread, I really appreciate all you do for our children, thank you.