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!

I think it is super-hard now- apparently only 4 in 10 of those previously graded as outstanding are retaining that. Our primary school was inspected earlier this year and retained their outstanding (and deserved to IMO). Another local primary (also very popular) were just downgraded and the views from our friends who have children there is very polarised. Some still think it's a wonderful school but others (who had found it wonderful for their eldest) had already planned to remove their children pre Ofsted (and did for Sept). Most of their concerns (high staff turnover due to a new head and lots of friction between staff) led to poor safeguarding over lockdown, lack of consistency and continuity in teaching and a seeming inability for SLT to take parents concerns on board. On paper and on the surface it still looks like an outstanding school but it was interesting to see that Ofsted picked up on similar concerns around inconsistency in teaching and a lack of awareness of gaps in knowledge/children falling through the cracks.

RE house price- I think it will be difficult to tease out any drops due to downgrading in OFSTED vs prices going down courtesy of the mini-budget effect (unless you can compare to a very local school with overlapping catchments which has a different rating).

This - I've worked in primary schools for nearly 20 years.

I've just looked up all the schools surrounding me & they're all outstanding still as they have been for years, so it is possible to keep it at that level. What I think makes a big difference is how involved the parents are.

But you need to look at how long it's been since they were graded as outstanding. Our local school, previously outstanding but hadn't been assessed since 2007 was recently reassessed as "good".

Yes yes yes and yes totally agree. It's all so false and prepped.

A secondary can have brilliant results and Progress 8 and still get a big downgrade under the current system.

If it is a system - and not politically motivated, see above re coercing LA or stand-alone academies into MATs.

They have been delays to OFSTED due to pandemic. Our school is overdue another but we're not expecting it for another year. Former outstanding schools are given longer between inspections than good schools. You can also opt for an inspection that checks the school is still good - that's what our last one was. The school can't be rated as outstanding from that kind of inspection, though outstanding aspects can be indicated.

This is why many school still seem to be rated outstanding- based on a long ago inspection and why others stay as being good.

BTW there's nothing wrong with being a good school. It means everything is going well.

The bit I don’t understand is that locally there is a huge gap between two primary schools rated good, everyone knows the issues at the less good one, and also knows how strong the other is… but OFSTED rates them both the same, very tricky for parents new to the area to choose.

DC's school is outstanding but they haven't had an inspection since 2011 so it feels a bit meaningless. It's a great school and the kids are happy there. I don't think the rating matters much.

It's virtually impossible to get Outstanding now.

There was some research in the distribution of outstanding schools, if you are a large school in a middle class area you are much more likely to get outstanding.

Me too.

@AirborneSnail Do you mean they have recently been inspected under the new framework and retained outstanding? Or that they have held outstanding without a reinspection for a long time?

I've known one primary get outstanding under the new framework. Lots of box ticking around key areas, key focus seemed to be on good results which will always be more of a challenge in other locations.

It makes sense for only 5% of schools to be outstanding- surely that's what outstanding means, significantly better than average.
My DC school is ' outstanding' and so hasn't been inspected for a long time, they aren't outstanding at all imo and they treat my SEN child like a nuisance and clearly want him gone. I don't think OFSTED ratings mean much tbh

I think we all know that OFSTED is policed by people who don’t actually teach and many of them have come out of teaching because they can’t do it. Obviously it is a good thing to have our schools inspected but the pressure on schools with OFSTED examinations is absolutely ridiculous. It is very easy for people to come in and waffle on about great ideas which are not applicable to the situation. I have no really good teachers in tough situations have some OFSTED inspector coming and suggest things which are totally irrelevant to the situation.
One of the teachers even suggested to the inspector that she demonstrate how it was done and the inspector retreated!

Agree with @ThrallsWife Ofsted ratings mean diddly squat. Absolute bunch of box-ticking muppets.

The infant school I was working at in 2006 got outstanding... I knew then that ofsted really didn't see the reality of the school! They fell for the head's lies! The school mercilessly pressured 6 and 7 year old children, manipulated assessments and bullied staff cruelly. I left. They had their next ofsted 15 years after the last... Verdict- awful! Couldn't be more well deserved!

My DD's school just retained an outstanding but I'm not overly thrilled. It seemed to involve a lot of things to signal outstanding rather than actual substance. like having school values pasted everywhere and forcing the kids to learn them but when actually requiring the school to live up to them and they couldn't care less. Putting in a special IT area that looks flashy but in reality no one can use it. A lot of the report seems to talk about the pupils walking nicely in corridors which just paints the picture to me of children who have had their spirits crushed. I'd rather they'd have got 'needs improvement' and spent more effort actually doing things with the children than all the lip service and 'show'.

This is nonsense. You can’t possibly know if those kids have internet access. I know “technically” orthodox families don’t use the internet but in reality many do. And it’s also impossible to keep track of what kids are doing every second of every day. I expect there are a lot of parents on this forum who think their kids aren’t accessing the internet/viewing porn/sharing inappropriate content when in fact they are.

It’s like saying we shouldn’t teach any sex education to kids under 16 because they’re not allowed to do it anyway.

After being asked to keep my SEN child at home during an Ofsted inspection and then him being suspended first thing in the morning after I refused I don’t trust a single ofsted review!

The differences between the school I worked at that got RI seven years ago and one I know of recently given it, both having been outstanding until their inspections, are like night and day.

The first school was dangerous for staff and students to the extent that you never knew if you'd make it home in one piece and if you weren't actually stabbed, the attitude was that you were making a fuss about nothing and why were you expecting special treatment, it was only a large kitchen knife, it wasn't as if it had been a machete or samurai sword the kid was waving around. The second school was nothing like that. But they got the same rating.

I’m pretty sure I read research that shows that Ofsted grades are almost identical to economic/social area in which the school is based. IE, they correlate and predict the grade a school gets 95 times out of 100 (or more, I can’t remember the exact figure, only that it was extremely high. Long story short: Ofsted inspections are a total waste of time.

There’s also strong research out there that shows which classroom teacher(s) a child has has almost zero impact on their grade outcomes, which can instead be predicted almost wholly by factors such as parental wealth, educational home environment (particularly number of books in the home), peer group, and genetics.

shows which classroom teacher(s) a child has has almost zero impact on their grade outcomes, which can instead be predicted almost wholly by factors such as parental wealth, educational home environment (particularly number of books in the home), peer group, and genetics As a teacher, I can absolutely imagine this to be true yet find it quite depressing! All the fiddling around the edges to differentiate exactly for different children's needs, which over time adds up to hours of work, just doesn't make much difference does it?

Basically the reality and quality of schools are products of wider society, not the other way round. Random jobsworths going around assessing a few classes, taught by teachers who have of course already been fully trained and assessed, makes as much sense as the government sending round people to observe individual doctors perform operations, and judging how quickly ambulances get there and back, and then giving a hospital a grade based on that.

@TwitTw00
You shrouding think of it as depressing. I’m a teacher myself, and with a few exceptions, the “pecking order” so to speak is extremely difficult to affect - be it within classrooms or between schools in different towns/regions. But teachers can and do have a massive role to play outside of who gets an A and who gets a B …

Do students feel safe and respected in the classroom? Do they enjoy it? Are they turned onto learning, reading and questioning, or put off it for life? Do they see how the is subject interesting, relevant and approachable etc, even if they are not that great at it?