Ofsted needs to be abolished (Trigger warning)

[MrsMurphyIWish]

Watched this heartbreaking story today:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001k4r9

A headteacher took her own life as her school was rated inadequate. The pressures Ofsted creates are immense. Last week Ofsted were on strike Wednesday so decided to break protocol and rang schools Friday to conduct inspections on Monday - some schools were off for snow but that wasn’t a good enough reasons and even if the messages were picked up, that meant school staff would have worries over the weekend - some even going into school. Then there were schools who complained as these schools were given “extra notice”. Ofsted has created such a toxic work environment.

How has it come to this? A teacher who dedicated their life to education feels that a one word judgement meant life wasn’t worth living?

In my experience, genuine HMIs (His / Her Majesty’s Inspectors) are usually intelligent, supportive and humane.

Others (Additional Inspectors, Ofsted Inspectors) are a distinctly mixed bag.

It's this sort of nonsense that makes in impossible to take Ofsted seriously. What they expect to see in every lesson is genuinely impossible on a day to day basis and if followed in reality would mean no school ever doing a nativity, sports day, class treat for good behaviour etc.

The lecturers genuinely had to incorporate basic maths into an engineering masters degree
This doesn't surprise me.
Many years ago the big obsession was cross-curricular numeracy and somehow it ended up with people writing in planning that the 15 year old students would count the number of verbs in a sentence, or work out how many rulers would be needed for the class to have one per pair.
As if getting 15 year olds to count to 15 is numerically challenging. Ofsted were all for it though.

In my mother's day of teaching 1940s and 50s the school inspector would arrive completely unannounced and sit in the back of teachers' classes and watch. I think that was a better system.

We had OFSTED last month. I did 4 hours extra the night befits the first day, was in 6:30 first day until 6:30 that night, 6:30 the following day. I felt like a slacker because I’ve got children I had to get home to and others stayed until much later. It was exhausting and we had a nice inspector! When we once had a very negative inspector we were all shaking and panicking, it was awful.

I have found the same

Last time I went through OFSTED, admittedly a few years ago, we were expected to have lesson plans showing:-

How we had included innovative use of IT
How we had embedded literacy and numeracy
A starter activity
A plenary activity
Group working
Independent working
Stretch and challenge for the most able
Differentiation so all could access the content
Assessment for learning
British values
No teacher exposition

This was at A-level, not Eng or Maths, and this is for every lesson, 5 lessons a day, 5 days a week.

No wonder teachers are so stressed.
I'm happier not being a teacher....

I'm in Scotland where we have HMIE similar to OFSTED. A well known male inspector was known to say that he didn't feel he'd done a proper job unless he'd made at least one teacher cry. Unsurprisingly he was taken to task over this in later years. Prior to that it was just regarded as something you had to put up with.
We used to get 3 weeks' notice that they were coming and some schools went absolutely mad - teachers working till 9pm and at weekends in the lead up. Some of us oldies didn't - we just carried on doing our usual amount of work.

In the end it's just a job. Nor worth getting stressed about. Your home and family life is far more important than any job. Tbh I'd rather they were unannounced visits.

I'm a childminder and got good in my inspection, but I cried for days after it, and doubted myself for months.

There is clearly a need for scrutiny but I agree the current system isn't fit for purpose.
Not least because I have no faith in the positive assessments either after seeing how good my children's new head teacher is at cheating the system (including telling children the answers in their year 6 SATs - which I reported but no action was taken )

Yes I think that is much better.
I was shocked our PTA proudly announced they had funded take away for the teachers "working through the night to get ready for Ofsted". Nothing about that is ok!

They’re inspecting schools not teachers (teachers don’t get graded observations anymore), so this sort of inspection wouldn’t be particularly useful.

Schools also have way more responsibilities than they used to.

It sounds like that poor HT must have had other issues. OFSTED inspection is a bastard, I’ve been part of the Scottish equivalent twice, but really it’s not worth your life. Heartbreaking that they felt this was their only option.

Not to be a dick, but I sent DD to a lovely school with lovely people and lovely ethos. Cheerfully ignored that it had been dinged by OFSTED for safeguarding because 'its just box ticking' and lovelyschool is so lovely and kind.
...
THEY LOST HER!!!!!
Was no harm done in the end, but another mum had been given the OK to grab her DC from the playground during break for an appointment. My DD followed along like a little duckling and got through the gate, playground supervisor let it go because she knew the kids were friends(!!!), other mum didn't notice and drove off. My DD went for a lovely walk around and wasn't missed for nearly an hour.

Lovely teachers and lovely playground supervisors are great. Heads and safeguarding leads need to support lovely staff by keeping procedures tight and covering everyone's arses.

It sounds like that poor HT must have had other issues.

I bet she didn’t.

Just recently had an ofsted . One man stalking round the school making snap judgements on very little evidence to be honest. Literally picking away to find fault. We came out as ‘good’ but honestly everyone felt so flat about it. Has it helped us in any way to move forward? No just nit picking criticisms.

Sick to death of it all. The whole thing turns into 4 years preparing for the next one. Each time ( have done 5) the priorities and buzz words change ( all about fluency in reading at the moment).

we are just given new things to focus on…what’s trending at the moment it seems to be. I look at these inspectors from nice little sage schools and wonder if they could hack my job working 25 years in an inner city environment with the flow of children that move in and out continually, so many different languages and so many safeguarding issues . We are judged on the same basis as schools with different demographics.

Glad this will be my last ofsted. Used to really like the HMI school improvement advisor who used to come in with a critical eye but some helpful solutions. He built a relationship with the school and staff over time and was highly regarded.

I think the problem is they have to find something to say. Before they enter the school they have an agenda in my opinion and then seek to prove it.

That poor, poor dedicated lady who gave so many years to the school and who was highly regarded. So sorry for her family and colleagues.

I don't think results are everything @ENTnightmare so inspection still has its place in my view.

I'm also a bit wary when people comment that 'inspectors don't know how to teach/haven't taught in years etc'. While that's valid if they're commenting on a teaching methodology, this is what I hear a lot from fire and rescue (ie the inspectors don't know what they're talking about). However, in a lot of cases, fire authorities are in their own weird bubble with shocking treatment of their staff (see recent press reports) and they resent anyone pointing that out. All industries need to be exposed to wider societal scrutiny to improve the public service that they are delivering.

That school was graded Good in everything but the safeguarding issues, the reality of which seem to have been trivial.

The employment paperwork that potentially could cause a safeguarding issue and some apparently misinterpreted playground behaviour over-rode every single good thing about the school.

The OFSTED metric shouldn't work that way. Of course any potentila safeguarding issue should be prioritised, but it shouldn't result in a school that is good in every other metric, being denounced as inadequate.

We were told that all our wall displays should be dated and have the Learning Intentions written on them as the inspectors had said it was a "Missed Opportunity". When we asked our HT what it was a missed opportunity for, she couldn't answer. The pupils knew what the learning intention for the task was, so goodness knows why it had to be plastered on the wall display.

Who is going to want to be a headteacher?

@flashria ‘no teacher exposition’ - if this means what I think it does, no wonder educational standards are dropping…. Ofsted prefers it if teachers remain silent and don’t teach !! Crazy

I've been retired for several years, but simply reading this thread has brought it all back, and I feel anxious and agitated simply recalling it all. And I'm absolutely heartbroken for that head teacher and her family.

I've just watched the video the OP links to and it's heartbreaking. Obviously you'd like to think we'd all say "fuck them" and not let it get under your skin to the point you can't carry on, but going through it yourself must be sheer hell. Her poor family, and the school community.

It's unfit for purpose.

There should be an audit of paperwork, training and governance, then instead of Ofsted reviewing classes, senior teachers and Heads should be pooled into a working group who visit and observe other schools in their area. This working group then shares best practices etc and records critique (weighted to positive / good news stories etc). Ofsted should then ensure this is carried out / include recording in the paperwork audit.

Been teaching for over 20 years and actually I much prefer the short notice OFSTED system as the schools used to go bonkers with longer notice. Plus it is a more realistic snapshot of what is going on as there was all sorts of performative nonsense with a lead up. There is also a much lighter touch for classroom teachers than in the inspections at the start of my career where you were personally graded . What I have issue with is the nature of the feedback which is never a discussion and only a lecture style delivery and brooks no discussion at all - unlike the old HMIs with whom you could usually have a useful, professional supportive conversation . 3 OFSTEDs ago feedback was delivered at me in person, in such a hectoring way that I thought I had failed until he finally told me my grade - and he then did the same to my colleague- we were both completely bemused, walking away with good grades after a very odd experience. This time feedback on our dept was delivered as a lecture to my HOD (who hadn’t been in those lessons) by the inspector who wasn’t a science teacher- it was not useful in any way. The SLT in our school who moonlights as an inspector is a poor teacher themselves, and often you meet inspectors who you absolutely know would be a shower in the classroom. I presume there are decent ones out there but I don’t know how they are selected.

That said I do not blame OFSTED for awful awful management in some schools. A friend who is a completely fantastic HOD at a failing school has just been broken by her own SLT, and that is on them. Poor decisions, poor communication, no regard for wellbeing. They are apparently trying to establish a ‘resilience culture’ where the ridiculous unmanageable workload she was given due to staff shortages was part of a ‘if you can’t hack it you shouldn’t be a teacher’ attitude. Now they are in a flap as she is leaving but they have done that to her, not OFSTED.

My own school with a sympathetic and reasonable SLT is able to ride through OFSTEDs with their staff morale intact.

Lots of the decisions that have negatively impacted staff over the years- like marking in 3 colours of pen etc are driven by what school management think OFSTED want, rather than what they actually want to see. I also find it telling that the 5 OFSTEDs I have been through all wanted different things- this time is was all about curriculum for instance- and part of the problem with teaching is the constant chasing a new paradigm.

My daughters first school went from excellent to special measures with 1 ofsted report. They sacked an amazing head teacher for an awful business driven one. Turned out the school didn’t want to become an academy but if they went into special measures they had to - ofsted and local council had forced their hand☹️
at the parent meeting to discuss what was happening the council and ofsted representatives walked out when the parents revealed this info!