Ofsted needs to be abolished - further details

[MrsMurphyIWish]

Have started a new thread as think it’s important this doesn’t just get lost on my previous thread

The Ofsted report for the school where the head teacher died has been published …

They are toxic and need reform immediately.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4765105-ofsted-needs-to-be-abolished-trigger-warning?page=1

Appalling from Ofsted to include the death of the headteacher as a bullet point in their report.
Just emphasises the complete disregard they and the government have for people who work in schools.

Imagine her family seeing that right next to the mention of breakfast club.

My understanding is that schools are legally obliged to publish the reports on their websites.

Indeed we are. I was interested to see that that Ofsted had removed it from their own.

@theveg @Shinyandnew1 perhaps that obligation could be temporarily removed. Most areas if not all have now allocated school places.

Another one, ex teacher, who totally gets that this was entirely OFSTED related. The stress is horrific and you live with it constantly.

So Ofsted have removed the report from their website because it was making them look bad, but they failed to realise before putting it up that it would make them look bad?

I don't have an issue with inspections or spot checks - they should take place.

It's the way they are done, and the stupid priorities. One time it's safeguarding, another time it's "community cohesion". Rarely actually teaching and learning - you know, what schools are actually there for.

It should be possible to check paperwork and results, watch a few lessons, talk to kids and parents, and check staff welfare, to ensure that the SMT isn't toxic (which is so often is).

I think serious safeguarding failures should be worth a school being graded inadequate, tbh.

Safeguarding is not a pointless priority.
The bullet point is shocking. The school leadership sees the draft report before it is published and can respond, but only to chalkenge inaccuracies. I wonder what the process was in the case.

They weren't serious in the sense that any child's safety had been compromised. They were paperwork failures in the main.

I think that safeguarding should be a separate check, possibly each year or two. If it's genuinely so important that it overrides everything that's good about a school, then it should be checked more often, and as a stand alone event.

A one word inadequate grade for the entire school and all it does, is unhelpful, when it's purely about safeguarding. So much in that report reads really well and makes it sound like a school that I would want my child to go to. But a weakness in just one area damns the entire place and all its staff. And that's wrong.

Ofsted have been a malign presence over our education system for far too long. I had hoped their utterly woeful, passive aggressive and entirely unhelpful response to schools managing the pandemic would have been enough to get them completely restructured, but the current government rather likes the weaponised school inspection so there we are.

As others have pointed out, post-inspection comments are highly unusual in inspection reports. To casually put a bullet point in about the headteacher's death after the inspection given the controversy surrounding their role in it is utterly shameful and exactly what I'd expect from Ofsted.

I don’t disagree with that actually @saraclara but how do we know what the safeguarding failures were? Genuine Q not arsey attitude BTW!

Inspections are a tool to force academisation and to force already academised schools into larger multi-academy trusts as far as I can see. This is what the DfE wants for obvious reasons (as Tory donors can make money of MATs).

If Safeguarding is such an important Ofsted remit-why have they left so many Outstanding schools more than ten years before bothering to turn up and visit them?

In the same report that say that no child has been put at risk.

The report is there to read,

That's easy - even though they do the minister's bidding their funding will have been pared to the bone like everything else. They simply won't have the resources.

It is a local authority maintained school. There is NO WAY that the local authority will issue a contract of employment and put a member of staff on the payroll until all the suitable checks and references have been completed. What is more likely is that a rice of evidence wasn't filed correctly.

When a school is rated inadequate usually the school is removed from the local authority and placed in the hands of an academy trust. Leadership are replaced. The consequences of an ofsted judgment are far reaching. No wonder the poor head couldn't cope.

It would be really interesting to see the stats on academy Vs LA maintained schools in terms of Ofsted ratings post COVID. I'd be shocked if we were not to see hugely more LA maintained schools given inadequate ratings on technicalities to academise them by force.

The report says poor recording of concerns and tracking of actions. And problems with the single central record I think. Basic safeguarding practice. IME checked early in the inspection, and a limiting judgement. I've seen a fair few reports with the same judgement - good in the other areas but safeguarding ineffective so inadequate leadership and management.

This isn't to say that the Ofsted process isn't enormously stressful. I sobbed with relief when we were given our last grading. Had it been lower, I would have been devastated. And I'm the deputy, not the head with my name on the report.

Outstanding schools were legally exempt from inspections from 2012 to 2020 (unless specific concerns were reported), and Ofsted are catching up with themselves now they are back in play, after the pandemic break in inspecting.

I also think this. It's absolutely tragic that the headteacher committed suicide, but if what Ofsted said was true, I don't see how it's Ofsted's fault.

I think the Education Secretary should intervene and have this report removed and no reports posted until some clear process to avoid any such repetition is in place

That might work right up to the point when a child suffers because effective safeguarding wasn't in place, and then I guarantee it would be "Why weren't we told?"

Nobody's suggested other than that the Headteacher's death is a tragedy; however firstly we don't know the full reason for it, and secondly I'm not sure it's a justification for overlooking whatever might be going on at the school

Op.
this isn’t a clear thread.

That might work right up to the point when a child suffers because effective safeguarding wasn't in place, and then I guarantee it would be "Why weren't we told?"

Why do parents need to be told that paperwork needs completing?

If we all agree that safeguarding is important, why was this school not inspected for over a decade? Why are normal schools left for 4 years between safeguarding inspections? Why is it lumped into an inspection about quality of curriculum?