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

A failure on Safeguarding - nobody should be arguing that that is ok

In fairness nobody is; the position of most seems to be that of course schools have to be inspected "but not like this", which up to a point I agree with

That said, with the determination to weaponise the HT's tragic death and the seizing on smaller points to be offended it's hard not to wonder if any replacement system would be welcomed either

But like what, then? Yes, sure, we can scrap the deep dives and the gradings and other things, but this wouldn’t have changed this schools outcome anyway.

But the one thing ofsted should be doing is monitoring Safeguarding and no school should fail on that.

But the issue is, they aren't monitoring it! There are schools I know of who have not been inspected for 14 years! So ofsted are failing in their own safeguarding!

Ummm… am I missing something? I can’t see anything even close to a problem with this?

Scrapping the gradings would totally have changed this school’s outcome. It wouldn’t have been branded an inadequate school. That label is a key point. The impact of it is devastating to a school.

The argument that this report is fine or that the grading is fine implies that it does its job.

An inadequate rating, however, actually harms a school. It struggles to get pupils (affecting funding). It struggles to get staff (affecting quality of education). It is counterproductive.

The DfE is arguing that grades need to be kept ‘for parents’. Yet many parents say they ignore the rating.

And if you think it helps you decide between two schools - if you had to make a decision tonight on school applications would you pick this Inadequate school who in all likelihood has fixed its paperwork and duty rota since September, or the Outstanding school which hasn’t been inspected in a decade and could have unfixed paperwork issues because no one has looked?

No child should be at a school that can't safeguard adequately.

As a teacher I do not want to teach at a school that cannot adequately safeguard its children. If I report a safeguarding concerns I want to know it will be dealt with appropriately.

If safeguarding is inadequate, a school is completely inadequate

But giraffe, they are still going to say safeguarding requirements aren’t being met. I really don’t think there is a way of saying this softly.

The full breakdown of the safeguarding failures is on the school website along with a plan to resolve things.

All the failures have been rectified already, and were indeed rectified some time ago, but the inadequate rating will remain in place for years.

Absolutely safeguarding is paramount and parents have a right to ensure safeguarding is in place at their child's school. However, what one ofsted inspector considers to be good safeguarding isn't always what another inspector considers good practice.

What really needs to change with inspections is the way inspectors question school staff about safeguarding. Inspectors should ask staff how they would handle a real life incident giving the staff member an example situation and asking them what steps they would take.

Instead, often they ask much more theoretical questions and jargon that some part time staff simply don't understand despite having done the training.

Asking a playground assistant what they know about the Prevent strategy, you'll get a very different answer than if you give a real life example of a child who has been exposed to radicalisation and what steps you would take to record this and alert the safeguarding lead.

No-one's saying that the safeguardinng issue shouldn't have been dealt with firmly and straightforwardly, and that it has to be dealt with softly.

. But it wasn't that single fault that is likely to have tipped the head over the edge. It's the fact that her entire school was damned by coming under that single word. None of that good stuff in the report (so pretty much everything else) was going to matter. No-one was going to see anything other than 'inadequate'.

Again, I think safeguarding checks should happen annually, and not be left to infrequent OFSTED inspections. Let safeguarding stand alone BECAUSE of its importance, and the inspection be about teaching and learning.

As a teacher I do not want to teach at a school that cannot adequately safeguard its children. If I report a safeguarding concerns I want to know it will be dealt with appropriately.

Of course. That goes without saying.

How can you tell the inadequate rated 6 months ago school isn’t safe now? How can you tell that the outstanding from 10 years ago school is safe?

And the answer is that you can’t. So what is the point of the grades?

It's a bit like saying DBS is only up to date at the time when you apply for so why have DBS?

But actually it isn't necessarily. Reporting safeguarding failures to ofsted can trigger a review. It's also an argument for more frequently grading and inspection not none

For the zillionth time, no one is arguing for no inspection.

People are, however, arguing for no grade.

Inspections are unfair.

I have worked at my school for 6 years now and I have witnessed several huge safeguarding issues that eventually were dealt with but would have resulted in an inadequate judgement. As it happens, my school is outstanding and hasn’t had an inspection for nearly 14 years.

This is why Ofsted needs reform. Inspectors will come into my school and see it as picture perfect but it is far from it.

The school local to me also listed their "failures" in a letter to parents after being rated inadequate.

What they don't publish is they waited 8 months to make a major safeguarding report to social services and had no record that the child was already under SS despite having attended multiple meetings with SS and made regular "safeguarding checks" on the child.

It's absolutely right that OFSTED don't publish precise failings. But don't necessarily take schools explanations at face value either.

I'm wondering what happened with the major safeguarding failures? Did anyone report them?

I completely agree.

What has happened is horrendous, but if the school is failing on safeguarding and is deemed inadequate then Ofsted needs to report it as such.

I have been teaching for many years and there is no way I would want to be a headteacher - the stress and accountability is immense.

At the end of the day the school was graded inadequate. In my opinion grades and accountability are important.

Being graded inadequate has happened to other schools and other headteachers over the years who know that once you accept the role of headteacher, you are where the buck stops.
In similar situations most headteachers have either resigned or stayed and fought hard to turn the school around and get a better grading.

It’s just so very sad it turned out like this, and such a shame that Ruth Perry felt was no other option than the route she took. 💐

In my opinion grades and accountability are important.

Why is the grade important?

Because if something is inadequate, you should be able to say its inadequate

I am far from being anti-Ofsted or anti-inspection, but something in Private Eye recently worried me, and should worry others.

Inspections are being carried out by current senior employees of multi-academy trusts (MATs) including HTs and directors. If they rate the school being inspected as inadequate then the school can be forced to be taken over by a MAT and this can be the MAT for which the inspector works! This is an obvious conflict of interest and should never happen.

There is also the case of an academy that received a "good" rating, to which the academy's Chief Executive complained, and Ofsted agreed to re-inspect and the rating was upgraded to "outstanding". You might think this quick re-inspection of a "good" school is highly unusual, but perhaps not considering the academy's Chief Executive also sits on the board of Ofsted!

Yes that is worrying. But I don't think anyone us suggesting that's what is happening at Caversham.

As a parent, as well as a teacher I believe a report with a grade (in addition to visiting the schools with my children & speaking to current parents) - helps to aid the decision process when choosing where to apply…

Also if applying for a teaching role, I want to know what are (if any) the issues in the school and if the leadership is strong... I want to know what grade a school is if I am considering applying to that school…

To me a grade helps with the overall picture of a school.

What you’re acknowledging is that the grade can’t actually tell you very much on its own, you need more info and up-to-date experience to distinguish between schools.

Given how damaging the grading system is, there’s therefore no reason to keep it.

I'm not sure anyone is saying that. It's a bit of a stretch in terms of interpretation to try and support your own pov.

You’ve basically said you can’t trust the grade, that more info is needed.

Nobody has said that, certainly not in relation to the Caversham report.

Safeguarding concerns absolutely should be graded as inadequate.