The fight back against OFSTED has begun - support needed

[wantmorenow]

Just saw this and it seems genuine and if so then bloody marvellous. Let's hope this is the rallying call to changes with immediate effect. This has been posted today. A Headteacher has refused access to Ofsted tomorrow, I assume in the wake of the coverage of Ruth Perry's death.

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

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4765712-ofsted-needs-to-be-abolished-further-details

twitter.com/FloraSCooper/status/1637760884243066881

I've just had the call.
I've refused entry.
This is an interesting phone call.
Doing this for everyone for our school staff everywhere!

School asking for support in person tomorrow 8am if local.

As a parent, I would be very concerned by a HT refusing access

I don't understand why they are refusing access? As per the previous poster, as a parent this would concern me.

Agree, if the head teacher at my kids school refused to allow ofsted in, I would think there was cause for concern.

I agree that Ofsted needs an overhaul however I think refusing access will create more problems than it will solve.

I wouldn't. Ofsted can go years between visits (12 years I believe in the case of Ruth Perry's school), and their visits have little to do with whether a school is good or not.

Brave. I commend her.

Mind you

any head teacher that has this on her Twitter synopsis Executive headteacher & Executive coach. A survivor & warrior, rising like a phoenix - living my next chapter. is probably not a HT I would be too happy about leasing my children’s school in the first place!

Are you by any chance “Flora”?

This will be a very interesting story to follow.

Ofsted clearly needs a significant overhaul, but it's the only inspection mechanism in place at the moment, so can understand parents being concerned by head blocking entry. But on the flip side how does anything change if no-one makes a stand?

I'd love to see the parents' WhatsApp groups at the school now! But I hope there's some understanding for her and why she's doing this.

No I admire the Head Teacher for doing this. Somebody has to make a stand af
against this odious orgamisation. Maybe parents should all refuse to send their children on that day.

Yeah I wold also be concerned about a HT asking randoms from Twatter to picket at my child's school and posting the full address.

Also I wonder where the governors are on this and whether they support her? She could be in a precarious position if not

I'm not in any way linked lol. It's all over the teaching FB groups. ICT for Mr P, 2 Mr P's in a pod etc. Having just quit teaching early due to burn out at Christmas, I just posted it because it gave me hope that a sea change is potentially coming.

Good on her, she's incredibly brave. I really hope a change is coming.

With someone like this Flora at the helm, it won’t get any traction.

i have read her tweets and profile and I suspect she’s doing it for publicity

Ugh. I would support anyone fighting OFSTED, but she does sound obnoxious, and not the sort of head I'd want to work for.

Quite right too.

OfSted is not fit for purpose. A system that was would not just flash in and out and write a damning report on the basis of a one-off visit.

What we need is a system that provides constructive support for change if an inspector finds a problem.

I think parents know if the school is well run or not.

My child school- regular newsletters.

Staff all seem happy.
My child loves it and is coming forwards in leaps and bounds.
Special speakers attending etc

Good school.

I don't think Ofsted will tell me anything I dont already know.

and the school you describe is very unlikely to ban Ofsted and the HT call for people to join her at the s hook to demonstrate their defiance

More so than protecting the mental health of school staff?

I would love to hear what the staff at this school think of their “warrior” HT who has risen from the ashes according to her Twitter feed.

A reasonable action given the information apparently posted on their website.

Inspections should all be postponed even if only for a few days for a proper review of what happens in tragic circumstances.

There are I am sure other situations where reports should not be posted.

I should declare that several of my family have been teachers though all retired or working abroad since the Ofsted framework was introduced.

What information?

If there is a rising atmosphere of anarchy in UK schools - always taking into account the sensationalism of media reporting - it's not to be wondered at.

Draconian, sexist, anachronistic uniform policy which no one on the continent or in the US appears to need. Humiliating female students by the measuring of skirt lengths. Policing ridiculously petty details like the colour of stitching on shoes. I'm at a loss to see how this either enforces discipline (it doesn't, given the laissez faire attitude of schools to far more serious issues), or improves the quality of education.

Serious safeguarding issues surrounding girls' toileting areas, already having resulted in serious injury to a girl only last week. The extent of this problem is leading to protests by kids because the adults responsible for them will not protect them.

Bullying - of both staff and students - is rife. Victims are being excluded as they present too much of a problem, whilst the perpetrators know they can act with impunity.

The system firing off a snotty letter because your Year 4 sick kid's been absent one day in the autumn term. This for a child with an impeccable attendance record leading up to that date - no requested holidays and only one other sickness absence in that time - and who has never once, since the first day of Reception, been late.

A profession that can't keep its staff and are currently striking because conditions are intolerable.

A life ruled by metrics rather than teaching real subjects to real people.

Terrible methods of literacy and numeracy teaching. Phonics is dreadful, a whole teaching system based on the tiny Clackmannanshire study with a small population sample to determine the demographics being failed by then-current literacy teaching. A kneejerk report based on those inconclusive findings and voila! The same demographic is being failed by this system of teaching to the one being used before.

Numeracy levels woeful. The far east are doing something right whilst we are going very wrong.

Now an Ofsted lockout.

This is the result of Tory policy and a succession of inept, clueless education ministers, the worst of which we hadn't seen until Michael Gove. Teaching is a profession in crisis.