Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

The fight back against OFSTED has begun - support needed

342 replies

wantmorenow · 20/03/2023 12:51

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
13
Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 15:29

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 14:43

Well, they have to pay for it, according to the handbook. And if we’re to believe the news from recent weeks, most schools trust ofsted about as far as they can throw them. Perhaps they don’t want to put their staff under that kind of pressure.

It also doesn’t explain why, having deemed a school inadequate due to safeguarding, ofsted is so unconcerned as to wait several years (just read the relevant section in the handbook, it’s 3 - in our case plus the time it took to become
an academy) before they go back in to check on the school.

As the pp said, it’s a bit of a flaw.

Specifically says that if failed because of safeguarding the school will be monitored throughout conversion and until the next assessment!

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 15:30

AdaLane · 23/03/2023 13:04

No, any monitoring by OFSTED is a published, public document.
Details of monitoring here.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-monitoring-handbook

This will tell parents/public whether the school is making adequate progress to improve.

We have an inadequate academy, OFSTED monitoring report about to be published with the judgement:
‘[The school] continues to require improvement. Leaders have made insufficient progress to improve the school.’

The only other judgement as part of the process is:

‘The school] remains inadequate and has serious weaknesses. Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but more work is necessary for the category of concern to be removed.

Show quote history

Interesting and thanks for clarifying

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 15:35

If they request an inspection they do not necessarily have to pay for it

HMCI may charge the appropriate authority for its cost.

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 16:04

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 15:29

Specifically says that if failed because of safeguarding the school will be monitored throughout conversion and until the next assessment!

Show quote history

And I’ve told you that they’ve not been back in. There are no published documents on the ofsted website. PP confirmed that any monitoring visits are published. It’s been 18 months so far.

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 16:16

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 15:28

If my school got an inadequate, personally I would do a little research 🤷‍♀️

I work for a charity. Bugger all to do with teaching or ofsted but I do have children in education hence we reading bloomin anything I can get my hands on

Show quote history

Oh please don’t be obtuse. If you were a prospective parent looking at a school for your child, like fuck would most people go researching all the possible reasons why the school with the inadequate rating might not still be inadequate, and, in the face of zero evidence either way, giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:25

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 16:04

And I’ve told you that they’ve not been back in. There are no published documents on the ofsted website. PP confirmed that any monitoring visits are published. It’s been 18 months so far.

Show quote history

Well now you know the actual regs…

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:25

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 16:16

Oh please don’t be obtuse. If you were a prospective parent looking at a school for your child, like fuck would most people go researching all the possible reasons why the school with the inadequate rating might not still be inadequate, and, in the face of zero evidence either way, giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Show quote history

Well actually I would

and I am pretty sure many others would too

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:27

Sorry i misunderstood

are you asking whether or send my child to an inadequate rating.

Not a chance. I wouldn’t even bother researching it

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 16:29

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:25

Well now you know the actual regs…

Show quote history

Now I know the actual regs…..I think even less of ofsted because they’re not following them?

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:37

Well exactly

and now with your knowledge you have grounds to make enquiries!

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 16:38

I’d be asking for the required monitoring output…. Now!

Rinoachicken · 23/03/2023 16:51

When visiting prospective schools I will always read the latest ofsted beforehand and where it mentions areas for improvement I will then ask what the school has done/is doing to address those things.

Doesn’t everyone?

When I was checking out secondary schools for my eldest, our closest one had a shocking ofsted just a few months before. At the virtual meet and q&a for prospective parents, the head was asked about specific areas of concern in the ofsted and what the school had done or planned to do to address them. The headmistress ‘couldn’t remember exactly’, and passed the question off to her SLT. They did answer the question ok
but it didn’t exactly inspire confidence! I don’t expect the head to single handedly solve every issue in their school, but I do expect them to at least be aware of the areas of improvement (which were not minor) identified by ofsted not 3 months earlier!!

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 23/03/2023 17:14

Sadly, no, I don’t think everyone does. Lovelyveg80, for example, said she wouldn’t even consider a school rated inadequate. Which for a school like my children’s, where the ofsted was 18 months ago, and I know work has gone into improving it (even if ofsted hasn’t come back and hasn’t reported on it), is pretty sad.

Lovelyveg80 · 23/03/2023 17:18

Op didn’t say school was inadequate

“areas of improvement”

which would be the case even if outstanding and i most certainly would make enquiries

funfinfen · 23/03/2023 18:46

SerafinasGoose · 20/03/2023 13:20

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.

This and more. I felt worn down by my dcs school, was so glad when they finished - they are run like prisons

WarriorN · 24/03/2023 06:57

Rinoachicken · 23/03/2023 14:08

I was under the impression that schools could request an inspection?

my sons school had a good ofsted which was a few years out of date. They were then acquired by an academy trust. The head was replaced and the parents weren’t happy so triggered an immediate inspection that happened in the first September of it being an academy. The result was special measures. Since it had only been an academy a matter of weeks, all the parents who had been raving about how amazing the previous head was and how amazing the school was were suddenly quiet as it became clear that actually the school was not not perform anywhere near acceptable.

over the next 12 months the school and ofsted published quarterly communications about actions taken so far and their impact and what was planned next. They were then re-inspected and achieved a good rating.

They then requested another inspection a few years later which upgraded them to outstanding.

This is a different type of Ofsted. You have to request to be upgraded from good to outstanding.

They'll suggest what needs to happen and return within 2 years. But they'll pick you apart to prove you're not.

Inspections now just check you're still
Good or outstanding. Most of the outstanding schools I know of have gone down to good in the last year.

We were borderline outstanding but we couldn't be given the grading as it wasn't that type of inspection. And our head has decided not to upgrade for the the mental health of the staff.

Which is why I don't think the good or outstanding grading is helpful.

Especially given some of the shite some inspectors have asked of some subject coordinators. It would be outing if I described what I've read about in one subject area this week; suffice to say it proved the inspector doesn't understand how that subject is taught.

WarriorN · 24/03/2023 07:02

If you're requires improvement or special measures you have to go up to good. Which is 'outstanding safeguarding, could improve teaching and learning.'

But imo the 'could improv teaching and learning' is subjective.

One school I know of was pulled up for not teaching their children the protected characteristics, that one in particular. And I was told this by a member of slt.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page