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.

Lol, the HT sounds like someone stuck up her own arse.

I don't know how much truth there is to the observation that Ofsted's inspector complement is largely made up of failed teachers.

But if it were, it wouldn't surprise me.

Worked out the school thanks. Be interesting to watch. I was really upset to hear about Ruth Perry.

Thanks for that insightful, trenchant, scintillating contribution.

What exactly does it mean?

I have questions as to how a school where the HT has been tweeting anti-ofsted comments for a while suddenly has the call at exactly the time the rhetoric has built.

While I agree with the need for change, this particular case stinks of haddock.

Inevitable really.

The decision to include commentary on the HT's suicide in the summary of the inspection report despite it occuring after the inspection and having no bearing on the findings as well as not being normal protocol (resulting in the report being withdrawn on the Ofsted website after publication) is deeply concerning and suggests serious oversight issues at Ofsted.

I can well imagine that some headteachers would not be happy having inspectors in their schools without this first being investigated and resolved.

Just here to point out that the references to UK are incorrect.

There are 4 home nations, with 4 differing education systems, with different inspectors, curriculum, standards, training and more.

You are all talking about England.

Not Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland.

We have our own issues, that is true however.

How intelligent.

How condescending

I think the catalyst for this is the suicide of the head who had just had a poor ofsted, then the ofsted report coolly reported the result, saying the head isn't there any more but was there for the inspection.

As an ex teacher I would absolutely applaud if my child's school Head did this.

The current Ofsted system is not fit for purpose.

Reading a report is different from being on the other side of the process.

What happens is that the school is put under enormous stress. They have to produce reams of data, none of which enhances the education of the pupils but takes the teachers away from their primary task. And woe betide them with OfSted if the tiniest things is not exactly recorded.

If a problem is found, OfSted just get up and walk away, leaving the school with a challenge but no help or support (either financial or otherwise) to meet the required target. There used to be support from the LA education department, but years of underfunding means that they have dwindled to virtually nothing. They used to supply support with courses, professional development, legal updates and advice, and buildings and maintenance support - virtually all gone now. Did you know that if a school wants these things they have to pay for them out of their budget? - budgets that are insufficient to start with. Schools have to take out Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to get this sort of support - they have to second guess what they might need and take these out.

The old style schools inspectors used to provide support if a problem was found - no longer. And they would develop a relationship with the schools and make sure help was forthcoming when needed.

Never forget that the things that OfSted measure are not necessarily the things that make a school good - they are government-contrived parameters which are mainly simply burdensome to the staff and take them away from their real task. And never forget that they measure them in a one-off visit, so their validity is suspect anyway.

As an example, a school can be downgraded on pupil attendance. How is this the school's fault? Can they go round all their pupils and make sure they are getting out of bed each day? Can they prevent children getting sick?

There are strict academic targets which take no account of the number of pupils in a year group with SEN, or the size of the group which can make the data invalid.

And so it goes on ....... teachers being deflected from their primary task with all this window-dressing.

Meanwhile the DfE and Ofsted keep asking local authorities what they’re doing to improve attainment in their area, while every shred of influence is being legislated away. It’s absolutely mad.

The report wasn't withdrawn from the Ofsted website, it had never appeared there. My own school's Ofsted with no issues related, isn't up there yet either and has been out two weeks.

This little nugget of misinformation needs to stop being spread around.

@Mischance Good post.

As an example, a school can be downgraded on pupil attendance. How is this the school's fault? Can they go round all their pupils and make sure they are getting out of bed each day? Can they prevent children getting sick?

There are strict academic targets which take no account of the number of pupils in a year group with SEN, or the size of the group which can make the data invalid.

And so it goes on ....... teachers being deflected from their primary task with all this window-dressing.

Those bits in particular are interesting. We have a school full of children whose parents are on 2 year visas. They regularly have 'visa issues' and disappear home for 6 - 8 weeks. Not our fault. Yet attendance is in our Ofsted report.

If you have an SEND resource base in your school, then obviously your results are not going to be the same as a school that doesn't actively aim to attract children with SEND. We have one, our results are brilliant for our children, they make amazing progress, but not according to national targets. This is on our Ofsted report.

And the deflection doesn't just happen in the build up to an inspection, it happens during the inspection too. Children don't like a lack of routine, yet on inspection days they may lose their class teacher for all of maths, or half of maths half of reading, or for a chunk of the afternoon. Supply teachers have been booked and will be covering in those classes while the teachers meet with inspectors, but that leads to dysregulation and then you have behaviour challenges. The two days after our inspection were chaos from a behaviour POV. Poor kids.

It means they agree. Like, preach to the converted type thing.

@SerafinasGoose

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.

You're not right about phonics. With maths you're comparing apples with oranges.

I would genuinely pull my child out of any school where the headteacher blocked an OFSTED review, even more so if they were doing it to try to score political points like this....

They don’t come in with an open mind. They look at data (data is God and is frozen at the point an Ofsted is announced). The inspectors will decide what that data is telling them and what grade the school will receive. They then come into the school and look for evidence to confirm their bias of what the data is telling them. Ofsted are never surprised or disappointed unless the find serious safeguarding issues. They already know what the outcome of an inspection will based on, and what they decide it will be.

It's not a political point. It's pointing out that there's a system that is destroying people. OFSTED has been operating under governments of all stripes. Though it's fair to say that the last half dozen years have seen it way out of control.

Ruth Perry is the latest headteacher to commit suicide - she is not the first.
I'd absolutely support an inspection process that was supportive and constructive - the 'critical friend' a previous poster mentioned.
Ruth Perry's school was good in every category except leadership and management - how could it be good unless under effective leadership? 97% of parents reported that they were either happy or very happy with the school. Apparently they had someone in to help a struggling pupil with English, had run a DBS check but hadn't done a check with this person's country of origin.
A sensible inspection would tell the school to tighten its procedures and come back in a couple of months to check. It wouldn't downgrade the entire outfit to Inadequate, which is a judgement that risks careers, jobs and tragically lives.

School inspections have a place if done correctly and are supportive in nature. This is not the case and causes untold damage to staff well-being- and doesn’t help improve pupil experiences. I don’t know this headteacher but can understand why she is taking this stance.

Headteachers are literally told that it’s illegal to share Ofsted judgements until they are published. That’s an intolerable burden to shoulder by yourself and not good for anyone’s wellbeing.

@Mischance @electricmoccasins Thanks both for explaining. Very insightful. Sounds like an extremely broken system. How sad.

Apparently they had someone in to help a struggling pupil with English, had run a DBS check but hadn't done a check with this person's country of origin.

That is a safeguarding issue. I had to get 'DBS' or equivalent checks from several countries I'd worked in before.

I don't like Ofsted in its current form. I'm not against inspection.

No individual school should have been left 13 years since the last inspection when other schools are visited every 3 or 4 years. That's also a safeguarding issue.

A lot of the issue here comes from lack of support for the Head after she knew the inspection result. Not being able to share it, not being given specific support for mental health impact and then finally the indignity of a 30 year career ending in being mentioned as a one liner just before the one line about after school club provision. I think it's OK that heads/the education system as a whole, gets annoyed by that.

The Head currently not allowing Ofsted in will be well supported by the NAHT, local Heads, and her staff. Hopefully parents will get on board too.