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.

Excellent!! I hope more follow her example ✊👏

Yep. Still has overwhelming public support from Heads, unions, Headteacher groups, social media groups, etc. Haven’t seen one single dissenting voice.

Oh where’s this “overwhelming support”? I can’t locate

From unions no less?! 🤔

Everywhere on social media - I've just counted 5 trending items related to this subject on Twitter, for example.

There are two related topics on the United Kingdom top 20 trending topics on Twitter at the moment(Ofsted and Flora). The ones you'll be seeing will be based on the accounts you follow/ what you tweet about.

No reference at all to Unions supporting.

And very very muted HT support

Daniel Kebede, NEU officer, past president.

Robin Head, NEU national executive

Headteachers - yes, of course I would see more of these than you do on my Twitter, and am therefore in a position to comment about overwhelming headteacher/union/educator support!

🤷‍♀️

On private accounts

It's a really risky game she's playing though. She has only recently taken over and if the school goes down to 'requires improvement' or 'inadequate' after this inspection when it does happen it's going to look like or made to look like from the media that she tried to delay as she knew she wasn't up to scratch (I have seen a few people on Twitter say they've heard the school has agreed to it going ahead tomorrow but of course could be untrue).

Well done that woman.

ie not the Union itself

So what?! These people have thousands of followers and the Facebook groups have thousands of members. You can’t argue with the words overwhelming support.

Go on then, find a dissenting educator. One!

Three unions called for Ofsted inspections to be paused this afternoon - same cause, and you know it.

About ten, apparently. That’s ten too many.

Which unions?

Can you not work the Internet?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-65019341.amp

With mathematics she is correct. India and China are way ahead in their mathematics teaching and results. How is that apples to oranges comparison? This country simply isn't good enough when it comes to teaching of mathematics and physics. Even America has a better model for teaching mathematics.

Can someone please explain why Ofsted is a bad thing?

Why is it bad that worse schools (unsafe, not working in the childrens' best interests, messy, poor food etc) are called out for being worse schools?

Ofsted change their minds every 5 minutes about what makes a school good or bad. So an Ofsted rating doesn't actually reflect the quality of the school or the standard of education on offer to students. It reflects Ofsted's whims. Add to that the fact that every inspection team will interpret things differently. And they have an agenda. They find what the government wants them to find.

I've worked in awful schools with good and outstanding ratings and vice versa. And sadly, so many parents just assume that an Ofsted rating actually means something.

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

do you consider it reasonable that a one day inspection by one/two people can end a 30 year teaching career? That it’s such a terrible experience, a well- thought of headteacher right up to the minute these two strangers deem the school inadequate feels suicide is an option following that visit?

what you should be concerned about, as a parent, is a system that is leading teaching staff to feel there is no other option than suicide in rare cases or just walking without a job to go to in literally thousands of cases each and every term.

I fear this will end badly for this head but stand behind her and will quietly cheer her on.

I support the notion of refusing to engage with Ofsted however the Head went about this the wrong way:

• tweeting that she didn't know what she was doing was naive and worrying. It seemed impulsive and that's not good leadership.

• asking people to turn up at school was dangerous. As a parent that's the bit that would worry me; my child wouldn't be attending tomorrow as I wouldn't want them to be exposed to this atmosphere.

• I strongly suspect she didn't have the support of her governing body. It was very quick turnaround and I'd be surprised if her board had met that quickly even if she'd spoken to the chair. If this is the case the only thing that would save her job is the public support and risk of reputational damage.

Unfortunately the stand against Ofsted needs to come via the unions to a) protect heads under employment law and b) for gravitas. A small primary school in Berks won't change anything even if the David and Goliath story sounds like a good one.

I'm all for a review of OFSTED but the more I read her Twitter the more shocked I am that she's a HT.