The head refusing OFSTED

[Indigoshift]

Not seen a thread on this. Apologies if there us one.

AIBU to think Flora is very brave but good on her for standing up and showing that OFSTED is not fit for purpose?

news.sky.com/story/headteacher-to-refuse-ofsted-inspection-following-ruth-perry-death-12838983 Headteacher to refuse Ofsted inspection after death of fellow principal Ruth Perry 

We have the CQC.

I think the argument about who is more punitively assessed, with the most stringent oversight is pointless.

As far as I can tell, all the regulatory bodies that are in the pay (where they will admit it or not) of central government are political bodies and often not objective. They are essentially applying government policy rather than making supportive assessments for the good of the profession/ outcomes.

I’ve heard the same complaints about the CQC from family members in the NHS as from teachers- political, sometimes slow to act on real issues and endless, pointless, unhelpful box ticking.

There really does have to be another way.

My only experience of our school being inspected was when they arrived on the 18th March 2020.

Two days before the schools closed for lockdown.

In fact, I seem to recall the school closure announcement happening that very day. It was when it was glaringly obvious that the schools would shut that week - I remember emailing my clients on that Monday saying that I predicted a school closure announcement that week.

The fact that Ofsted thought that was the time to go in always struck me as fucking absurd.

I've always been baffled by how Ofsted seem to go in with confirmation bias. They seem to go in with their minds set, and they are looking for aspects to prove that mindset, rather than being independent and impartial. The fact that many outstanding schools hadn't been inspected for 10+ years shows that the system isn't fit for purpose.

Surely, every school should routinely be inspected every 2 years. That way, any issues are nipped in the bud before they escalate, and they can be given the support that they need to continue improving. It strikes me that Ofsted go in and say "you're shit, fix it" with no actionable support to help schools improve,

I’m not a teacher so I don’t I understand so thank you for explaining it more fully.

I am sympathetic to her and her death is a tragedy. And your post explains well what it must have been like for her. But I just don’t believe it’s the ‘fault’ of Ofsted - they inspect many across the country schools and they were just doing their job. They couldn’t possibly have known what would happen and even if they did, are we saying they need to alter their reports to take account of the mental health of the head and staff?

It’s clear from this thread that there are many issues with Ofsted and changes need to be made but it’s unfair to blame them for this.

@MsWhitworth

The reason why other heads and teacher think it is Ofsted’s fault is the way the inspection was handled.

The question really is: is a well run school, with happy children and staff and a record of success failing because some
children are badly behaved in corridors?

Because this is why this school failed. And this is the fourth school is this year, to my knowledge, that has failed for that reason.

Is this a reason to fail a school, end the career of the head teacher and create massive upheaval for the students?

Or is Ofsted being used as a tool to drive a new, badly thought out DfE policy into schools

Because we are now all pretty worried that corridor behaviour- which is very complicated to police and causes massive tensions with students and parents (the emails about use being too harsh are endless but if we don’t do it we fail inspection) and have put head teachers in an untenable position.

The conundrum is this- should we being doing things just because it is what Ofsted want to see or should we being doing what is best for the children. They are increasingly very different things!

@Pottedpalm

These examples are just not comparable. A train driver/pilot is in control of a machine which responds in a given way if controlled correctly ( barring emergencies for which there are set procedures),

Certainly in aviation it's not just about "driving", you are assessed on much more than that. In recent years a lot of emphasis has been placed on how you interact with colleagues and so Human Factors (Crew Resource Management) is a major part of every assessment. Of course (?) in addition instructors/examiners get checked out on how they teach/interact with their students.

That said I do really do fully accept the situation in schools is utterly different and the whole Ofsted situation sounds awful.