AIBU to not want ofstead abolished?

[Applepiesmum]

please bare with I don’t have a school aged child yet

however it’s the only criteria to assess schools against and as a parent the first thing I check when looking at a school if I should move to an area

i understand headteachers might be under pressure to perform but so are all public sector workers Doctors and nurses assessed and judged on performance by patients / students

am I the only person who is thinking like this

Ime the schools we use do match their Outstanding grade. I don’t think any parent would be put off by individual stories elsewhere tbh, they can see the results and can often compare to other schools.

User923081, I am pleased your DC are thriving at the Outstanding school you selected for them. That is what we all want; happy and engaged DC who feel safe at school. It's exactly the reason why my DC attends an Inadequate school, recently downgraded from Outstanding. The new grade is in no way reflective of our experience, and I will be sending my primary aged DC there next year, entirely confident that they too will love it.
Nimbo, thank you for clarifying to Laptop that schools get a maximum of 20 hours notice of inspection. I also wish to reiterate the point that Ofsted inspect and gather evidence of years of practice, Laptop, in that one visit, so as a teacher and school leader, every bit of planning and teaching you do, everyday, is in direct relation to the expectation of an inspection at some future point. It is omnipresent in the context, and incredibly stressful and stunting.
Tizer, I can't decide whether you are deliberately being provocative. Sure, 'good teachers' are likely good most of the time, but after 25 years in teaching, and with many successful Ofsteds behind me, I still go absolutely weak at the knees in the face of being observed teaching, whether by Ofsted, local authority advisers, SLT or even colleagues from other schools who are sent to observe me to learn best practice. Many observations, by their very nature, are looking for areas of improvement, so irrespective of how dazzling one's teaching is and the resultant learning, you will always be aware that someone is actively looking out for your percieved shortcomings. I don't know any colleagues, all great teachers, who do not feel similarly anxious about observations, and it is magnified significantly during an inspection.

As others have said, it's about jumping through hoops and the worrying thing is where the hoops are set and why.
There seems to be a lot of pressure on some things and not enough on others. When I read an actual report, I often think the reason it requires improvement sound like positives! Like one which said kind friendly school with confident happy children and great relationships between teachers and parents, but they don't test the children often enough in lower years to check learning, relying instead on teachers informal checks on how kids were understanding. Sounds ideal to me!

I also heard of a school that used to bus all the tricky kids off on an away day when Ofsted came.

Clearly the system needs massive revision.

There is no such grade as adequate.

I am going to keep posting as not sure everyone is getting what this is like for parents who aren’t education experts.

At my school there is already a SIP who is a senior leader from another school. This happens outside Ofsted. Lots of benefits to this but there’s also bias as many know each other from being in the same LA. All that aside, how is this communicated to parents in a meaningful way about how good the school is at X but is working to improve Y?

All any parent can tell me about our local outstanding school is that it is outstanding. They look a bit lost if I ask what is actually good about it... I hear a lot of complaints though, bullying shoved under the carpet, a friend was encouraged to move her SEN child as not a good fit.

It is also well below average on the % eligible for free school meals in the area. 70% lower in fact.

Some of the accounts coming out about Ofsted inspections this week are dire…heads of secondary subjects (not even heads or assistant heads) inspecting infant schools, opting to do deep dives in their own subject and then being hugely critical of a EYFS subject lead who doesn’t even teach ks1 geography, doesn’t get paid to be lead and gets no time to do so…. Inspectors being execs of large mats in the area and downgrading schools so they are forced to convert to academies…

The system is broken and needs substantial reform. There needs to be a proper feedback and appeal process for heads-not one within the window of writing the report.

You didn’t.

Trouble is, an inspector not doing their job properly a) still has a massive impact on the school and b) happens quite a lot, if you read the stories on teacher forums.

My example:
Inspector wants to assess reading. Fine. They choose one child from each year group, including a very shy Year 1. Fine. Then they sit the children in a line, and call one at a time to sit next to them and read. Very shy year 1 child is now facing a line of older children, sitting next to a strange lady, and being asked to read. They freeze. Conclusion: Teaching of reading in year 1 raises serious concerns.

You can argue that it’s a poor inspector decision and I would agree but the problem is it happens too often, and there’s too much riding on it. Not to mention the stress for the poor kid involved.

Second example, different school.
Year 4 child, speech unintelligible when they started school. Speech and language therapy started immediately but paused with Covid. Hours of intervention. All paperwork ready to show. Pupil operating in their year group and where they should be due to support, except in reading. Speech is still poor - can’t pronounce loads of sounds (unless you know them it can be difficult to understand them when they talk to you. Ofsted inspector couldn’t understand their speech..)They can’t sound out easily because they can’t say the sounds and this also massively affects spelling. After hearing him read, the conclusion is that phonics teaching is poor with older children unable to recall earlier teaching. Paperwork all brought out showing evidence of SLT and intervention- not even glanced at.

As much as anything, maybe what we are building up is a picture that there are too many poorly performing inspectors, not following their training, rather than poorly performing schools.

And just to add, if you are wondering how reading could be assessed..

We had a visit from someone pre-Ofsted to help us make sure we had things sorted, correct paperwork etc.

They heard readers. They chose some children. The children went one at a time with a TA. They read to the TA. The inspector listened in. He looked at the reading record. After the children finished he asked them a couple of questions about the story, and reading in general (what books did they like etc). All with a known adult sitting next to them. Then they went back to class. And then the inspector talked to the TA about their role and where they felt the TA was asking good questions, or offering too much prompting before the child had a chance to sound it out etc. Also asked about the child, strengths and weaknesses and areas for support/extension to see if the individual child was understood.
It was constructive, supportive, the children were calm and happy and it was far more a reflection of what reading is like then the punitive way it was done on the day of the proper inspection.

I also commented on this. I suspect she means Inadequate but there's a big difference and it isn't clear. If that is what she meant then she chose the school on the basis of what she could see for herself and how happy her child is which is great.

I have been inspected by couple of Ofsted teams who were good humoured and seemed knowledgeable about their areas. I felt that any criticisms or suggestion they made were worthwhile. I have also endured inspections by teams who came in with an agenda based solely on last year's Yr 6 poor SATS results (and potential academisation).

There is obviously a wide variation in how Ofsted teams operate but my main objection is the pressure on schools to prepare for inspection beforehand. As I mentioned before, endless staff meetings based on this. There is a whole industry of advisors out there telling schools how to do it 'right'. I know someone who worked for a Head Teacher who wanted to get Outstanding so much she micromanaged to a horrendous degree and staff were continually going off sick and leaving with stress - phone calls and messages at 11pm telling the teacher to change their planning for the next day, that sort of thing. The school was rated Inadequate and the Head was never seen again. In that case Ofsted probably did a good job and saw through her lies but some of her staff never worked in a school again.

@Cavies
I think your observations are correct. A good school is a good school every day. Teachers are not inspected. Schools have a lot of information about what they do well and what they need to improve upon before ofsted turn up. I agree they have a support partner and they should have a robust improvement plan.

I don’t necessarily expect parents to understand how schools improve, but teachers should! Huge numbers on this thread don’t seem to understand very much at all. It is not helpful to spread false info either.

All children deserve to make good progress at school. Football after is nice to have but it won’t help Dc read. Heads have responsibility to ensure Dc make progress and it’s right they are held to account. Children with send, fsm and pp are required to make progress too, not just play football.

Ofsted leaving outstanding schools for 10+ years is an absolute failure of the system.

But both of those examples are one-offs and, if not clarified with teacher/TA at the time, should be followed up after the end of day discussion as a potential issue requiring more evidence to clarify the next day.

Sorry- intended for @babybythesea

Yes. But there are so, so many examples of these one-offs that actually maybe we need to look at the fact that it’s a pattern. I’ve got more stories. All are one-offs, but they cease to be one off when it happens repeatedly.
Incidentally, as a tiny primary, the story of the child with speech issues couldn’t be followed up next day as they didn’t come back next day. One day only, snap judgement. And a flat refusal to look at any supporting paperwork. If you can’t get them to even look at it, how will they change their decision?

The fact there are hundreds of example of ‘one offs’ mean the process is entirely inconsistent. A one word judgement that is unreliable and unfair and which can’t be appealed against, is meaningless.

A friend bought a house where the catchment school was “outstanding”. Went to visit it as her child approached school age and hated it, cue a lot of stress working out which non-catchment schools might accept her kid.

Our DDs’ primary school has only recently got “good”, after years of needs improvement, but they were very happy there and did well academically.

I think inspections in some form must continue, but there must be a better way without the stress for teachers & the unfairness of labelling a school with a phrase (and then not inspecting “outstanding” schools again for many years!).

why can't there be a new system that isn't ofsted though - nobody is saying there should be no school inspection just that this particular way of doing things doesn't work

Nursery I work at - we spend massive chunks of time on paperwork / always getting prepared for ofsted that loads of the brilliant ideas /plans we have for the nursery / fun activities we want to organise get left / delayed / never actually come to life.

Those who like the current system, why do you think it’s superior system that identifies strengths and areas of development rather than adding grades which seems to be the general consensus, along with more regular safeguarding audits? Is it realistic to use the same framework and expectations to inspect nursery schools, tiny village schools, special schools and large secondary schools, before you even begin to think about challenges depending on the school context etc What do you think the grade tells you?

@Italiandreams I don't know much about the framework tbh, so can't comment on whether it's appropriate for other educational type settings. What I would say is that experts advising the government must feel that its appropriate to these settings though.

In my experience of local schools, all those judged inadequate ARE inadequate (based on what i hear from parents of children attending these schools and from pipils themselves) and I'd move heaven and earth to prevent my kids going to them.

All those judged outstanding ARE outstanding (again based on my own experience of having kids in these schools and from what I hear from parents of kids in those schools)

The one word judgement gives an overall picture. Saying that, if OFSTED went into my kids schools tomorrow and said they were inadequate, I'd not believe it AT ALL.

@Fupoffyagrasshole
What form of inspection would you like? Who would do it? Are they knowledgable? What should they look for? If you waste time with loads of ideas that hit the buffers, you have poor leadership. Good settings need development/improvement plans to be SMART. Not random.

I actually think Ofsted will adjust and make more nuanced headline judgements. RG good with outstanding features. RI with good features etc.

The school at Caversham failed leadership and management. Everything else was good. Therefore Inadequate was not nuanced. (Good with an inadequate feature). However the report also says safeguarding is not effective. That’s a fail if ofsted find this. Do we expect safeguarding to be robust or not? Is a school wholly inadequate if it fails safeguarding at inspection? What would the MN inspectors do? Sweep it under the carpet? Pretend it’s all ok? Or be clear it was a failure of management?

There’s clearly a debate to be had and maybe one word descriptions are also inadequate?

All those judged outstanding ARE outstanding (again based on my own experience of having kids in these schools and from what I hear from parents of kids in those schools)

This is my experience too. We’ve used Good rated schools too, and they were that too.

Ie the Outstanding deserved the award, and the Good did too