To try and give an Ofsted analogy, to help people understand better

[Nimbostratus100]

Imagine you run a fleet of taxis in a city called Ofstopolis.

In Ofstopolis, the rules are that MOTs are carried out by a group of Ofstopolis inspectors, without warning, on a random basis, and your taxi firm will get a grade, based on these random MOTs, which will be:

Green - ( you can carry on trading)

Amber - ( you need to make changes immediately to carry on trading)
or Red ( you lose your job and your livelihood and are banned from driving a taxi/ owning a business indefinitely)

You were last inspected 2 years ago, and got graded Green, but you are now approaching that time frame where you know that the Ofstopolis inspectors are going to descend again at some point, and MOT all your taxis.

You keep abreast with all current guidance on how to pass an MOT inspection.

Over the next 5 years, you do not get an MOT inspection, but following the guidance in order to be ready for the MOTs, you do the following:

Paint all the cars red as Ofstopolis inspectors are saying this is the safest way for children to notice cars and not get run over

Paint all the cars green, as another but of research a few months later now says red cars have more accidents

Move all the steering wheels to the left hand drive in preparation for a change of side of road you drive on. Then move them back as that plan is abandoned.

Make sure all drivers have photo ID with their name on, showing at all times

Make sure no driver has their surname showing, as this is now considered a data breach

Make sure every driver is trained never to say anyone else's name

Make sure every driver has the latest insurance documents to hand in their car.

Make sure every driver stops carrying around insurance documents, and instead copies the relevant details into a notebook kept securely in a locked glove compartment

Change every driver to a different insurance company which is currently in favour

change all the tyres to blue tyres forgotten why, but Ofstopolis inspectors are currently insisting on this

Change all tyres to green tyres...err...

Change specification of lock on glove compartment...

make sure all drivers are trained in mindfulness

Make sure all drivers carry proof they are trained in mindfulness

Make sure all drivers are change the proof they are carrying, that they are trained in mindfulness, to a certificate exactly 154 mm square, no more, no less, change the size of all glove compartments to fit this exact certificate, take previous lock off glove compartment and fix it to a strong box in the boot to keep the (recently changed again) insurance documents in there, add a lock of a different specification to the glove box to keep the mindfulness certificate in, change the tyres to yellow, and the windscreen wipers to pink

And a thousand thousand other details of procedure, or whims based on highly suspect research, or politically motivated directives

NONE OF WHICH HAVE ANY BEARING AT ALL ON DRIVING YOUR CUSTOMERS

ALL OF WHICH IMPEDES YOU IN YOUR DAILY TASK OF DRIVING CUSTOMERS

Finally the day arrives and the Ofstopolis inspector descend.

YOu are bumped down from green to red, because a driver is found to have a mindfulness certificate which Is the correct size, and IS kept in the correct size glovebox, and DOES have the correct specification of lock on it.. BUT

he had his surname on it, which is a safeguarding breach, as surnames are not allowed - and he had mistakenly thought that the mindfulness certificates were supposed to have surnames on, to prove who had been trained, so this is a management failure, as the correct procedure had not been explained to the driver, and noone had checked it was being followed.

(And my most recent experience of ofsted, a few months ago, I was reprimanded because a student handed in an exercise book with their surname one)

And I hope this explains why teachers feel ofsted has a hugely negative effect on education

I’m a teacher that used to be a head chef…. You have no idea! OFSTED is a hundred times more intense.

Oh … I’m confused here. Why are surnames not allowed?

Polishing mostly (emphasise mostly) turds that can't be polished and sharpening buttons made of butter with your hands tied behind your back whilst cooking a roast chicken dinner for a vegan, dairy & gluten intolerant, fruitarian who identifies as a chimpanzee who makes high pitched random noises, swings from corner to corner yelling abuse but you can't do anything about it because of their cupcake rights.

“it’s soul destroying to always try your best and it’s never bloody good enough.”

This.

This is why I grew to hate (full-time secondary) teaching - that feeling that you could never be on top of your job, you could always do better. “That was good, but did you think about x y z as well?”
Totally soul-destroying, and made me miserable.

I now do primary supply and actually feel that it is a job you can be “at the top of your game” in without anyone offering you constant feedback for improvement or making you feel awful. Who wants to go through life feeling never quite good enough?

In a nutshell what a great op

Sorry FSA not EHO, which is what you get as a chef - massive difference, and I am married to a teacher. and am.an auditor, but a different field - not to derail the thread though

@LolaSmiles

Nailed it! 😆

Totally spot on.

I'm leaving next week. 20 years of teaching and I realised I cannot do another 20 til I retire. I just can't.

The constant feeling on edge, the to do lost you'll never remotely get on top of, and the constant feeling not good enough as a teacher or parent has utterly drained me. I am bloody good in a classroom. But the toll the job now takes is too high. I've seen too many colleagues die in the job or shortly after retirement and I want to live first.

why!!??

why anything!!??

there is never any actual serious why. It just is. Currently, use of surnames is considered a data breach. No particular reason. It just is. Next week surnames will be allowed and first names not, or teachers will all have to be called by numbers, or something

your mistake is expecting it to make any sense

👏OP

@@coffeeandeav@coffeeandeav@coffeeandeav?

It does to me anyway, what's the point in going to school if the kids aren't passing exams at the end of it?

If what you want to know is how effective the school has been, then what use are the grades if you don't know what the students' ability and potential were at the outset? Getting middling grades out of a highly intelligent student is possibly a failure on the school's part. Getting middling grades out of a lower ability student might be a massive achievement.

Wow.

Ok I didn’t get it before, but that’s awful. 😔

I forgot to say that all this information much be shared with the passengers and their parents with reflective purple pen which must be visible - so all your assessing must be done and communication to the passenger who must then read and acknowledge all your feedback and then respond to it and then you respond to it.

I will never forget the secondary school where we had to mark in green pen and 5 different coloured highlighters - eg pink for a spelling mistake, orange for a subject related mistake, yellow for a point that showed correct curriculum knowledge etc / each piece of work had to have a teacher positive comment at the end, a next steps targets x3 to improve, a pupil reflection and a parental comment. In one class my colleague had 32 students. 20 of which demanded or had been approved to have the worksheet on a different coloured bit of paper / that’s right 12 on white, 1 orange, 2 blue, 1 purple and so on….. for her photocopying any worksheets took at least an hour putting individual bits of paper in etc she once got a rollocking as a parent complained their child had the wrong shade of green eg dark green instead of light green - and we had 3 x50 slots of planning, preparation and assessment time to do all of this - for 27 lessons a week. 3 hours to plan 27 lessons a week 😂meetings daily and parental phone calls and of course any sanctions that you needed to supervise.

I'm still stuck on the surnames thing as well... how on earth would that constitute a data breach?! Are you supposed to pretend that the pupils don't know each others last names? I can understand perhaps not being able to take home identifiable paperwork in case it gets lost, but trying to anonymise pupils within the school environment like that seems ludicrous.
I'm in Ireland, OP, so have no experience of OFSTED - the equivalent here is the Whole School Evaluation which happens maybe every five (?) years, but my impression from reading the reports and from how the staff discuss it is that this is a slightly stressful but ultimately validating process with a big focus on what the school is doing right.

Absolutely OP.
And don't forget the 'deep dives' into fuel economy and windscreen wiper function.

Exactly this. We had Ofsted two weeks ago. I can see my head is stressed bearing this burden but she's not allowed to talk about it. Only with the deputy. Very stressful all round.

Schools and colleges do need to be accountable so if not Ofsted what? Acadamisation has meant they are less accountable not more

It might be more forgiveable if all of this actually benefitted the pupils, but it doesn't. It does the opposite, in fact. It wastes teachers' time and energy by making them jump through spurious and ever-changing hoops. It forces them to treat children like numbers on a spreadsheet. And it misleads parents, by making them think that the Ofsted grade means something. I've worked in a lot of schools. The Ofsted rating is not a good guide to how good schools are <understatement>.

This explains some of the burn-out I have come across in some teachers

I don’t know how you do it.

Also amazing teachers get moved on..about 18 years ago I worked with a brilliant PE teacher. They used a new way of teaching PE called ‘coaching’. She got inadequate in ofsted for not teaching. She was shamed into leaving.

Not many years later coaching was all the rage. She was too ahead of the curve and it disrupted her life. She had done zero things wrong to merit the grade nor the shame.

The system is punitive not supportive and in a top down way - negatively created cultures that are punitive not supportive.

Sounds a lot like making safe and legal childrenswear.

I don't know the answer, but pointless rampant bureaucracy disguised as 'safety' is everywhere.

That is absolutely bonkers - what was their reasoning?

I've always thought Ofsted (and CQC and all the rest of them) inspectors should HAVE to do at least a fortnight's actual work at the coalface each year before being allowed to pronounce judgment (though you would have to feel sorry for the poor kids they taught....) Years ago I did teacher training - and decided not to go into teaching, thanks. Much too stressful. You know that (unfair) saying about those who can't do, teach? Well, those who can't teach most definitely become Ofsted inspectors and other obedient government lackeys....

When I was the Head of Department I had an infuriating member of the Department who said she would not make the current changes because 'they' would only change them all again and she wasn't wrong!

Again - not to derail the thread, but if anyone voted for Brexit. This is what you've done to international trade. You've given everyone who wants to trade internationally the equivalent of a constant Ofsted inspection.

It's no wonder teachers are leaving in droves and companies are closing left right and centre.

Too many people are fiddling about with regulatory 'improvements' and not enough people are actually doing the thing that's being regulated. In particular a lot of regulatory bodies don't seem to understand reality of the thing they are regulating.

Spot on. 26 years of teaching, I've lived through brain gym, vak, purple pens, green pens etc etc. Just weary of it all now.