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

Skills based curriculum... knowledge based curriculum...
Which is the one currently in fashion?

Did you mean to @ me?

This is why progress 8 or one is better.

This is heartbreaking. When do the teachers actually get to teach? Why can’t they just be allowed to get on with their jobs with out this tyranny, constantly hanging over their heads? Major reform needs to open.

@RobinHumphries @Littlemissprosecco quite. Not to mention LA inspections on top.
CQC tried to give me a RI in caring and responsive last time as one of the people we support was experiencing suicidal thoughts and told them so in his interview. It's a service for adults with mental health issues and the man is schizophrenic and suffers with depression. He always has suicidal thoughts! 24/7. That's why he's there. And has 2:1 staffing at all times. Yet this wasn't deemed responsive enough. I beg of you.

I challenged it successfully but it was the last straw in terms of my stress levels and I'm leaving social care management shortly after 22 years.

Honestly, I’ve worked in a few different area of public service and this is absolutely no different to the roll out of new systems and processes as and when and the inspection methods used for all of them. It’s disruptive and intrusive and people lose jobs because of it but it is what it is - the public need to be assured that public money is being spent well and that the services they access - schools, hospitals, housing etc are being well managed and in line with the latest guidance. I am also a parent of school aged children - how are people outside of the education system supposed to make and informed choice about their childs education without published information based on a framework which is applied equally to all schools? Just believe what the head says?

Banning OFSTED won’t solve this problem, I’m afraid it’ll just make the public more curious about what you have to hide. Whatever they replace OFSTED with will be no different, only in name.

What happened to Ruth was terrible, that she felt she had no other option and she was completely failed by more than OFSTED.

Randomness12
So we should put up with an ineffective and stressful system that doesn't have transparent judgements, creates unnecessary workload and doesn't improve education for children because somewhere else there's also inefficient systems?

You talk about use of public money, but I dread to think how much money is spent on being Ofsted-ready, sending SLT on training days for what Ofsted want, having consultants come and do Mocksted inspections, guessing what Ofsted's latest trend is, or having folders of duplictard documentation ready for Ofsted instead of having sensible documentation saved ready to click on when they arrive.

Out of curiosity, do you think it's a good use of public money to have learning objectives printed onto stickers or onto paper, cut and glued into exercise books for every lesson? Or assessment sheets in different coloured paper printed and stuck in for no other purpose than to write out the scores the child has (that are already on the piece of work, and in your teacher markbook, and in the department excel sheet)?

It not to help the children.
It doesn't help the teachers.
It doesn't add to the quality of education.

It does make sure that when an Oftsed inspector opens a book and does a quick flick their eyes are drawn to the stickers/labels/coloured sheets so you can prove you've marked the work that is also in the book.

What a waste of money in terms of resources and what a waste of staff time.

I want my children's teachers to be teaching them and maybe have some time to run an after school club, not getting by and spending their time checking 100 books a day have the right stickers.

There is no accountability by OFSTED. When they have bestowed a good or outstanding rating on a school for decades (residential schools are inspected yearly so they don’t outgrow their rating) and then decide that it is now Inadequate and the reports stated ‘Years of failure at this’ and ‘Years of underachievement’ why is OFSTED not accountable for that? Clearly OFSTED were wrong for years. The school continued to do what it was doing because it was told this was good and/or outstanding. The school was misled and so OFSTED failed the pupils. Nobody ever investigates this.

This has happened in several cases I am aware of

This presumably explains why my son was given another child’s detention last week because they share a forename! It was removed when he spoke to his form teacher but he’s only year 7 and was really worried about it!

In our Ofsted last year my dept was one of the ones in the "deep dive". My inspector was insistent that we should be teaching "the great speeches". What precisely these "great speeches" might be he was less than forthcoming about, but I was personally responsible for failing the thousands of children in my care by not including them in my curriculum.

There were no Great Speeches in my taxi!

It does sound like a nightmare! Glad to not be a teacher. I guess we need something in place to audit and regulate but what ofsted currently is doesn't sound actually useful. It needs reform but that kind of thing won't just happen overnight.

Excellent analogy, OP.

On top of that, I’ve always wondered about school governance. Usually do-gooders with decent intentions but they’re supposed to hold heads to account? I’ve sat on governing bodies, where despite completing the statutory training, absolute idiots have made the most appalling decisions, very much to the detriment of the children. I don’t think parents realize just how arbitrary some decisions are and that those making them are so badly informed.

Caveat - obviously not every school, every governing body etc. but IME, it’s so very worrying that aside from Ofsted, VOLUNTEERS have apparent responsibility for so much.

VAK - years ago I saw it broken down to:

Visual - read this
Auditory - listen to this
Kinaesthetic - write this

Not by its proponents of course.

Evvyjb
That doesn't surprise me. I've heard many similar tales but for different preferences and topics.
Nowhere in the Ofsted framework does it say schools must teach the great speeches, but inspectors get away with letting their personal tastes inform judgements.

Thanks for this.
I have seen the talk about ofsted and the case where the headteacher took her own life.
This threads makes me understand why.
I thought ofsted was simply a regulating body doing a school inspection once a year. All very well thought out and planned.
I'm mid 50s. I still believe in decency and treating people with respect.
In other words I'm old fashioned and out of touch. I should have known better.

To all the teachers here, thank you.

I can aswer this. Whichever one you have less evidence for on that day, is the one in fashion. Been through 4 ofsted feedback meetings this year! (i clerk) 2 needed to focus on their knowledge, 2 on their skills in the report but from my perspective all the schools do both but the inspector just happened to see a class that was focused on knowledge or skills.

Semi similar to having environmental health inspector in my hospitality business. It's a bitch innit

OFSTED always reminds me of a poster on the wall of the dentist in a Simpsons episode:

Flossing - however you're doing it, it's wrong.

Excellent analogy OP. You forgot to add that when the inspectors comment on personal safety they have in the past said numerous taxi companies exceeded expectations of safeguarding only for it subsequently to come to light that passengers were being sexually abused by certain taxi drivers. So turns out the inspectors haven’t got any clue because they aren’t close to these taxi companies and they are poor judges of culture.

Inspectors should be team-based in the LA and get to know their own patch, visiting regularly to work with the school and without publishing a massive judgemental bible at the end. It would reduce the pressure.

My local primary ofsted last inspection was 2011. Completely ridiculous. Imagine how much the school has changed and pivoted in that time, and they must be dreading the ofsted visit after so long.

I've been the "victim" of both ofsted and EHO in various roles and its not the same at all. It's entirely possible to get a 5 rating from EHO even though they've found a number of areas for improvement. Some of their inspectors aren't as kind as they might be but the system is set up so people doing most things right will get good grades.

I know someone who is an Ofsted inspector. He taught at the same school as me and the kids hated his lessons as they were so dreary and dull.

Very much a work to rule sort of person full of self importance.

And yet he can now waltz into other schools and tell them it is good or bad in just a 48 hour visit based on box ticking.

It's a joke.

Is the school in a MAT? If so, it would be the MAT who would ask them to leave- the governors wouldn't have the final say. I have never seen a MAT allow a head (secondary or primary) to stay in post following an inadequate inspection. Possibly it happens, but it's pretty much always assumed the head will need to change.

If not, they would be brokered into a MAT, who would very likely want to appoint a new head, but even if not, they would impose significant external changes on a school. This would also happen if they had an RI inspection as well.

If the school is the lead school of a small MAT, following an inadequate inspection, sometimes the MAT is broken up- so it can even impact schools who weren't being inspected.

FWIW, I agree with you that a full change in leadership is rarely helpful for a school- I'm not saying what happens should happen. My point is that a significant downgrade is often damaging to a school, not because the label itself is damaging (although it can be) but because of the wider response.

Why would you guess 1997?

Ofsted started in 1992.

It sounds just like work outside of the education system. Constant changes to policy, rules, regs, org restructure, new buzzwords become old buzzwords, what was once 'good' is now out dated and is replaced with a new 'good'. Language, law, diversity, inclusion, equity, challenge, frameworks, development, agility, strategy. All ever changing. Keep up or get out (or you'll be gone in the next re-org). 21st century workplace. It's the reality for most of us.

It's the reality for most of us

I had a discussion about this with a group of
old friends in the week-a range of different jobs. All we’re saying their job isn’t audited by anything like this, with a one-word, high-stakes, secret judgement that focuses on whatever is en vogue in this week’s framework.

I think for me, the stress of ofsted is mainly focused on the fact I cannot control much of the experience no matter how much I try, work and prepare.

I know that I teach good lessons, my class are happy and progressing.

But, I don't know what ofsted want to see. They change their mind so often. Lessons can go wrong despite my careful planning. Children can have tough days. Parents can say things and act in an unexpected way. Technology can play up. Staff can be off sick.