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

Just about to say that too !.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that Ofsted 100% go into certain schools with an agenda.

LA school that's resisting academy conversion? They're looking for a reason to give you RI.

If you're a newish free school that's reasonably successful, you're likely to get an easier ride- I'm not saying they will ignore really serious failings in this case, but they're probably looking to give a "good" judgement from the start.

Agreed. I manage a nursery and the ofsted year is a terrible one - I don't sleep, constantly worrying about getting 'the call'. Everyone has safeguarding training but now a local nursery has been downgraded for not answering a question correctly on Witchcraft. This is not mentioned in the safeguarding training at all.... I've had good inspector's who made the whole thing bearable and bad ones who just want to catch you out. I always consider resigning before the next one os due.

My daughter painted her own classroom because it would fail ofsted if it was left. She was pregnant at the time. She provided large prices of furniture, all reading books and spent generally £100 a month of her pay to provide materials to pass ofsted.

Her class, reception, passed ofsted, the rest of the school failed.

She lost her baby on a Friday and was pressured back into school on the Monday; to give the mother's day assembly. THAT is teaching for you.

She left after she had a baby, never returned and is now doing a healthcare degree.

We’ve just had Ofsted and have never heard this surname thing? In fact all our students (college) wear lanyards with their full name round their necks all the time! We also got told the outcome at 4.15 the evening they left. We can’t share it outside college or with students but the whole staff know.

I had a discussion about this with a group ofold 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
My experience before teaching was nothing like the silliness of Ofsted and teaching.
Often the people looking to stick the boot in assume that teachers don't have any other experiences, but many of us had careers before we came to teaching.

Like I said, it depends on the team you get in. If you'd had out team you would now be in special measures

I wasn't sticking the boot in. And my mum was a senior teacher throughout her career so I had an insight into it all. My point is that in my large multinational corporate company, we are all put through the mill and we don't have a guaranteed career for life. Constantly trying to ensure we aren't the next casualty. And some are through zero fault of their own. No salary, no job, no self esteem. And they did everything right. It's awful.

I think if you are working in an area that involves safeguarding children it is. My company doesn't audit me. But we all live in fear of a range of external regulators that could fine us / prosecute us over the smallest thing.

Not that it's right - I just think some industries have politicised regulation and there isn't enough effective push back.

Meanwhile the people in the firing line are fucked.

I'm not trying to minimise the problems in the teaching environment, I'm just saying that this seems to be a pattern in heavily regulated industries and there may be something to be learnt from looking at a number of different disciplines to work out how it can be improved.

We don't want to end up like the building industry where people end up dead because of too many blind eyes being turned - but there must be a realistic balance somewhere.

Yes I remember brain gym. I was a new psychology graduate and I remember saying it was bollocks and getting told off for it. The same thing happened with multiple intelligences and that too took up a lot of time and resources. I felt education was so anti science. Glad I left.

you are so right, education is anti science, that sums it up completely, and its really hard for a scientist to become a teacher and have to comply with stuff like this, that you know is totally scientifically wrong.

I was also told off in brain gym training, for laughing out loud once

@RobinHumphries how involved are all the staff in CQC inspections? My friend is a GP nurse and she said she doesn't find them stressful at all as she isn't really involved that much, but I'm guessing if you're a GP (or GP partner) it must be the complete opposite! What happens during them? I'm not trying to 'compete', I'm genuinely interested! Sorry to hear they are so stressful, especially when NHS workers are working flat out. 😭

@LadyGAgain having an insight isn't the same! My dad worked in an industry with stressful inspection type processes, but I can't claim to fully understand what it was like.

@covidwoes-depends on the setting. Care home inspections are now a mixture of online and in person. Online you have three days to send them all your records to cour through, then they also interview up to three staff members, randomly selected. (And three service users, three relatives, three outside professionals). They grilled my team last time. Do you know what regulation 27 of the care act is? Etc etc. remember these are staff that get paid £9.70 an hour. Tbh we are hard pressed to get some of them to show up at work half the time never mind be au fait with the minutiae of legislation. And if you get a disgruntled staff member being interviewed you are shot. As it happened during one inspection the inspector picked someone on a performance plan with an axe to grind. It didn't go well. We were able to show her the 1-1 notes and other evidence that would suggest this Persons motivation for being deliberately negative and the inspector agreed that was probably it and what she said didn't tally with what everyone else was saying-but she still have to mark down because of it. There is no nuance at all.

Yeah my kid was accused of some awful violent behaviour... thankfully he wasn't actually in school that day.

Nowhere have I claimed to fully understand however the rhetoric that anyone outside of education explaining our world is "putting the boot in" is utterly ridiculous.

I was a teacher for 27 years and never had a bad Ofsted observation but the obsession with Progress 8 data was what finally made me decide to leave. Target grades for GCSEs are based on SATs results. If the 11 year old with 100 gets leukaemia, or a severe mental health diagnosis when they go to secondary school, their target grades are still based on their SATs grade and the school will be judged on their attendance as well as their results.

Some ‘outstanding’ schools fight tooth and nail not to admit children with disabilities and chronic illnesses at age 11 because the children could adversely affect their attendance and Progress 8 data. Yes there is equalities legislation but parents don’t want to send their children where they are clearly unwelcome. There are very few specialist schools, so these children will usually go to mainstream schools that Require Improvement.

The data required gives no flexibility for the other students, either. My 11 year old had a place at an Outstanding school and I saw how regimented it was, how utterly miserable the teachers looked. I decided my child was going to a Good school (recently out of Requires Improvement) instead. I wanted my child to enjoy a school with a happy atmosphere and not fear being in trouble for five years (he/she wasn’t disruptive in the slightest, just forgetful at times, as children often are.) I had seen the pressure put on teachers in a variety of schools to get their school from Good to Outstanding.

In the recent tragic case, we have seen how a school can go from Outstanding to Inadequate in a single day. It’s time to get rid of these arbitrary labels. They’re virtually worthless and do so much damage.

Many multi-academy trusts are spending fortunes on mock-Ofsted inspections to get their schools “Ofsted-ready” and this means that teachers are constantly on edge preparing paperwork for the next inspection. This doesn’t benefit students but it does create reams of data for the mock-Ofsted inspectors to inspect. Literally nothing teachers do is ever good enough and “what Ofsted will say” is constantly referenced as the workload ramps up.

I’m in my very early 50s and I’d left teaching before I was 50. I miss the students and the way education worked before Gove and academies. I’d never go back.

I agree 100%.

I'm also seriously worried about my children's education. The pressure on teachers is huge and that's without the added nonsense of these style of inspections. Teachers are leaving in their droves. The teachers who have taught my children to date have all been (without exception) absolutely wonderful. The thought of them feeling so hopeless that death by suicide is the only way out is sick inducing. It's appalling. I don't think inspections are wrong per se, but what is inspected, the lack of flex and the method is awful.

I have had child with a degenerative brain condition that sadly took her when she was in her early 20s. The school was held to her original target grade, even as her cognitive capacity deteriorated year by year

What was the witchcraft question?!

Thank you for that analogy. I already knew you were under immense pressure day to day. My friend is a teacher. It sounds awful.

SLT at a previous school were told they could not share the outcome until it was published- they were told it would "break ofsted rules" to do so. The outcome was a negative one- maybe it's only with negative results where they insist on secrecy.

We also do the same with lanyards for our sixth formers- maybe it's different for younger students?