To think schools shouldn’t tell kids what to say to Ofsted

[Lessexpected]

Just that. Ofsted are coming. All kids been told what to say when asked by an Ofsted person. Aibu to think schools should encourage freedom of
expression?

If they all say the same things, the Ofsted inspectors will see straight through that and probe further.

ffs - they’ve just reminded children of a few things but they’ll likely forget anyway. OFSTED team will pick pupils and meet them without school staff so they’ll have plenty of freedom to say anything they want.

Most kids like to be prepared when a stranger is asking them questions, they feel more confident answering. I bet the children were told what the questions might be and to discuss what they could answer.

They did this when I was at school (a really really awful school that eventually got shut down). This was back in the day if the schools having some notice, so the difficult kids all disappeared, new lovely displays put up.

I told the inspectors what we'd been told to say.

If you're going to tell kids what to say beware of the dissilusioned ones with no love for the place...

I also had this at my school, a highly regarded anti bullying school...that was rife with bullying. The school was absolute chaos, the trouble makers ruled the school and the kids bullied and harassed the teachers. There were hardly any lessons, the teachers couldn't control them, lots of them left and had breakdowns and nobody gave a shit because who wants to learn or be that one that speaks out.

The worse behaved you were, the easier it was. The really bad ones didn't even do school. They sat in their own naughty isolated class...that went paintballing and got McDonald's.

Every oftsed, all the worse kids got taken out for a day trip and the rest were put in their place through assembly and with rewards promised for good behavior.

Everywhere was spot cleaned, new signs and posters, school uniform enforced when it wasn't before. Fake lessons, questions back and forth rehearsed solely for the benefit of the inspectors.

We would say, it's all bollocks it's not like this, nobody believed us.

The whole while all the parents including my own thought it was some amazing school. It was notz far from it.

It’s just that a lot of the Ofsted stuff is box-ticking and children get asked about things that are happening but they don’t know they’re happening because the schools integrate it naturally and age-appropriately. So the temptation is to make it explicit in advance.

A lot of the time, younger children have no idea what the inspectors are getting at when they ask them a question, and they get confused and anxious. Frequently the inspectors do not have a primary background and have no clue how to communicate with a seven year old.

So I think it's reasonable to at least prepare them for what they might be asked. I don't think any school should feed specific answers though, nor would they, as it would be so obvious.

All the fake rehearsed lessons and naughty kids sent on trips that used to happen can’t happen anymore as schools only get told lunchtime the day before. I can’t imagine they’d have had much time to drill kids into a comprehensive script, maybe more some useful pointers. Kids often don’t want to let the school down.

Children being reminded of a few things about the school is not a problem
Inspections place a lot of stress on staff and pupils - to instantly recall and give examples of any random shit the inspector wants to know about - it's a grilling and very stressful if relying on young children to remember something or make weird links ( because the inspectors do)
Children go blank , get shy and in the end sometimes say anything the inspector leads them to say
Children forget stuff because they do t know just how much is riding on saying the right thing about PE/ music/ history/ reading/ lunchtimes/ assemblies/ maths/ PSHCE/ etc etc

This is secondary for context where children have their own opinions on being coached on what to say.

In which case there's little danger of them conforming.

But genuinely, I think there's a big difference between being given a heads up on what they might be asked and what the inspectors are looking for, and being told what to say or to lie.

Teenagers are likely to ask their own questions.of a teacher when told that the inspection is happening, and the teacher needs to be able to answer those questions. It's a requirement to warn pupils that inspectors might approach them with questions, and conversations are going to arise from learners being given that information.
That's very different from an orchestrated effort to tutor pupils in what opinions they should express. I think the latter is very unlikely.

Not a school but we had briefings at work about what to say or not. I don't think there is harm in reminding people what they say might have consequences so take seriously what you say and a measured approach. But direct coaching is not ok and could back fire.

If it’s a ‘don’t forget to tell the inspectors that we do x, y and z’ as a reminder, I don’t see the problem. I work with KS1 who are supposed to be able to link their learning with previous learning. At 5/6, they often have no recollection of learning about minibeasts before Christmas unless you have a big discussion about it and remind them of the trip they did, when they made a model, when they made an advert or when X came into visit

Ofsted inspectors don't listen to kids anyway, barely look at the parental feedback but I'd certainly be filling out the survey about my child being drilled in a standard response

Depends what they've been told to say really.

This is why ofstead is rubbish though. They shouldn't get warning.

Parents put such faith in Ofsted this is why they are coached .

opposite end - my Ds was having an assessment for dyslexia.. I was a childminder at the time . So was aware of Ofsted - he had to write a poem so wrote one about how lovely his teacher was 🤣

How much conversation do some adults get with teenagers! As some have said they may have been given guidance on what questions they may be asked and reminders of what school has been doing in that area.

Ofsted will probably also talk to the school governors who should have examples of pupil voice too as part of their role

I suspect the teenagers are exaggerating somewhat. They’d have been told, it’s important, behave yourselves and tell them things about our school such as…

And the kids will say exactly what they like on the day🤷‍♀️

And this is the problem with Ofsted. Of course schools will coach/prep kids because one of the things Ofsted look for is long term retention of learning plus 1 million other random things that the kids will never remember. If the school doesn't get a tick in the box for the kids remembering about Prevent/British Values/E+D/Safeguarding etc etc then the school won't get a favourable report and then parents such as yourself are less likely to send their kids to that school. That's why you should always take Ofsted reports with a bucket load of salt and read beyond the headline number.

Also some kids are very good at expressing themselves and how they feel about something, others not so! So instead of a teenager answering ‘I dunno!’ they will be coached in answering those type of questions

At my children’ last school all pupils had to complete an anonymous questionnaire given to the school by the Inspectors. A complete waste of time as the teachers were supervising while they were completed and they questioned every answer they weren’t happy with which resulted in the pupils changing their answers. That was the final nail in the coffin for us with that school.

I wish parents would realise that many Ofsted inspectors are failed teachers who have their own agenda.

I work in children's services and they've tried to tell us what to say to ofsted too 😂🫠

Not the same thing, but I worked in an industry where we had assessors coming in to see if we met certain award standards. I used to brief the department beforehand. My message was 'be truthful, be positive, be open - in that order'. ie Don't volunteer negative information unless directly asked but always be honest.

So if asked 'Do you do XYZ on your project?' if the answer is yes then say yes. If the answer is yes and this is absolutely standard on all projects I've ever worked on, then say so. But if the answer is Yes but I know Joe's project doesn't, then don't volunteer the 'but'.

I did however remind people what certain questions might mean / cover. e.g. Say PHSE is covered in tutor time at a school. If the inspector asks 'Do you have PHSE lessons?' a pupil might just say no. But if they have been reminded it is covered in tutor time they might give a different, more correct, answer.

Ofsted inspectors are all senior teachers (mostly current headteachers who inspect a couple of times a year). They have met plenty of kids before, and it's not easy to completely bluff your way through an inspection. The school only gets called and told Ofsted are coming just before lunchtime on the day before it starts, so it's not like back in the day when you got weeks of notice. If you send all the "naughty kids" to a local theme park for the day, as used to be rumoured happened, they can see there are a handful of kids missing in every classroom and will ask why attendance is so low. The inspectors pick which kids to have a formal discussion with, but they also speak to kids in each classroom they observe, at lunchtime and in the playground. They ask questions like "is this a typical maths lesson?", as well as asking about what is being taught and what kids can recall, and more importantly do kids feel safe, do they enjoy school, do they feel supported by adults, what would they like more or less of, what extracurriculars do they do, what have they covered in PSHE.

If you were to randomly sample a classroom and pick five kids out and speak to them away from the teacher - would the teacher feel confident that their coached answers would be given? Or is it just as likely at least one kid would say: Mrs X told us to say blah blah blah but ACTUALLY...