To think criticisms of the new Ofsted ratings are self-serving?

[SmokeRingsOfMyMind]

Obviously the suicide of Ruth Perry was very sad and distressing. But the teaching unions appear to be using that tragedy as a way to avoid proper scrutiny of school performance by Ofsted. The new, more detailed system proposed looks perfectly sensible to me. I'm sure Ofsted could improve inspection quality, but a lot of the commentary about how stressful it is seems nonsensical. All professionals need to be able to cope with external verification of performance from time to time, don't they?

The police and the fire service are inspected by HMICFRS in a very similar fashion to Ofsted.

"Say that to her sister's face" - sorry this is exactly what I am talking about. It should be possible to have a sensible policy discussion regarding assessment of education without one side saying "oh so you want teachers to commit suicide do you?"

Pharmaceutical companies are audited by international agencies, including the MHRA, EMA, FDA, PMDA, ANVISA. Teams of inspectors visit for multiple days. Much more intense than an Ofsted Inspection, needs a very quick response to any negative comments or a warning letter will be issued, with a worse case scenario of a site being shut down and jobs lost. Inspection reports are publicly available online.

This is the suggested grading format.

What a total and utter subjective piece of shit.

Can anyone seriously expect that Ofsted can distinguish between 'secure', 'strong' and 'exemplary' in any sort of reliable, comparable between different settings, objective and replicable by different teams way?

The word 'outstanding' has been utterly toxic to schools over the years. Now we're going to be jumping through hoops to get from strong to exemplary? The only people who are going to benefit from this are education consultants who are rubbing their hands together at the prospect of 'how to get exemplary' training courses and books.

There should be 3 categories max. 'Fine' 'Attention needed' where the school goes and makes some minor amendments' and 'Intervention' where external agencies get involved in the improvement process.

Stop turning educators into monkeys dancing for peanuts.

What strikes me, knowing two Ofsted inspectors, is that the inspections are not impartial. The two I know are both ex teachers but have completely different views and preferences on education. One believes small primary schools cannot possibly provide a good range of experiences for children, and the other has a strong dislike of academies. I know they bring these beliefs to their work, and I have no doubt it influences their assessments.

As for the inspection on my son's school last year I agreed with their assesment that the school is good rather than outstanding, but they were totally unable to articulate why it is not outstanding or what needs to be changed, which would have been useful.

Basically I don't think they are worth much unless a school is really failing and this needs to be clearly stated.

If you go to the consultation, they do ask if your opinion on a couple of other suggestions which are outlined in the consultation document. One is much more like your suggestion.

They clearly want this one though, but I assume if enough people say they prefer option 2 or 3, they might reconsider.

The isi literally goes with met or not met and the not met is all compliance on standards and safeguarding.

I commented that I thought the criteria were vague/subjective too.

but a lot of the commentary about how stressful it is seems nonsensical

What is the source of your personal knowledge about how stressful Ofsted inspections are or aren't, OP, out of interest? Or do you just 'reckon' it isn't that stressful?

Quite. Why do they think it's possible to express meaningful judgements about complex things using single adjectives?

Inspections are needed but shouldn’t be an instrument of torture. I know of several head teachers who suffered nervous breakdowns because of them. Good heads not useless ones. Ofsted should be the means to follow a practical action plan and give support for those who need it. Instead of three one word descriptors they’ve got five.

People are comparing ofsted to other examples where external agencies inspect eg prison, healthcare, pharmaceutical groups etc. But, I feel that ofsted is different.

They make a judgement based on opinion and rely on children to give an accurate account of their learning (eg a lesson should be taught in a certain way/children haven't made enough progress/ child A couldn't remember learning about the Greeks three years ago). When judging teaching they look at books, not knowing if that child has made huge progress despite how the book looks, those children may have turbulent home lives and struggle to stay awake or hate school. Obviously things like safeguarding are easily assessed but quality of learning is hugely subjective.

Ofsted should be collaborative. Where they see aspects that require improvement they should point the school in the direction of another school that is successful in that area and offer to help. Instead they blow in for two days, make a snapshot judgment, announce areas of improvement then don't offer any support at all. Just the treat of a return visit within 30 months. In my experience, if they'd have come into school a week later or month earlier, the report probably would have chosen something different to criticise.

Working together is key to fixing schools without the stress of high stakes inspection.

For healthcare, The CQQ does exactly those.

As an aside, working in the business side of a school, we do actually get our finances audited and our kitchens inspected too. It's not as if we aren't aware of other types of inspection.

I agree with this. Our Head is an Ofsted inspector. I pity any school they inspect.

OFSTED needs to change, it criticises but is not there to improve anything, this reform is an opportunity to change things much more radically. Currently if you fail OFSTED it can career ending for the head, staff able to move do, staff who don’t feel able stay and improving their performance or removing them is very difficult. The structure to improve schools following Ofsted isn’t reliable, in fact there’s a good chance things will get worse as staff leave, it’s difficult to attract people to a struggling school with a poor ofsted judgment hanging over it. It’s all stick and no carrot and this reform does nothing to address this.

This.

What actually is the alternative though?

See above.
Pretty much like HMI (Her Majesty's Inspectorate) used to do.
They would get to know the schools, and would support them to improve in areas they weren't doing well at.

OFSTED's "Take a snapshot; ignore all known circumstances; publicly humiliate; then leave without advice or suggestions on how to improve" is not a model that can possibly make sense to anyone.

Agree with @noblegiraffe and @AllProperTeaIsTheft 's posts.

There's nothing different about this proposal except the individual words changing.

I was at school in the 60s/early 70s. Inspections (unannounced) always took place. Without all the drama of today. 🤷‍♀️

In those days you were allowed to hit the kids so I suspect that standards and expectations were rather lower.

10000% this.

Loads of public services. Schools are responsible for teaching our children, the next generation, and keeping them safe while they are there. Of course they should have oversight from an external body

and I don't know anybody who thinks there shouldn't be oversight from an external body. That's not what is being discussed.

No one disagrees that schools should have oversight.

Oversight that pushes people to suicide and is actively detrimental to schools is what people object to.

I was responding to the first comment on the thread, which is obviously incorrect as loads of professions have this

Healthcare has CQC inspections. Food establishments have food hygiene inspections. I'm sure many other areas have inspections.

Loads of professions have inspections the outcome of which can affect house prices in the community?