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?

Children's Social Care (literally inspected by Ofsted), Adult Services, Police Force, Fire Service, Ambulance Service..

100%

I don't see why teaching should be treated any differently, or more leniently. Like for any other area of management, if the oversight part is causing stress that's having an effect on your mental health, then perhaps it's not for you. I can't imagine a governor of a prison saying they shouldn't be inspected because they find it too stressful

Somethings that you may not know or care about ofsted.

when it took over from HMI it was about ranking schools not about helping them improve.
It has changed its criteria many times, often to the detriment of the education system.
It changed satisfactory to requires improvement, suddenly ok was not ok.
At one point the majority of inspectors knew nothing about education and were from outside of the education sector.
At one point it cared more about the paperwork than the actual school, it was possible to get outstanding by proving the paperwork alone.
It has changed from a five day visit to a 2 day visit to a five day visit (if the grading was likely to change)
It has never been an independent inspectorate.
It was used to push schools into becoming academies.
It used to grade individual teachers on one lesson, one lesson in five years could determine your grade as a teacher.
Your school can and is graded on what 11 - 16 yr olds think of it.
Schools can lose marks for pupil's having poor attendance.

Just as the final kicker,
Ofsted failed its own inspection

Excellent post

I don't think anyone disputes that safeguarding is incredibly important, which is why shoving it in with Ofsted every 4 years and tying it to an incredibly high stakes outcome is really, really unhelpful.

But the system that contributed to Ruth Perry's suicide was inhumane. Cruel. And if there is any doubt about this, it should be remembered that when the inadequate Ofsted report was published, it noted that the leadership had changed since the report due to the death of the headteacher and then went on to talk about breakfast club.

Schools absolutely need to be accountable. They get public money and are responsible for children. They do a really crucial job and accountability within that (as well as a continued drive to improve) is key.

However, a system which is more likely to hand ‘outstanding’ judgements to schools in wealthy catchments is heavily flawed. As is the current system of coming in, making a judgement then disappearing. It doesn’t help schools improve and the judgements create competition between schools which is unhealthy and unhelpful. All schools should be good. Inspections should focus on safeguarding being effective, then on what a school does well and where it can improve. Single word judgements (however many of them there are) and colour coding are unnecessary.

Thewholeplaceglitters

Do you remember when the education minster said that the majority of schools should be better than average?

A statistical impossibility, yet this is what schools and teachers have to deal with.

🤔 Education massively improved under the Labour government of 97-10.

At any rate, nothing has changed and I’m surprised people thought it would. It looks like exemplary is the new outstanding!

Auditors.

I’m a teacher here in Australia. The last audit I went through here was actually quite positive. Our leadership team shared the inspectorate’s recommendations with us, which included praise for what we were doing well and guidance as to the improvements they’d like to see on their next visit. Staff meetings were then spent collaborating on an action plan with achievable goals and everyone seemed to feel positive, even excited, about it.

I also went through two Ofsted inspections when I taught in the UK. They were demoralising and dehumanising - just a team of professional bullies descending on the school to swing their power around. I was appalled that children’s education was used as an arena to indulge these sorts of power displays.

If you are a parent who cares about their child’s education, then which do you prefer: a competent inspectorate that works with the school to be the best it can be, or Billy Big Balls inspectors sweeping in with the threat of Unsatisfactory and the power to do as they please?

Prisons get inspected by Ofsted and usually get absolutely slated. They judged on the same level as sixth form and further education colleges. It's diabolical. It's considered a decent result if they scrape requires improvement.

30,000 teachers lessons is sad, but let's out it into perspective.

In state schools 8.8% of teachers leave annually.

13% of prison officers leave annually. Inspected.
11% of nurses. Inspected.
17% social workers. Inspected.

I'm happy for schools not to be in competition when there is nothing to choose between them. When they have vastly different ethos, standards, outcomes (even whilst being in the same area), then absolutely I want to know. Just the same as there's no way I'd put a relative in a care home without reading the CQC report.

Ofsted is only part of the problem. The whole thing needs overhauled including league tables and funding. They were all part of the late 1980s initiative to improve state schools and arguably worked. They are now outdated and place all accountability on the school and teachers instead of parents and students.

The crux of this inspection issue is that it is simply a judgement when what is really needed is an assessment coupled with support and funding to improve those areas where a school is struggling.

I guess we can all dream .... but, hang on a minute ..... that is what we had before the OfSted system was introduced. LA funded inspectors who developed a relationship with each school and had access to funds from an LA education department (yes these used to thrive!) to provide support. But hey ... let's just judge then bugger off .....

Should we be putting an entirely preventable suicide of a headteacher caused by the school inspection system 'into perspective'?

People really don't know what they're talking about.

But I thought schools were told how to improve.

The secondary school my DD is in knew what they needed to do to improve their OFSTED ratings and are working towards that. Infact for a state school, they have made major improvements over the past 5 years.

I think that it’s important for parents to have everything they need to know about a school - the only way to publish this information is to make it public. I usually find only those that are interested will look it up anyway.

Also it’s public service. Surely we are entitled to see public information about schools as a tax payer. The same way I can access information about public hospitals which helps me to make a decision about my health care.

Every suicide is a tragedy.

That doesn't mean that schools shouldn't have a robust inspection regime like most other public services do.

It may be that the regime should be looked at to ensure it isn't unduly punitive, but the ability to handle the stress of heading an organisation under inspection is part of leadership. There should be support and training given to how best to manage it, but ultimately, it's part of the job.

It’s not the sharing of information that is the problem; it is the quality of the information that is shared.

They are necessary despite clearly having an sort of unspoken underwritten consensus that they 'can be flawed / inaccurate..'

You don't know what you're talking about here. The inspection system was the problem, not Ruth Perry's ability to handle stress. There were several factors that formed part of the inspection system that contributed towards her suicide that have changed in response.

Thank God I never have to be inspected ever again. Fuck all these people who have driven poor teachers to insanity.

I’m a farmer and even we have annual inspections. The inspectors come and check our paperwork and animals. If anything was terribly wrong we would be stopped from looking after animals and that would be quite right. However OFSTED aren’t like that. The judgements are often made before the inspectors leave their office. It’s all based on SATs and exam results.

Social services

Completly agree with you, inspectors bring bias.
I am a governor at a federated infants and juniors, who had ofsteds within a few weeks of each other. The juniors sailed through with an outstanding when we were more uncertain, it was a requires improvement and best hope was felt to be a 'good'. The infants which was a good and we felt very confident that it would be marked outstanding but came out as a 'good', the inspector seemed to take objection with how confident the head was with the schools provision and implied she should be more humble. With a child in both I would say the infants is definitely better and deserved an outstanding.