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?

This bothers me too. Ruth Perry’s suicide was a tragedy and I feel desperately sad for her family and loved ones. But keeping children safe is the absolute basic priority ahead of everything else and if a school can’t show they’re doing that then the maths teaching etc hardly matters.

Also my understanding of the Samaritans advice on reporting of suicide isn’t to suggest that one cause led to someone taking their own life.

No one denies that safeguarding is important, but the system that contributed to Ruth Perry committing suicide was utterly and unnecessarily cruel and changes have been made in response.

There was an inquiry which concluded that the Ofsted inspection contributed to her suicide. It's a matter of public record, and important to acknowledge for prevention of future deaths.

There you go. Proof that it doesn't have to be like that, and that other countries do not necessarily seem to need to operate like that. And is our school system better as a result of this biased, dehumanising, and inaccurate way of inspecting? Is it?

A quick Google tells me that Finland (often held up as an example for its education system) has... no inspection system.

If anyone else would like to cast doubt on the role of Ofsted in the suicide of Ruth Perry, you could read this first

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67612233

I completely agree with this post. As a parent I want to see the same level of scrutiny as for instance CQC. I'm not saying external inspections can't be improved, but I want to know exactly how a school is being led, what this means for performance and the happiness and care of pupils and staff.

I was also very uncomfortable with how the tragic death of Ruth Perry was used in discussions about Ofsted's future. It felt very opportunistic to me.

The most prominent person who fought hard to have these discussions was Ruth Perry's sister, Julia Waters.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67660350

Schools get audited. And hygiene inspections. And JCQ inspections without notice. And section 48/SIAMS inspections if they're a faith school. And the LA can arrive for a safeguarding inspection without notice.

Having been privy to a brutal ofsted, I can see just how it drove her to despair, both the judgement delivered by the inspector, and the rules around it saying heads must keep the inspection outcome secret until it's published, or face penalty. The fact she couldn't speak to anyone outside the schools senior leadership and governors about this meant it was harder for her to seek the support she needed from health professionals.

Ofstead is a waste of time doesn't show a true reflection!!!

As PPs have covered, absolutely loads of areas, particularly the public services, are regulated by bodies who produce public judgements. I've worked for many regulators and sat on governing bodies of multiple schools. The teaching profession is the only one I've ever experienced which really cannot handle anyone passing judgement. Responses/reactions to ofsted are absolutely ridiculous and the hyperbole on this thread is entirely typical.

The coroner disagrees with you.

Unfortunately Finland’s education standards have declined dramatically in the last 20 years and no one really knows why….. all the talk of their education miracle (due to x, y, later formal education, no private schools, and now no inspections blah blah blah ) doesn’t hold true any more. Lots of commentators haven’t caught up….

I don’t know if OFSTED inspections are a good or bad thing, but there is a striking similarity in the pushback of those working in schools to those working in universities from any external criticism (on some other threads on redundancies in universities). It may well be that you are all doing a marvellous job and we (on the outside) all misunderstand the constraints you are working under, but as a group (and I know generalisations are dangerous and exceptions exist) you sure don’t like any sort of external assessment or criticism. That in and of itself is a massive red flag.

On the Ruth Perry tragedy, the public reports said her school failed on some quite straight forward safe guarding record keeping. If you were a headteacher anticipating an OFSTED inspection at anytime (her school was overdue an inspection) wouldn’t you make sure your paperwork was up to scratch? This is basic leadership/management 101. She wasn’t blindsided by an unruly child on the day of the inspection or a teacher having a bad day; the paperwork/basic employment checks hadn’t been done. This speaks to a school not being appropriately managed - and the governor with responsibility for safe guarding should have been on top of this too so she wasn’t properly supported. It’s easy to say this on an anonymous forum and I get that IRL people don’t want to say these things and dance around them.

I think the debate around OFSTED is muddied as the many players have different motives:

• some want no inspections at all
• some want only minimal inspections that don’t criticise teachers
• some want to use the whole OFSTED debate as a Trojan horse to get rid of academies and bring all schools back under LA control
• some (including on this thread) don’t want parents to have any choice on school and so don’t want any comparisons made between schools
• some people find any sort of performance management/appraisal stressful and therefore think OFSTED inspections are a reason why it is difficult to recruit teachers/teachers leave the profession
• some people think a school’s performance is totally dictated by its intake so any sort of performance assessment is unfair….

The question is, has the OFSTED inspection regime contributed to an improvement in standards in schools?

You don't appear to acknowledge anywhere in your post that there have been criticisms of the Ofsted process particularly around the suicide of Ruth Perry that are absolutely valid and nothing at all to do with wanting to dodge accountability or being unable to take criticism.

Why is that?

What other professionals have anything similar to Ofsted, OP? Internal appraisals, yes absolutely. But an external body who swoops in for two days, delivers their judgement and then publishes it for the world to see? I can't readily think of another profession with a similar system?

Are you kidding me?

Pretty much all professions are subject to external audit and accountability.

• companies have external audit on their financial statements
• they will also get audited by things like health and safety regulators, tax authorities
• banks & insurers etc are subject to regulators who regularly audit
• care homes, nurseries, prisons, hospitals, all reviewed

Its basic accountability? There has to ways to measure/assess performance and operations.

Oh and in a big company the external audit firm often come TWICE every year, but for the full big audit its at least once a year. Its a lot of work.

Ofsted in itself has never been the problem, the problem is the systematic meltdown senior management go through that makes teaching a living hell. Good teachers embrace Ofsted, incompetent management go into psychotic mode and when they fail blame the staff anyway.

Naive.

Ofsted is a political tool as much as a school inspectorate. Remember they inspected the last LA school in Sheffield and it unexpectedly got rated inadequate that meant that it could be taken over by any MAT the DfE wanted, and it turned out the school got given to a MAT where one of the trustees worked for the DfE?

And it was only a group of parents fighting the decision that delayed it till the school got reinspected when it was suddenly Good again and the academisation order had to be overturned?

It would be a foolish teacher who thinks that Ofsted is there to help, and not there on their own agenda.

A school local to us unexpectedly dropped from Outstanding to Inadequate, despite three years of the highest consistent high results on record. It was taken over by a MAT. The rules stated that schools have to be re inspected a year after Academisation. Surprise surprise, the school was back to being Outstanding, despite nothing changing except it joining the MAT.

Thanks for the condescending tone, but I've been at the coal face as a Teacher/College lecturer for 25+ years and been through more Ofsted's than you've had hot dinners.
What your eluding to a corruption within Ofsted, Hidden agendas etc. Of that I have no knowledge, I'm refering to day to day Ofsted..

You might have been through Ofsted but you don't appear to have paid any attention to the politics around Ofsted. For example, Bridget Phillipson said the other day that too many schools are rated good or above, so expect schools to start being downgraded, regardless of whether they have maintained standards since the last inspection.

And some think that inspection judgments should be coupled with support and funding to the school to improve in the areas where it is needed.

The system we have does not help to improve a school, which is surely everyone's aim.

So many people on this forum quite rightly say that the education system is broken.
Yet so many of them support ofsted in its current form either not realising or not caring that it's ofsted that supports and pushes a broken system.
If the system is to change then ofsted has to change as well.

There are fundamental questions behind all this of who is Ofsted for? Just looking at inspections of schools and not nurseries or childminders or social services or whatever. When Ofsted goes in and inspects a school - why are they doing it, who is their prime 'audience'? Are they doing it for parents, to tell them what is happening behind the doors of the school between 9-3, to tell them if their kid's teachers are doing a good or not, and to help them to decide which school to send their child to? Is it for the headteacher and governors, to independently assess their performance and provide assurance on what is going well or what they need to focus on to improve? Is it for the Department for Education, as an audit, to identify where publicly funded schools are doing a shit job and need to do better? Is it for society as a whole, so we can reflect on how well we're educating the nation's children? What is the main reason for Ofsted. Some of the audiences have conflicting interests and priorities, which makes it difficult to picture what the best sort of report would look like.

I think this article is good on Ruth Perry & Ofsted. Wrong was done, but attributing her death to Ofsted breaks the Samaritan guidelines. Many MN posters blame TRAs for weaponsing suicide, and I agree, but it's wrong for any group to do that. We must be even handed. Removing the locus of control of the person who takes their own life is v dangerous.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/we-cant-blame-ofsted-for-ruth-perrys-death-r6twcm8js&ved=2ahUKEwi564nt4fuMAxU5_rsIHSUdM20QFnoECEIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1qEGL-0EFiWjDdOhCFlmxS