To think most Ofsted inspectors seem devoid of human emotions

[Amammai]

Yes I know really it’s just their job.
Yes schools do need to be held to account.
Yes someone has to do the job.

But honestly, are there any Ofsted inspectors on here who can share what actually drives them to do the job? Does being so harsh and often abrupt to people not keep them up at night?

I work in a school. Despite all the promises of taking into account staff mental health etc. I am yet to have been through an inspection which actually truly did this.

if you make a complaint, Ofsted investigates Ofsted. There is now external body for investigation.

So,

YABU - Ofsted inspectors are just doing their job and school staff need to crack on

YANBU - Ofsted inspectors are a certain type of person who thrive on belittling people

No.

I get a verifier come and sit at my desk, who knows very little about the system they are verifying and definitely not a subject expert.

Who picks random lines out of the reported outcomes and expects me to be able to trace them fully through from the native production and demonstrate how they comply with the regulations and the process. And fail is a fine at best.

Outcome and extent to which they agree with our interpretations of the regulations and how to apply them determines our compliance level. Which is published publicly. And also dictates the charging regime were subject to.

In teaching your inspection results are generally attributed to the school as a whole. In other sectors it’s individuals who are specifically checked and the outcome is directly related to them.

Yes I did. But ofstead still have an obligation to ensure the eduction of disabled children is being provided.

LA’s do this, where school improvement teams have survived Conservative budget cuts and their view that LA’s should only be responsible for statutory duties.

Improving schools is not a statutory duty and the Conservative government removed the grants, repurposing this by giving it to teaching schools and multi academy trusts for school to school support.

I've been through 2 that were good to deal with.
However about 10 years ago I was in a school inspected and they were awful. Ignored reception children who tried to speak to them when they were playing in continuous provision, left smelly lunch rubbish all over the meeting rooms table when staff were called in to be interviewed, so they had to make a space in the rubbish for themselves, spoke to our lovely NQT (8 weeks into her first post) like she was something they had trodden in.
Despite getting a good outcome, it left an awful impression.

I work for an organisation that gets inspected by Ofsted but not a school/college/nursery/child minders etc. I've found them incredibly patronising and belittling in the inspections that I've experienced.

We also get inspected by another body who seem to be much more diverse- some horrors but some with much better people skills. What are I hate about Ofsted is how subjective a lot of it is and how their judgements seem down to their personal opinion and are not standardised.

If other jobs were like teaching

I always think this brilliant video explains everything you need to know about ofsted or cofsted as Mr P describes it.

Offstead was the worst thing ever,EVER to happen. It was not put there to help, but destroy and control

And now the head of Ofsted is suggesting that summer holidays should be cut.

Like fuck off. Try and see how many teachers would quit if you did that.

"In English state schools, there are 195 days that schools have to be open. Five of those are for teacher development and 190 days actually educating children - child facing...190 days of children going in out of 365. I think the question should be is that long enough?"

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/martyn-oliver-time-to-rethink-length-summer-holidays

This is not an institution that gives a shiny shit about whether there are enough teachers.

If the dozy buggers want to increase face-to-face teaching and learning time, they'll have to pay the teachers more. Most unlikely.

The utter twazzock is kite-flying. He has to be seen to be doing something, so dredges up this old chestnut.

However it is a useful indicator of his attitude towards teachers and his ignoring of the research and practice that has already been done.

I have had quite a number of Ofsted inspections especially during my time in a failing school. On the whole they have been fine and have had positive feedback. The most surprising one was when a lead inspector who was training into the role had to be stopped in her final report back to us, by the HMI who was observing her. She had to be told (as a secondary teacher) that the reason she hadn't seen separate science subject lessons was because we taught combined sciences in primary. She really did say that it was a failing of the school that she hadn't seen a biology lesson or planning for teaching the seperate science subjects! It was crazy when they came back in and she had to say that part of the report would be removed!

Yes, not using the context is the worst. I met with an inspector ( AsHT in a large secondary) who had concerns about the ‘timeliness of adding a completed action date to a safeguarding record’, kept insisting that the ‘safeguarding team’ were ineffective.

Safeguarding team…in a two teacher primary school!

I've also met with some very rude inspectors. The worst, an inspector working also for a large academy trust.She treat me like a piece of sh*t on various occasions, including when I challenged her inaccuracy over data. The primary she was inspecting more recently, was weeks from joining a MAT. Unusually, she rated the school much more positively than the LA! In a one day inspection, she had left the building by 14.00! Nothing to get in the way of a conversion from maintained to academy!

I could write a book, as I have been through numerous inspections and work supporting schools, so I meet with the inspection team at every inspection.

I worked in. Key Stage 3 School. For 2 of the 3 days the inspectors were telling us that they were going to put us in special measures because of our Key Stage 4 data. They wouldn’t listen. It was only on the final day when they asked the head for a copy of our previous report that they realised they had got it wrong. On a different inspection when they asked the team arrived, one member gave the head a business card telling him that he runs a business sorting out failing schools like your. This was before the inspection had started. The head contacted OFSTED who had no problem with it.

The system is horribly inconsistent. In small rural schools that share heads, the exact same planning can be inspected and given completely different feedback. The same governing body can be deemed Outstanding in one school and Good in another, a month or two apart. Surely this shows the system is not fit for purpose.

@noblegiraffe
How many days do Ofsted work??

Very clever Sir Martyn and your media team, deflecting away from the criticism of Ofsted’s proposed new framework and the organisation in general.

Putting teachers back in the firing line on a subject that always grabs attention!

And there are not 365 possible school days…weekends here we come pupils and school staff…😉

Precisely, they just never put the children first. Extra time in school is not a good idea, they spend quite enough time learning. Children absolutely need a good break from it. The priority should be to massively trim the curriculum to give children the chance to fully engage and retain more effectively.

Minus weekends and bank holidays there are 255 weekdays a year. And the kids are already in for 190 of those - more than 75%.

Yes as a childminder who has been recently inspected I was very disappointed at how the inspection hasn’t really changed in years. A colleague had an awful experience and the inspector wouldn’t stop grilling her until she burst into tears. They try to trip us up by asking us to do things in another room and leave the children alone. It’s a horrible experience and we are alone with them and the children. She made it very clear she was going to downgrade me by whatever means she could find.

In teaching your inspection results are generally attributed to the school as a whole.

Wrong.

My last school had 90+ teachers I believe. Ofsted observed 16 lessons, around 20 minutes of each. The person observing mine had no clue about my subject. The person who osberved me in my last school gave me the most ridiculous feedback showcasing they too had no clue. Not sure how seeing 15 minutes of someones random lesson gives you an overview of the whole of their teaching. It's like seeing 5 minutes of a play and shutting the theatre down if you dont like it.

We had a meeting with the inspector who was asking us extremely leading questions trying to make a very certain political point. I cant share the many inappropriate comments the inspectors said during the inspection, but they clearly behaved like it was Wild Wild West and they were not really hiding their agenda. They knew what they wanted to prove.

A school my friend worked in had an equally bullying bunch, and they managed to challenge the decision and overturn it because the findings were not factual at all.
I have no heard of any other industry a bunch of clowns make such serious judgements that impacts hundreds of lives.

Given you’re not showing any evidence of taking onboard what happens in any other sector, I’m not surprised ‘you haven’t heard of any’.