Ofsted - does anyone believe what they say?

[slummymummy24]

I am curious if anyone thinks that the rankings that Ofsted give schools (especially in Early Years) are a true reflection on what actually happens in a setting?
Or are you more likely to listen to what friends have to say. ie. a personal recommendation from someone

Yes I do - although it’s been a while since my kids were early years.

I know reports can vary but every time I’ve d read an Ofsted report I’ve recognised the setting and the strengths / weaknesses have been recognised. The only weird one was my daughter’s forest school setting, as they didn’t have the parameters. But they changed that, came back quite quickly and it got the outstanding it deserved.

It is completely dependant on the inspectors unfortunately. I’ve been in schools where the judgement was entirely fair and the report was very accurate. However, our last ofsted report mentioned that the children in school couldn’t adequately communicate with adults when interviewed about their learning. What they failed to mention was that they requested to speak to our SEND children only, the majority of whom have speech and language difficulties. I had to sit in a room and watch one of our poor ASD students be asked the same question repeatedly until the inspector deemed her response good enough - it was horrific.

It's fine for an overview but a very outdated way of judging a setting so I wouldn't pay much attention.

I know awful schools that got "Good" and an amazing nursery that got rated inadequate!

Not early years but when I was attending evening classes at my local college, which has been rated outstanding for years, they had an Ofsted Inspection.
Numerous teachers told me they were working until 3am - 4am every day that week and then back in at 7am.
They needed to do this to ensure that all their lessons plans and resources etc were up to standard to ensure that all classes they taught were outstanding.
The college was rated outstanding again.
However, if they were having to work until 4am every day for the Ofsted week then I do not believe that they could be outstanding the whole year round.
If they were outstanding all year round then the teachers wouldn't have needed to work so much overtime that one week

I’ve had doubts ever since our chaotic and poorly run nursery was rated “good”,
despite a queue of parents requesting to give feedback to the inspectors to express dissatisfaction or report worrying situations they had witnessed. (It was also an inspection triggered by several parent complaints to OFSTED). After that experience I just decided everything they say has to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I was an advisory teacher for a local authority for 7 years and visited many schools, from nursery to secondary. I can categorically say that the Ofsted rating is meaningless. My DC had a place at an Outstanding secondary school and I chose a Good school that had just been RI because I’d been into both settings and seen how students were treated in each.

As a childminder I can assure you that Ofsted gradings are meaningless.

Yes - I have been in SLT meetings where they discussed how to “train” students in what to say to Ofsted inspectors.

I think it is part of the picture, but so should be speaking to parents with DCs at the school, a good look round, a media check and for me visiting the school at drop off and pick up a couple of times to get a feel for how this feels. It will also vary by individual requirements. In some quite highly rated schools I have found pastoral support sometimes to be quite poor.

Usually accurate my last place was awful and the report was awful.

Yep childminder grades are totally random based on the personal preferences of the inspector - you could get marked down for things like sharing hand towels, letting children sleep in push chairs or helping children put shoes on that another inspector might have no problem with.

I had a discussion about this in our childminder cluster recently and almost no one had actually been asked by a potential parent for their Ofsted report, most people do not care. No one has asked to see mine for years.

Ex teacher here. I agree with others that the rating is meaningless. A much better impression of a school or setting is what others who have experience of it over time actually tell you about it.

No.

I work for a company which runs children’s homes and have seen hideous abuse in homes rated good. One of them was even rated ‘outstanding’ despite being very questionable.

Ofsted came to our school last year. I was beyond impressed by how well their report (the verbal one) matched the Head and the Governor's own judgement and the insight they'd had into every aspect of the school. So I would trust recent reports done in last year or so.

I'm a teacher, so no.

The school the inspectors see is vastly different to the one that operates day to day so no, I wouldn't take any notice whatsoever to the report or rating attached to a school.

At my friend's school, the headteacher is all proud he got outstanding last year but has royally pissed a parent but telling her he wanted to suspend her daughter for hitting back the kid that always hits out at her and that if she didn't like it she could leave! Apparently there were other parents who witnessed the squabble and definitely said the girl only hit back as it happened in the playground at collection time.

I don't think telling a parent that's concerned over her child's safety whilst at school is ofsted outstanding worthy. It's ruffled a lot of feathers in the school community apparently

That parent was head of the PTA who has raised so much money in the past 3 years and was doing a bloody good job of rallying parents to help out at some amazing events that the children and parents loved like summer funfairs, fireworks nights, circuses! My friend said these events were great.
Said parent has now quit the PTA and is now moving schools and not one person has volunteered to take it on so the school has now lost loads of money and the promise of a minibus.

Anyone who asks about the school has been told this story too, they can't believe the head was so rude to a parent. It's quite the scandal at the moment!

No. According to Ofsted, 98% of early years settings are good or outstanding. That is absurd.

Not really. My DS's old nursery was Good with Outstanding features for over a decade. Then they had an inspector who gave them inadequate jn everything because a child was crying at the dinner table and they might have choked on their food. They were re-inspected and given Good again.
Same inspector gave that rating the month after and the owner was so disheartened she closed it down. There have been protests in town about it.

Still not convinced it wasn't better when the LEA did the inspections.

Personal recommendations. As first time parents we went for a lovely looking ofsted outstanding preschool it was honestly worst decision of my life, a shocking place. Manager was sacked a year later

Why would they ask to see it though? They’re publicly available online. I read both my childminders’ reports but they wouldn’t have known as I didn’t tell them!

i do agree though that they’re largely meaningless. I only read them to check for safeguarding red flags, I went with my gut. Both were rated good not outstanding.

Ive worked in schools where the ofsted was fair, and others where it was ridiculous. One thing they do is take an isolated incident and report it as if it is a general pattern. The child crying at dinner mentioned above is a classic example. It was probably written as ‘children are left to cry at dinner which could lead to choking’. My son’s current nursery wrote that ‘staff are not aware of allergies’. Apparently the reality was that one new member of staff didn’t know about a particular child’s allergies - said child was on a settling in session (ie 2nd day) and their key worker, who was feeding them, did know. Ridiculous!!

This! I'm also a childminder and Ofsted see us for 3 hours every 6 years. They only get a snapshot of our settings, not a true representation of it. If the kids have an off day, you're stuffed! Each inspector inspects differently and looks for different things.
Our local secondary school had an inspection a few weeks ago which was 10 YEARS after the last one! A lot can happen in that time!

No, mainly when schools get outstanding, it's purely a result of ruthless leadership teams completely focussing on achieving that outcome in many cases to the detriment of the staff and pupils.

Not at all, and I'm a teacher!!