Just how important is a Good (or Outstanding) Ofsted report?

[greenmoo]

We are thinking about moving house and all of the primary schools where we want to move to are currently rated Satisfactory (the local secondary school is rated Outstanding however). DS is three and a half so won't be starting school until Autumn 2013.

DP is a teacher and thinks that Ofsted reports are important. When choosing a nursery for DS I didn't go to look at any that weren't rated at least Good, and we're very happy with the care and education he's getting in the one I ultimately picked. That makes me feel we should be considering this as a factor when deciding where to move. But the village we're thinking about is lovely, with nice shops and parks and lots of community activities going on.

Private education is not an option for us. And I would rather have the certainty of living in the catchment area for a decent school than applying for schools from outside the catchment area and risking being turned down.

Where we currently live the local school is now rated Satisfactory but a couple of years ago it was Inadequate and there was a bit of a scandal when a teacher locked a kid in a cupboard, so we definitely don't want DS to go there. And we need to move house.

I am a teacher and have been ofsteded several times. Each time I think Ofsted have got it right and so yes, I think it does matter.

I now have a similar dilemma to yours in that the junior school attached to the infants where DD currently goes is rated satisfactory. I think I am going to send her there anyway but I wouldnt let her go to a stisfactory secondary school.

That's interesting. What about an Outstanding school from 11-14 but a Satisfactory school from 14-16? Should have explained that's how it works in our part of the country: we have lower secondary and upper secondary schools.

The thing is, when I was a kid I went to the local primary and lower secondary school but then my mum applied outside of catchment and sent me to a different, supposedly better, upper secondary to all my friends and I was miserable there. I think once in your kid is in a school system you are best to keep them there if at all possible.

I don't think they are the "be all and end all", for two reasons:

1. My DS's old state primary was "Outstanding", but I thought it was terrible. The children were molly-coddled to the extreme, any small bump or very minor injury meant a trip to the first aid room, often several a week for DS. Since he moved to another school, he has been twice in 5 years. The children didn't do any proper sport, it was yoga and country dancing for years 2 and 3. So the school may have been outstanding in terms of ticking those Ofsted boxes, but it didn't tick many of my requirements. (Independence, sport, focus on spelling, times tables etc).

1. I work in a state school on a sink estate. The children are way, way behind the national average when they join us, and don't do well at all in KS2 Sats, however, the children make on average 16 APS points progress in English & Maths during their time with us, which is well above the national average of 12. We are giving them the equivalent of 6 years education in 4, but because of our dreadful SATS results, we were graded satisfactory with some good points.

They did get the teaching right though, the teachers we believe are excellent and inspirational were also graded excellent by Ofsted.

Yoga and country dancing sounds kind of good to me, diabolo, I'm not a big fan of sport. And I'm not sure of the value of rote learning times tables and spelling, like we did when I was at school.

What about stuff like school/class size and the number of kids receiving free school dinners, is that stuff I should be looking at too?

I think they are important but you need to bear in mind other things. My dd has attended a satisfactory school and it was awful. I have taught in two schools put under special measures and they were both somewhere I would have had concerns sending my daughter to. I also have worked in an outstanding school which was anything but and an outstanding school which was exactly that.

You do need to read the report rater than just looking at the grade.

You can drive yourself mad with ofsted reports. I tend to think a lot of the things ofsted gets bees in its bonnet about are not all that important in the scheme of things. I would want to know how the actual teaching was rated rather than stuff like community outreach and healthy school dinner schemes etc.

I think you will have to visit the places and get a feel.

To each their own greenmoo - the rote learning has worked a treat for DS. I am an old fashioned kind of gal though, so maybe that's why I preferred a more traditional approach.

To be fair, 99% of the other parents loved it. I was the odd one out.

Well we've just moved house. Partly because we'd outgrown the old house (we have 2 children now) but the big motivator was the 'satisfactory' school that DS would have had to go to if we stayed in that area.

We were v focused as to where we wanted to move ie targeted schools (that we knew about from friends, visited previously etc). Of course the area was also suitable in terms of proximity to work, nice area etc.

We are now in the catchment of a 'good' school. And we are v happy even though our new house needs bringing up to date to this current century!!

Agree with diabolo
When we were looking round primary schools the "outstanding" school could only talk about it's good SATs results whereas the "satisfactory" school had excellent pastoral care and seemed generally interested in dd as a person rather than just a statistic!
Even if a school is rated "satisfactory" overall, the OFSTED report does grade each area. So I would look for grade 1 or 2 for leadership and management and teaching and learning as these are the most important areas.
Also remember that schools can change - the satisfactory school I chose is now rated "good" and has improved significantly over the past five years.