What to look for in an Offset Report?

[angelamoore]

Hello,

Ignoring all politically correct issues, what sort of factors would a potential tiger mother need to look at when analysing an Offset report?

Thanks,

Angela.

Do you mean ofsted?

The main things I would be concerned about in a school would be the value added (which you won't find in an ofsted report) and how the school deals with bullying.

To get the value added I would just google the school with "value added" and see what the results are.

Value Added just indicates how well a school has brought on pupils from one test level to another and is a good indicator of the quality of teaching in a school.

Nothing. I don't think Ofsted says anything of value.

I do like to analyse the data on the DfE league tables. But still without knowing the school it doesn't say much.

Read the reports very carefully and don't discount a school because of the overall grade. In particular, don't automatically dismiss a 'Requires Improvement' school as this is a very wide-ranging grade. It can mean very nearly good with perhaps some factors keeping it in RI - e.g. progress of vulnerable groups like children with SEN or entitled to Pupil Premium. But it can also mean - has missed Special Measures by a whisker. Also RI reports vary greatly in tone - some read very positively indeed.

Likewise some schools are only put in special measures because of safeguarding issues like non-compliance with regulatory requirements, and the standard of education is actually very high (schools like this would probably be back to Good within a year or so).

For all schools look at the data dashboard and see which quintiles the school is in. High quintiles = generally good news.

Look for comments about how able children are stretched.

Ofsted reports by their nature are broad-brush. They won't cover lots of things that matter to tiger mothers so do visit the school to check out these things

Also - take into account how old the report is. If it was some years ago it might have limited value - the school could now be a very different place especially if the head has changed or the staff turnover has been high.

I compared two ''Good"schools by Ofsted. However the report language for the both axioms was quite different. One report wrote alot about "striving for excellence", how the more able were being challenged and stretched just as much as the other end of the ability spectrum. The other report was a bit thinner in this kind of language and didn't make as many pointers in its description of the school. They are both good schools but one of the schools achieved LEVEL 6 for about a third of its final year cohort in Primary School. That's way above national standards. For the other school, only a handful out of its 90 year intake got to Level 6 in Maths and English.

The higher achieving school narrowly missed on outstanding due to other things (like gaps in documenting processes).

Definitely look at the statistics!!

When you are reading the report look out for sentences along the lines of "xyz school does blah blah blah, HOWEVER ...... The comment after the however is usually something that the school needs to improve on. So could be something like - school provides a wide and varied curriculum, HOWEVER high achieving students are not challenged because the school does not provide any depth.

I would be concerned if management was less than good - if it is outstanding then that will hopefully mean there are plans in place to improve school.

Also bear in mind that goal posts have moved - many schools judged as "good" in 2015 might well have been judged "outstanding" a couple of years ago. So if you are weighing up a school with a recent "good" against a school with an older "outstanding" then they might actually be very similar.

Take a look at the ParentView of the school. See what other parents have marked school as.

What are "politically correct issues" ?

what sort of factors would a potential tiger mother need to look at when analysing an Offset report?

Margins of error.

Go and visit the schools. You will get much more of a sense of whether that school will 'fit' your child. Then read the reports and see if they tally with what you saw.

Talk to the Head teacher if you can and to the children in the school. Do not base any decision on what you read in a report.

I think a REAL tiger mother would know there is no such body as 'offset'. And no it wasn't a typo as it appears in the thread title as well as the first post.

Scope for greater development, OP. in other words pretty lame