Shocking OFSTED report means we have to move!

[zephyrcat]

Hi all - DD is 3 at xmas so have started to look for her first school. There is only really one choice as I don't drive and we live in a tiny village so all the others are out in the middle of no-where. I have worked in childcare since I left school so decided to have a read through their OFSTED report before signing up. I am soooooo glad I looked!! Every single result was 'Well below National Average' the 'Majority of children were unable to form corerct handwriting skills as they hadn't been shown how to hold a pencil correctly' 'the standard of teaching was good in 2 of 5 lessons' - Not excellent, not of a high standard - just 'good'. There is no way I can send her to that!!?!?! Does anyone else check school OFSTED reports? It might be worth your while!!!

When was the inspection carried out though? have they improved at all? It wiould be worth talking to the school about it to see what measures they have put in place before you dismiss it.
I have read all the OFSTED reports for schools round here, and find them really picky, and sometimes not a great reflection of the school. Having a dh who is a teacher and has gone through several inspections I'm not sure that I'd base a decision about a school solely on their reports.

go to the school first ... speak to head and teachers .. see it for yourself

find out plans for the next few years and talk to the pta too

I only say this cos the school DS now goes to as pre-school was shocking 3 years ago but in the last 2 years has had a super-head, new staff and a really growing and useful parents and friends committee .. and is now FAB and I will not hesitate to send both kids there ... better than the alternative which 'had' a good reputation but is now resting on its laurels

(not discounting ofsted but they tend to be historical documents)

This was the most recent report and it also says that the school has 'significantly improved'! So i dread to think what it was like before! One of the other things it stated was that teachers weren't bothering to plan lessons and that the brighter students were being given work that was too simple for them and therefore not progressing, and just getting bored. Surely holding a pencil correctly is a basic thing they should be teaching??

but what year was it zephyrcat? is it due another one soon, and before you have to make a choice? Have you heard much about it before?

Having just started the application process I had to read them for the schools in the area as we currently don't live there. Found them hard going and difficult to see the wood for the trees. They are so verbose and repetitive and often state the obvious. Agree that those types of comments would set alarm bells ringing with me too though. How recent is the report and when is it due to be reviewed - "weak" schools tend to have a shorter period between visits- and it could have improved since.

In the end I relied on our personal knowledge, such as it is, school reputation, location and prospectuses as much as the Ofsted. However at least I felt as if there was some choice. How do the school's KS1/KS2 results compare to the LEA and National average. The problem with smaller schools is that one child's good or bad day can skew the percentages so we tried to look at a trend over a few years, but found it still pretty confusing.

most recent can be up to 3 years old though

talk to them before you make up your mind .. honestly .. it may reinforce or dispute the report

unless you want to move

I will go back and re-check the year although i'm pretty certain it was only last year. We are going to the pre-school playgroup this afternoon so we can really see what its like and see how the teachers are. Have to admit i'm a little worried about leaving her there!!!

I think they are good for a guide but also going and looking at the place helps..

FWIW - I taught with a teacher who could pull out brilliant lessons for OFsted etc but who day to day was a nightmare to work with despite being an assistant head - late to lessons, kids running riot outside classroom where she had sent them, work not assessed at all or incorrectly, syllabuses not being met and so on....

Oh I know zephyr, it's a nightmare isn't it? ds will be due to start at about the same time as your dd, and I've just been reading the reports for our nearest school. It's littered with phrases like "overall attainment of the children.... has been steadily falling since the last inspection", "standards... are not as high as they should be", "resources are not good enough" and "requirements are not met" - and that's just on the first page of text, it gets worse! Since that report, the school has had it's staffing levels reduced, so I'm finding it difficult to evisage things being better now.

Unfortunately we're also in the catch 22 situation where they are changing the admission procedure so that you can only make one application to the LEA, not seperate applications to individual schools, and they are saying that if you don't apply for your catchment area school as top choice, and don't get the school you prefer, you'll just get whatever's left - which could be anywhere in the county, and they will start to fill places from the most undersubscribed schools first.

Funny thing is though, that talking to the parents of the other kids around here, none of them seem to be even considering other schools (except for the ones who are sending their son to a private school, but still sending their daughter to the local state school).

We really don't want to move, and we can't really afford to go private either - but I think we'll be going to the open days at some of the local private schools next week to investigate the alternatives and at least keep our options open.

It's not just the "well below average" type comments which are worrying though it's the ones like "over time the pupils have not made the expected progress". Our school isn't in an area which you'd describe as having any social problems, or any obvious reason for the results, and yet Ofsted, SATs, value added, etc all seem to point to a problem. Worrying.

Do bear in mind that bad Ofsteds do mean that the Governors have to draw up an action plan to tackle the main failings, so schools can actually make significant improvements after an Ofsted ... well, that's the theory anyway

I would definitely recommend going to visit the s school anyway. Don't go to an open day. Phone and ask to be shown around by a senior staff member, and ask them specifically about the factors which most worry you from the Ofsted report, and how they are tackling them.

Putting myself in your shoes I would be seriously unhappy about this school. It sounds dire imo and unless it was a very old report, it's unlikely that sufficient change could be made that would make you change your mind.

I know what others are saying about visiting the school and Ofsted isn't everything, however these reports are provided in order to give parents and schools alike, a good indication the perfomance of both the staff and the pupils.

I've just spent 3 hours at the pre-school playgroup with DD. She loved it and it was fine. Their OFSTED report was pretty good. I then find out that although they are on the school grounds, its nothing to do with the school, it's run by a comittee of parents!
Still at least she can go there for now til I sort out a better school. Big relief!!!

Do any of those parents also have children at the school to give you a different perspective or do they all drive their kids further afield ?

Zephircat, I'm not sure if Ofsted reports can be completely trusted. DS's first nursery (at my university) was known as "the place of the idle fat ladies", at any time of the day you visited children were looking at TV or playing around at the garden with no organised activities. Staff was very hostile and I haven't meet a single parent who did not move their children to other nurseries as soon as they could get hold of a place. Children didn't seem happy and food was truly horrid. However, the Ofstead report mentions "high standard" through out all the sections, children were advanced at verbal and numeric skills and seemed to be well stimulated for their age. Well, you may wonder how such a bad setting can present such wonderful results? the truth is that all kids at that nursery were children of university academic staff or PhD students who place a great amount of emphasis on early education (so much that sometimes I wonder if it's healthy), so the wonderful results came from the children's home environment rather than the nursery. The positive thing of this is that this means that if you pay attention to your child education he will be a great student whatever the school he is in, but if you are a bit like me who believe education is a joint effort of home and school AND nothing has changed at this school since the Ofstead report, you may like to learn to drive to take your child to another school with better results

Hi, here is my 2p worth!

Ofsted reports are very useful, but do bear in mind that they are just a "snapshot" - the latest report for a school can be anything up to 6 years old.

Every so often Ofsted change the way in which they inspect schools - this last happened a couple of years ago & the reports under the current framework are notable for being very ungenerous with "very goods" as regards teaching - satisfactory is considered to be the expected level. So, tbh, if it's a recent report (last 2 years) and the teaching is described as good I would say that's not bad at all.

I certainly wouldn't ignore the report but I wouldn't write the school off either - the suggestion that you arrange a visit & specifically ask the head about the areas of the report that concern you is very sound advice. Use your own judgement, what you see/feel in the school coupled with the answers you get to these questions will prob tell you all you need to know.

Goodluck!

I would like to follow up on the level of teaching and learning in schools and what it actually means. The current expected achievement for schools is to get a given per cent of levels at "satisfactory". We have noticed that to even get a "Good" in the current climate of OFSTED inspectiosn is pretty hard going. So much of it depends on outside factors too.

Also please take the level of quality judgements carefully. A "bad" teacher can get a "good" lesson under inspection - because they know what to do on the day, and will pull out all the stops, doing everything different for a week. Similar an "good" teacher can come out not so great - as this teacher may well be the one who just carries on as they normally do, following normal procedures, etc. and they may genuinely just have an off day.

To put it a bit in perspective, the school (secondary) which I work at is in special measures. One of the criteria for getting out of special measures is to achive 90% of all lessons at "satisfactory" or higher.

As a parent, I do check out OFSTED reports, but not on their own. A report must be VERY recent to be of much use. Also visit the school, look around, walk by at start and end of the day, and at break/lunch time, talk to parents, see the prospectus, etc.

Ask the school about the last OFSTED too. What measures are in place to correct the problems?

If the OFSTED is a year or two old, you may find that the school has done an awful lot of work to recitify such issues.

Don't trust ofsted reports! DS1's current mainstream school has an average/good current ofsted report but was in special measures a few years ago (new head etc) and it is a good school now. The unit I would never send him to has just had a very good ofsted report (pity they don't do the stuff they say they do every day), and we are currently looking at 2 special schools. Both have excellent ofsted reports, but I know one (with a 2 year old report) has some problems currently. If you can talk to parents- you'll get a much better idea. beware of the odd person with a bad experience - but ime you tend to find lots of people saying the same things if there are problems.

I would be very wary of relying on the OFSTED report alone. My daughter's school had results in English, Maths and Science at KS2 at D and E (below and well below average). However 16% of these pupils had special eduactional needs. But my experience, and that of talking to other parents, is that they are happy with the school.

A school gets the pupils it gets. If yours is the village school presumably it reflects the whole range of entry abilities in that village. You really do need to see the school and talk before you write it off.

I've not been able to read all this thread but just wanted to say that ds1 has just started in the nursery at our only local school. Ofsted report says school is well below average and is getting D and E scores, but that the children are happy to be at school and that socio-economic factors of the town have to be taken into account.
IMO its better that he's in a friendly atmosphere where he feels comfortable and able to learn than in a school where results might be good but the atmos is not so happy. Sorry, bit garbled, just finishing "work" (ahem).

Tinker 16% SEN (unless they are all statemented) is about average for schools in England.

hmb - this is from the report, which also shows how out of date it is.

In the 1999 national tests for 11 year olds in English and science the school?s results were below the
national average. In mathematics results were well below the national average. However, these results
include the scores of six pupils on a statement of special educational need who attend the special
educational needs unit attached to the school. In this respect the overall scores for the end of Key Stage 2
national tests are distorted, especially since a further five pupils were on high levels of the special
educational needs register. These 11 pupils represented approximately 16 per cent of the cohort. To
exemplify the effect of unit pupils on standards if those pupils with special educational needs who attend
the unit are removed from the calculation pupils? attainment in science would have been above the national
average not below. As a result the inspection team believes it is unhelpful to compare this school with
similar school because the criteria involve only free school meals entitlement.

I didn't realise that you were talking about primary. I don't know what the levels are like in primary school. In the secondary I work in we have 16% on the SEN regester, 15% is (IIRC) the national average. We get 60% A* - C grades at GCSE and our intake is below av for parental incom and educational qualifications.

I think the issue with the Ofsted report isn't the numbers on the reg, but their degree of need IYSWIM. The majority of kids on the SEN regester with us are on the lower two levels of need, school action and school action plus.

TBH it just goes to show how silly ofstead is, especialy in Primary where a very small number of kids can squew the data one way or another. It makes a bit more sense in secondary where there are larger numbers of kids (bit only a bit!)

I'd say definitely not - I teach in Secondary and have only ever taught in 'good' schools (ones listed in the Times good state school guide, and got a very good from Ofsted) and to be honest, I don't think they are particularly good schools, they just know how to play the system! Another large educational establishment I know of is currently preparing for Ofsted, and they are determined to get a top grade, so all the rubbish teachers will be out on trips, etc during ofsted week, lesson plans will be checked and approved a month before the inspection, the school is writing a list of propsed 'inspections' that the inspectors might like to see when they come (then if they don't visit and the schoool gets marked down, they can appeal the grade stating that the inspectors failed to observe the examples of good practice) the whole thing is complete madness, a good ofsted school is simply one who knows how to play the system, nothing more!