2nd Ofsted within a year

[PennywisePoundFoolish]

DC's school got RI last year, this was the first time they have ever not had good. It's had regular inspections as it's an independent Special School.

Now Ofsted are back in again. When DC was in the local mainstream, the school swung between RI and Inadequate (over a period of 10+ years) but there was years between full inspections (obviously had interim visits etc).

I feel really quite concerned what the reason could be? It is definitely a full inspection - letter and parent view questionnaire etc.

It's normal for schools in a category to have more frequent inspections.

It’s to get them out of ri. Completely normal.

I think they aim to reinspect RI schools within 2 years.

I'm surprised as the local school definitely had never had a full inspection within a year, it's more like 2 years after. There doesn't appear to have been an interim inspection, just straight into a full one 10 months later.

There's been a lot of rubbishing independent special schools by the DfE so I'm probably hypersensitive! I'll just have to wait and see what the report says.

I had a telephone conversation with the inspector today, it seems when they were doing a progress visit they decided to convert it into a full inspection. The impression was they've found something unsatisfactory.

For ds's school it was staff raising concerns against unsafe staff:pupil ratios. On closer examination these were not substantiated (our local authority and others did several unannounced visits following the initial concerns). It led to a lot of turmoil: loss of good staff, succession of head teachers and falling pupil numbers and ultimately the school closure (this did take four years after the first unsatisfactory Ofsted). It was very sad because it was a school that met ds1's needs well and although he finished before it shut its doors I do feel sorry that others lost the opportunity to go to a school that actually met both behavioural and academic needs.

I’m surprised it’s ofsted. Not isi. Is it a boarding inspection?

Many independent special schools are assessed by OFSTED rather than ISI. All s.41 independents are assessed by OFSTED in order to be fully approved and until they have been they are only provisionally part of the scheme.

It is an S.41 well at the moment anyway.

OneInEight I can see the same thing happening here, if it gets inadequate which is my gut feeling about it all. There really isn't anywhere else for DS3; we're having to start thinking about secondary and there's one vague possibility. I suspect the LA would try and move them all to a school that's just opened 5 minutes away from the current school, but I've read some awful things about the group it's in, so I'd be very resistant.

I know I'm well ahead of myself here and I need to wait for the actual report

Ah. Missed it was an independent special school. If it’s boarding, this might be a separate inspection from the educational one. If it’s education, they can follow up quickly.