Goodbye one word OfSted judgements .....

[Mischance]

Hooray!
They were always a nonsense and I am glad the new government has taken swift action.

All we need now is proper support for struggling schools ... I will keep hoping ...

At work we used yo have a 'business balanced scorecard' for projects. They were judged on whether they were on time, andvon budget, and had reasonable risk profile, and something else i forget what.

Removing the overall rating could happily leave the 4 sub ratings, wh8ch would be fine by me.

At least that way an admin procedural error (however important) can't negate fantastic quality of teaching

This is rubbish, and shows a complete ignorance of what happened in the RP case. They were downgraded to inadequate because their safeguarding records weren't complete ... every member of staff, including cleaners, canteen staff etc, needs various checks when they are taken on, and these need to be held in a central register ... if just one document is missing, a school will be downgraded to inadequate. So you can argue that the head and school's governors should have kept a closer eye on record keeping, but it's wrong to say the judgement was expected.

So when the school compiled their safeguarding documentation, they knew they were **ed, right?

Safeguarding isn't something anyone should take with a pinch of salt.

It was an error that could be fixed within 30 days and it has since been admitted that it is batshit to brand a school inadequate over a matter that was so easily fixed.

Yes, they'll have to read the full report instead of going by one word.

Came here to say this.

Any poster who thinks you know you are going to get inadequate, clearly doesn't know anything about school (and Nursery / CM / FE Inspections).

A school isn't 'inadequate' because of an administrative oversight.
Only OFSTED think so.
Which brings us back to the fact they go down a list of tick boxes, rather than a knowledgeable, experienced senior teacher / HT coming in to a school with an open mind, to assess how well that school is teaching the children and supporting the families - which is surely what 'the public' want to know - how good the school is at delivering it's core purpose.

Not really. One word doesn't tell you very much. That was part of the problem with it.

I find it quite funny that teachers don’t like their school being judged with a single word. But they perpetuate a system where pupils to get labelled with a single number for their GCSEs.

You think that judging with one word the performance and standards of a school with many pupils and many staff, delivering many subjects and performing pastoral and other roles, liaising with external organisations etc etc is comparable to giving an exam grade to an individual student for an exam they've done in one subject. Ok then.

I’m so pleased about this change. I sent my kid to an Outstanding primary (outdated rating). The school was really awful- good academics but the rest not good (not safe due to poor behaviour including sexual aggression from some Y6 boys).

And then along comes Ofsted last year and gives it Good again!

Absolute nonsense. I don’t listen much to Ofsted. If I don’t know parents I go on FB and neighbourhood forums to ask for info.

It was an error that could be fixed within 30 days and it has since been admitted that it is batshit to brand a school inadequate over a matter that was so easily fixed.

This was all political though - mark a school as inadequate and force it out of LA control and to be an Academy. While there were good and bad Local Authorities surprise surprise, some Academy Trusts aren't all that good either.

I find it so interesting that parents are deemed to be so lazy and uninterested in their own child’s future… their children will spend a huge chunk of their childhood in this place why would they only look at one word to make a decision???

Who books a holiday without reading reviews? Who buys a car/phone/house without looking at it in detail??

Why are they so nonchalant about their child’s education??

I don’t believe this but everyone saying this is how parents decide…is there a reason they give this very little thought given it’s an incredibly important decision?

That's a fantastic point

Can you imagine comparing cars and just wanting good or outstanding. Or buying anything really. A holiday is only 2 weeks but a school is years yet we'd want to know more about a holiday than good or. Outstanding

And have some awareness opinions would differ.

Don’t think it’s just one member of SLT who struggled - they’re not the only one and nationally, the profession is losing experienced professionals who have had enough of Ofsted. Their regime of inspection is a major reason for teachers leaving and a pervading gloom amongst many.

I know a school that hasn't had an inspection since 2018 the headteacher kept putting it off because they know it's crap. How can this be possible ?

It's not possible.

I’m a teacher and we’re an Oustanding school and we haven’t been inspected since 2013.

Not one member of staff there now went through the inspection!

But that's not because the headteacher has been 'putting it off' (I have heard that headteachers have not been able to defer an inspection because they were at the bedside of a dying parent, or because they were in hospital), but because Outstanding schools were taken out of the inspection cycle.

They're now back in and should be inspected soon if they haven't been already.

Students don’t get a single letter (or number) for their exams they get 8-10 letters for their GCSE subjects and 3 or A level.

Most of the world's most admired education systems don't have fly in fly out, high stakes inspections.

A outstanding high school a few miles from my house been inspected since 2012

Outstanding schools weren't in the inspection cycle. They haven't been 'putting it off'.

It’s not possible.

A head teacher can’t just keep ‘putting it off’ so this nice anecdote isn’t actually true.