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 ...

A lot of the issues I had with the one-word judgements was what followed.

An Inadequate rating, often meant forced academisation for your school. It also meant the head and often other members of SLT would lose their jobs. This can be career ending. It would affect the estate agent ‘spiel’ and house prices across the whole catchment.

All this to sit on one person’s shoulders and that one person wasn’t allowed to discuss the outcome with anyone for months whilst waiting for the report to be published.

Whereas you seem to be able to lie, take bribes, fuck up repeatedly, have parties when the country is locked down and be found guilty of bullying, and you can just cruise from promotion to promotion if you happen to work in parliament…

But if a school fails on safeguarding then it will still need to fix the problems and intervention will be triggered. The inspections aren’t just to generate info for parents to pick and choose schools (and most parents don’t have much choice anyway).

The fact that a school could be labelled inadequate for years for a safeguarding error that was fixed by the time the report even came out is ridiculous. And that has now been changed, they can fix the problem and be reinspected on safeguarding to prove that they have fixed it without having to wait for another full inspection.

@noblegiraffe S school that didn’t train staff doesn’t just “fix” it overnight. There’s no way of knowing if issues were missed with dc. Possibly not. It’s also highly unlikely this school would have been closed. Posters cannot argue it both ways. Some say parents pay no attention to them - so inspections aren’t serving that purpose. In this case, the parents in Caversham will still use the school because they know the school. I am sure they do. However in areas where there are village schools, and virtually no choice, this particular issue probably wouldn’t have been one that turned parents off the school. Parents dislike poor teaching and poor learning outcomes far more. That makes them get in the car and go elsewhere.

Honesty is the best policy for schools. Explain the issue, say how you will improve and explain how great the school is in other ways, eg the education it gives. This one won doesn’t resonate with parents if they know it doesn’t make sense in a school that is otherwise what they want.

@TizerorFizz "school that didn’t train staff doesn’t just “fix” it overnight"

Often they can do exactly that. At one of our school's inspections, 2 new catering staff joined the day of the inspection and we were told that so long as their safeguarding certificates were added to the central record before the end of the inspection, that would be fine. It is literally just an online course with some multi-choice questions at the end.

school that didn’t train staff doesn’t just “fix” it overnight

It’s a really simple fix. If the record of their training is inaccurate then update it. If they didn’t have the training because they missed the first INSET then put on an after school session. It’s not long.

As for ‘be honest with the locals’, if the school is inadequate from outstanding then they’ll be worried about their house price - how do you reassure them it won’t impact that? The school is now set for compulsory academisation so it will be taken over by a MAT that the school has no choice over - this will completely change the school. Staff will leave and the school will struggle to hire new staff because people don’t want to work in an Inadequate school.

It is devastating to a school and blandly saying to parents that you will just work on some improvements is ignoring that.

Agreed

It’s not devastating about house prices! Near Reasjng! They’ve got St Anne’s just up the road. You cannot have it both ways - a quick fix AND everyone is devastated. They just are not. Surprised. Yes. A decent explanation of that quick fix (it’s not that quick!) and off you go. This head would not have lost her job. Your standing does not plummet like that when all other aspects are good or outstanding. She was undoubtedly lax.

Still - good news - no more big banners with Ofsted Outstanding outside schools! What Joy! No more boasting. No more big pay increases for OutstandIng Heads would help school finances too. Even my local boarding school for emotional and behaviourally challenged DC has a big Outstanding banner outside. I’m sure parents are queuing up for a place there.

Better for teachers, maybe. But the evidence seems to be that the Welsh system doesn’t work as well for pupils. Now, correlation is not causation as I was always taught even at ‘O’ level in a comprehensive with a distinctly mixed bunch of teachers. But, if there’s already talk of changing the curriculum, just as our position globally had stated to increase, so I worry about the general direction of travel, and the influence teachers unions have over government.

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/21/pupils-wales-disadvantaged-children-england-ifs-study-vaughan-gething

You cannot have it both ways - a quick fix AND everyone is devastated.

You're not paying attention. I wasn't saying it was devastating about house prices. I said it was devastating to a school to be labelled inadequate, because, for Ruth Perry's school, despite the safeguarding issue being a quick fix, the school would be academised, it would be taken over by a MAT that the school had no choice over and that would change the school.

Ruth Perry couldn't 'simply announce the quick fix to parents and off you go'.

The rules have now changed, in light of what happened to Ruth Perry. If there is a quick fix for the safeguarding issue that labelled the school inadequate, they can request a reinspection of safeguarding within 3 months and rectify the inadequate label without triggering academisation.

@noblegiraffeDo not be patronising! I did mean the school! Who gets that worked up about house prices in Caversham? Maybe you don’t know the area? Lots will be at private schools. Again a quick fix doesn’t sit with a school being devastated. A long haul to fix is what’s devastating! Anyone in a school ei attest to this.

Why are you completely ignoring the impact of an Inadequate grade on a school? The forced academisation? The being taken over by a MAT that you have no choice over which may have a very different ethos to you?

Because it doesn’t always have to be the case. Plus some schools are inadequate and an academy already. You don’t seem to see the full picture. There are variations and it’s not the same outcome for all. CofE schools are mostly academies now for example.

Inadequate schools are forced to become a sponsored academy. That's the rules. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inspecting-schools-guide-for-maintained-and-academy-schools#:~:text=Schools%20judged%20inadequate&text=This%20means%20that%20we%20judge,then%20become%20a%20sponsored%20academy.

We are talking about Ruth Perry and Caversham Primary was not already an academy. Ruth Perry knew what was going to happen better than you do apparently.

There was that case in Sheffield recently where the last LA school in the area was inspected and judged inadequate and it was thought that this was a political decision to force it to become an academy and then it turned out it was to be handed over to an unsuitable MAT, again for political reasons. The parents there managed to overturn it all, but it was a massive effort.

You said all schools were forced to become academies. Lots already are.

This is the current position. Early monitoring and you could stay as you are.

Yes. BECAUSE OF RUTH PERRY. 🤦‍♀️

Do you generally struggle with comprehension in day to day life TizerorFizz?

This forced Academisation is something that the Labour Government could do something about. 1) Stop it being an automatic process when a school is deemed inadequate. 2) When an Academy is deemed inadequate, allow a Local Authority to take it over, should they wish. At present I believe the only option is for another Academy chain to take it over, and you get schools which are 'orphaned' i.e. the Academy chain failed them and no one wants the responsibility.

MATs can be toxic, that is clear. But what can be done about it? Ofsted have pushed to try to inspect MATs for years but the government kept saying no, alongside a policy of wanting all schools to become academies.

From 2021:

Amanda Spielman advised the committee earlier this year that Ofsted is constrained by only being able to carry out individual school inspections rather than inspections of MATs. This is an issue that Ofsted has raised for a number of years. When speaking to the committee, Ms Spielman stated: “We still operate what, in some respects, is a historic inspection legislation that constrains us to look at the level of the individual school." She had previously also said that it was “peculiar” that MATs are not inspected over the quality of their education, governance, efficiency and use of resources.

I really feel for the poor lady who took her own life and my family have her sympathy but I do feel that this is a bit of a knee jerk reaction.
Its very unlikely that a bad Ofsted report was the only reason this lady did what she did, maybe it was the last straw but if not that it could well have been something else. Plus if the school was downgraded for Safeguarding concerns then thats something that needs to be looked at.
If the new scheme is more holistic and easily understandable then thats good but my concern is that it will just complicate things

but I do feel that this is a bit of a knee jerk reaction.

and that just demonstrates that you haven't been listening to anyone who actually works in schools for the last 20 years or so.
This tragic event brought the situation to the attention of more of the public, but OFSTED has just broken thousands upon thousands of teachers going back years and years. Overwhelmingly, their stories didn't hit the press, but it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.
Have you seen the retention rates for people who start a teaching career ?

Ruth Perry was far from being the first head to commit suicide related to an Ofsted inspection. There are other heads who have committed suicide less close to an inspection, where it may have been a factor but where causal effect is less proven. Then there are the many, many heads who leave well before retirement due to stress ir mental ill health.

What made Ruth Perry’s case different is the insistence of her sister and her determination to keep this in the public eye. In reality, it is the tip of a much larger iceberg.

Can we get past this idea that MATs=evil empires and LA= paragons of educational virtue? Our local LA is horrific and as politically motivated as the worst of any academy trusts.

From a quick Google; note the rates of poor mental health amongst heads:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/school-leaders-mental-health-ruth-perry-b2464087.html

Suicide rates gor primary and nursery teachers 42% above national average:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-65651606.amp

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 10 women and 24 men classed as senior professionals at educational establishments – a category that includes headteachers – died by suicide in the decade between 2011 and 2021.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ten-suicidal-headteachers-ofsted-ruth-perry-b2459393.html

I am not a teacher but I know two who were driven out of teaching as a result of a poor OFSTED inspection. Perhaps that was the final straw, I don't know, but is that the way to treat the people who teach our children?