how much store do you take by ofsted reports? would you go for "satisfactory" local school or "good" one further away?

[hatwoman]

this is in a rural area - the satisfactory one is in the village we are looing at moving to, 5 mins walk away from the house. Until recently it was "on notice to improve". The "good" school is in the next village. so the satisfactory one is much better for social reasons (all round - not just for the kids but for dh and I entering village life...)but the good school is, well, good... (and, after a couple of years there we'd be coming back to London where the best chance of a good secondary school is a competitive entry grammar...)

PrincessPeaHead ? My dh and I are very unhappy about this report mainly because, as you?ve pointed out, the weaknesses identified were raised in the last report 6 years ago and it seems nothing has been done to address these concerns. I cannot understand in this day and age why a school does not have adequate schemes of work in place. A school is primarily about teaching and learning and if you aren?t sure what the teachers are teaching and what the children are learning what on earth does the Head actually do at the school each day? I understand he is new (I have heard he?s been there 2 years but you have said 4 so are not sure ?will have to find out) but surely one of the first jobs of a head is take the previous report, identify weaknesses and then put steps in place to address those weaknesses especially if they involve the curriculum of the school. We are very happy with the pre-prep and our ds will stay but I definitely need evidence that the school is moving forward not just, once again, taking absolutely no notice of the recommendations of the report and carrying on regardless. I also understand other parents are not happy with this report.

no he isn't new, he has been there since september 2002 (just checked with my friend, she has had kids there since Jan 2003 and he had just taken over), so coming up to 6 years .
apparently she has heard from a governor that the head says that the trouble is "he just can't find good teachers". she finds this very hard to understand. but as you say, what about sorting out the curriculum? FYI they are having a governors meeting in a couple of weeks to discuss the report, they haven't really discussed in full yet although the chair of the govs has been talking to the head. If I hear anything else I'll let you know!!!