Private school Inspection - Can I tell the truth??

[SqueezyDiva]

My child's private school is up for inspection soon. I want to honestly, but anonymously, raise some concerns that have been botherng me greatly for a while now.

Are the inspector in cahoots with the school Head? After all, the inspectors are all former IAP's Heads themselves. Can I raise my concerns without the school finding out?

My major concern is the very high number of children who are advised, at parents' expense, to seek help from Speech therapists, occupational therapists & Ed Psychs.

I feel that children, like my child, should be better accommodated within the normal classroom setting instead of being treated as failures and misfits if their behaviour / attainment is a little outside a very narrow definition of 'normal'

Please advise anyone.

I think that the ISI inspection process is very robust - much more so that Ofsted. The inspectors are very astute and can see through all window dressing.

The system works by member schools providing trained inspectors who all go into a pool to be allocated as needed. Inspectors tend to be senior managers and they all undergo training both from ISI and Ofsted. They are trained to spot best practices.

By all means, raise your concerns with the insepctors. They will solicit and take on board your views. However, what the school is doing may be in line with approved procedures. It is a lot to ask a mainstream prep-school to provide specialist support teachers, beyound their main SENCO. It is pretty normal for extra attention to be funded by the parents of the children using these services. The school will be trying to keep their fees down for the rest of their students. IME, extra tuition is very similar to peri music lessons.

Every prep school has a unique personality, and it is really up to your child to fit in, tbh. If your child doesn't fit in, then there are other schools to choose from. Some schools are very much into conformity and others are much more suited to free spirits. They won't change for an individual pupil.

Of course you can comment. Send your message in anonymously to the ISI beforehand citing the school name, etc.

You certainly can comment. We were given a form to fill in prior to our ISIS inspection; it was anonymous, and there was a lot of space to write additional comments. If you don't have something like this, doing as Hula suggests sounds like a good idea!

My sense of the ISIS inspections is that they are very thorough, and there's no sense of anyone being in cahoots.

If I remember correctly when dd1 school (primary) was having an inspection we were given a questionnaire that we could fill out anonymously and hand to the inspectors.

Of course you can comment. I always fill in questionaires and raise points that I want to raise.

Thank you for your comments.

Yes, you must raise your concerns; that is an important part of the process.

BTW - I totally disagree with ST's comments about Ofsted. This tendency to use every thread to have a snide dig at anything outside the fee paying system is very tiresome and smacks of protesting too much!!

I also have to agree with violethill re OFSTED.

These 'natural assumptions' (ie the private inspectors are SO much better than state) made by so many private selecting parents is why so many of these discussions turn into 'Private v. State', that so enrages private parents! Of course, I believe ST is a state teacher (I may well be wrong) who also makes his/her views of many inadequacies in the state system known. That's fine. But many, many private parents have never set FOOT in a state school!

Raise your concerns by all means but bear in mind you bought into an ethos.

A friend of mine has her 2 DSs at a selective prep at 10.5 K a year per child. She has to get in extra private maths tutors for a term at least once a year. The school's take is 'In accepting OUR assertion that your DS is up to the mark at this school YOU are agreeing that any shortfall is up to YOU'

But it could be argued: Fair enough!

ST is a private school teacher faraday, but will no doubt be very quick to tell us all about her disastrous experiences in the state sector, which of course have no relevance to the thread whatsoever!!

I think you make a good point there faraday - some schools will see anything over and above the provision they offer to all as the responsibility of the parents.

Having first hand experience of both Ofsted and ISI, I can assure you that ISI is a robust process. Several of my colleagues are ISI inspectors and I admire them very much for their professionalism, and their great knowledge of good educational practices (this does not take anything away from Ofsted inspects, btw - just saying that ISI inspectors are good).

The OP is safe in airing her concerns, and should be encouraged to do so.

I don't think anyone on the thread has said the system isn't robust ST. It was the fact that you couldn't seem to say it without yet another put down of anything pertaining to state education that irrites somewhat.

If you don't have any reassurance for the OP, violet, why are you even bothering with this thread?

I did ST - read my post.

I think you're being over-sensitive, Violethill. It was the OP who raised concerns that the ISI inspectors might not be robust. I saw ST's posts as simple reassurance that this wasn't the case. Since OFSTED also inspect some private schools, I don't see how you can view ST's comment as an attack on State schools.

SqueezyDiva - I actually think that lots of children benefit HUGELY from expert, one-on-one intervention with small developmental delays. The classroom cannot possibly accommodate such one-on-one intervention, nor can teachers be expected to have the expertise to provide appropriate support.

YABU.

SqueezyDiva, the ISI inspection will have a certain format. They report under headings like:
standards of attainment and progress in subjects
the quality of pupils learning, attitudes and their behaviour
the quality of teaching
progress made by the school since its last inspection.

If your pet concern falls into one of the areas that they investigate then you may get somewhere. Otherwise, hoping that they will follow up a parent's hobbyhorse may be expecting too much. Have a look at some of their recent reports and see if you can phrase your concerns in a way that fits their way of looking at a school.

No, Tanith, I am not 'over-sensitive'. The OP posted because she wanted to know whether it was appropriate to raise her concerns through the Inspection process. I, along with a number of other posters, reassured her that she should.

There was absolutely no need for the put down from ST re: Ofsted. I don't really see it as an 'attack' on the state system anyway - I'm sure the state system is robust enough to not be bothered by it! It's just rather tedious when these nonsensical little snipes encroach on virtually every Education thread.

Senua - that's good advice to the OP to familiarise herself with some reports. You will get a feel for them by looking through and seeing the main areas covered.

The comments here have been very useful to me, thank you.

It has been a tough journey for our family, having a child that doesn't fit the cookie cutter, but the extra support we pay for has helped.

Our school had't handled our case well until recently but I trying to recover from the distress of it all, and to keep the schools perspective in mind too.

However, I know too many families, in our year alone who are now going through what we went through as the school tries to get them to seek external help 'of their own volition'. It is distressing. I'm sure many of these kids would be considered normal in other private schools. Even the Ed Psych ha expressed alarm at the high numbers of referrals from our school. I think it could be as much as 1/3 of the year getting some form of extra help - at the school's behest!

I will check appropriate headings on the Reports

That sounds like an alarmingly high rate squeezydiva; I think it's really important that you feel able to raise this as a concern. It is clearly something that you have thought a lot about and even got distressed over, so it's not a case of just complaining unjustifiably.

FWIW, I have a child in private, and generally there tends to be a culture of anything extra being an 'add on' which is paid for by parents. For example, our dc is in an exam year, and things like booster classes to get students from A to A* etc are all an 'extra', plus the Easter revision sessions - stuff which is commonplace now in state schools under 'provision for all'. So, to some extent you have to accept that in a private school there is a different culture. But the level of referrals to outside agencies sounds shocking tbh! Is there some private Ed Psych who is in cahoots with the school? I know our dc's school has one like that, and some parents fall for it and pay out hundreds of pounds to have an assessment which usually tells them very little they don't already know! However, there is nothing like the level of referrals that is going on at your dc's school. I really hope you feel satisfied with the Inspection process, because it's important to feel reassured about your child.

The school gives you a list of people or companies which it recommends. There are about 13 names on the list. One of these companies, a very well-known Harley Street outfit, has informed the parents of another girl in the class, that their child is normal and that they are concerned by the school's referral rate.

I feel somewhat hoodwinked by the school. They give the impression at the outset that they will accomodate a wider range of children than they actually do.

How do you warn other people about the potential pitfalls without putting one's head above the parapet? Aqt any rate, I know that I will only come across as bitter aand twisted if I were to raise concerns. That's just how distressed, dissatisfied pople come across.

Which is why I wondered if the School inspectors would be genuinely motivated to look into the rate of 'special needs' referrals and to decide for themselves, what,if anything, it signifies.

Our family didn't consult anyone on the 'recommended' list simply because we went to our GP first who set us on a different path. I am beginning to suspect that this innocent decision may have put the school's nose out of joint - because they couldn't deal with us on automitic pilot.

Sorry to prattle on

Not sure why my spelling is so abysmal tonight. Maybe I'm the one who needs therapy.

Of course you can raise your concerns as others have said. I raised mine (homework). It came up in the report - the pupils scuppered it as they felt 'homework was the right amount'!! At DD's former school there was a lot of allowing the pupils to speak freely to insepctors e.g. they were sent to escort inspectors from point A to point B (DD was about 6/7yo at the time so it wasn't just the super-dooper Y6s sent to do that under instruction to give the right answers).

Perhaps if local agencies are feeling the referrals are too high you could tip them off about forthcoming inspection and they could write to the inspectors.

You could also suggest perhaps that you felt the school wasn't able to assess children's special needs correctly. Both the schools DD has attended have had some kind of assesment process which helps the staff work out potential dyslexia/dyspraxia, etc. Not quite sure what/how nor how it is handled other than knowing one parent whose child was given booster lessons at no extra cost - small groups out of class - and extra homework to be done with parent support.

I'm sorry if I haven't followed other postings/threads but I'm not sure what your child's problem is that your GP has helped with and the school's recommended referral teams couldn't.

From the ISI website:

In advance of inspection a confidential questionnaire, which includes sections on academic matters, pastoral care, boarding (where applicable) and general issues, is sent to all parents. The completed questionnaires are returned in sealed envelopes to the reporting inspector for analysis. Parents? comments are taken into account by the inspection team when carrying out an inspection and in considering their judgements.

www.isi.net/faq/faq.htm

If, as you say, a reputable professional group of therapists of which you are a customer has expressed concern at the high referral rate from your child's school, it is perfectly above board for you to ask them to write a letter in support of the concerns you are raising in advance of the ISIS inspection.