Can you trust the Ofsted reports?

[MunchMummy]

I'm looking at moving house into the countryside about 30 miles away. I do not know anything about the local primary schools there so have to look at the Ofsted reports on the internet to get a guide as to what they are like.

My question is does anyone know if the reports are accurate to the school or not really. My favourite village's school has an overall rating of 3 (slightly under average achieving). Does this really matter.

I don't want my DDs to go the 'best of the best sir' kind of school, but on the other hand I don't want to give them a bad start either.

Any advice on Ofsted reports would be much appreciated.

By Smithagain
I don't think that the schools that Ofsted rates as Outstanding are always very good at getting that balance right. There are a lot of exam factories around here.

I couldn't disagree more.
Ofsted are looking for a much broader and varied style of education. They promote pupil led learning, have been responsible for the change in foundation stage from formal teaching to a more play based style, and are currently encouraging the extension of this into y1.
My dd was at a school that you would probably label an 'exam factory', consistently placed in the top 5 in our LEA. The school was placed in special measures by the inspectors on the grounds of the unsatisfactory and unimaginative teaching, and the lack of a broad curriculum which would allow pupils to transfer skills learnt in one subject to another.

In my area there is definitely no middle class bias, in fact most of the outstanding providers are in areas of relative social deprivation.

I would be reluctant to use my experience of Ofsted to claim that they have some kind of bias against schools that weren't middle class... because of my experience I wouldn't ever use an Ofsted report to inform my choice of school for my children.

I moved my kids from a 'satisfactory' state school to an 'good with outstanding features' independent school and in both cases the OFSTED reports read exactly true to our experiences.

Bearing in mind satisfactory is 3rd out of 4 ratings I think it's safe to assume that it really means below average.

First school was pretty lacklustre but not terrible, current school excellent although by no means perfect.

So in my limited experience they were spot on!

MoreCrack - I am truly glad to hear that the system is working better in your area than it seems to be around here.

Very interested in Cat64's analysis. If an Outstanding requires scoring above a benchmark based on results across the LEA, I can see why my daughters' school is never going to get one. This is a tiny pocket of social deprivation in and otherwise highly affluent, professional, educated area. So the odds are stacked against them, aren't they?

ref Hassled's comments, believe you can make a lot of stuff 'appear' in 48 hours, you just get very little sleep and have some very stressed staff! Having been given 14 new policies to read and digest in 24 hours I speak from experience....Caretakers in almost continuously fixing and painting things, staff given duties that don't normally exist and that promptly disappear once the team have gone and staff and parent questionnaires filtered before being handed to the team. I could go on! Some things (exam results etc) cannot be fixed, but the school's day to day running can be and frequently is.

I have been through 3 ofsteds.

The first was many years ago when we were given lots of notice and it was fixed. We sent most if our naughty pupils to an army experience in Wales. Under less notice I think the school got a satisfactory ( which was IMO right and then a good)

I then taught in a school that was judged to be satisfactory- this was only a few years ago so 48 hours notice. We scraped that satisfactory and became a national challenge school. It was a school most MNers would not send their child willingly to and if it represented the average school I would be horrified. Surely noone a teacher or not goes to work in the hope they will be satisfactory.

My current school has just been awarded an outstanding which I think we did deserve. I did spend hours getting ready but I do this every night anyway. My classes were not taught in any way differently to how they would be normally.

The advice we have been given from OFSTED has all been taken very seriously and acted on.

I think the head teacher is the best indicator...and, I agree with slug...the toilets!

Also, look at the school website and polices if there are any to get the tone of the school...amount of extra curricular activities offered and the outdoor and exercise facilities are worth consideration.

Grade 3 does mean satisfactory.

My dd1's schools was graded 3. The connected nursery (where dd2 is) was graded 1. I feel the school is much better than the nursery but - because Ofsted seem to be biased towards good sats results (which generally only reflect the intake of the children) they had to score the school down.

Actually, I love the school and some of Ofsted's criticisms were bizarre; one of them being that the school didn't encourage the love of reading. This is a school that has the best school library in the town, a dedicated librarian and a visting author every month. It's even one of Bloomsbury Publishing's favourite schools.

Anyway, it's never been popular (childen considered rough) but my dd thrives there and is doing very well and the approach the school takes puts another, more popular school to shame.

After working in 3 nurseries as a nursery nurse and then becoming a primary school teacher 8 years ago and working in 2 different schools, my opinion is that ofsted reports should be taken with a pinch of salt.
The nursery managers/staff prepare well in advance for everything to be wonderful when they are expecting a visit from ofsted.Then many slack off because they know the inspectors are not coming again for 4 years !
Although you can of course trust the SATs results and such, to see if kids in primary school are achieving.

Take ofsted reports with a pince of salt. They are only one aspect. Speak to locals and get the goss on the local schools. I would do this before I even considered moving anywhere !
Ds1's school is fab. best reputation. he is happy. and thriving. we are very pleased.brilliant head. sought after to get in. yet only good ofsted. outstanding in many areas but adverage good.
so what does that tell you. bugger all !

I have visited loads of Ofsted Outstanding schools before I chose a school for DD1 and found they were so immensely different from each other. The thing I found was that what Ofsted measured against wasn't necessarily what I found important/wanted to know about, so my advice would be to visit and get a feel for them. One particular school was shocking in that they had no TAs, and had mixed classes up to 45 kids - they were supposed to have 2 teachers but they we only saw one teacher both time we visited and they were saying both times that the other teacher was sick....the kids looked disenchanted and the level of noise terrible. I am sure they didn't have that when Ofsted visited lol

We had a boy leave Y1 last year - around 1B/ average in maths and english. He has since returned..... the work he has done at his interim good/outstanding school is appalling. It is barely marked - no objectives, no marking to objectives, house points for crap work, worksheets, no creative writing, a Y2 project on tape recorders.....
How does this happen? - we run a creative curriculum, do loads of interesting activities, mark to objective with improvement points.... and we'd only be satisfactory/good.
Is it because the expectations in an inner city northern school are lower than those in the south east? If so, it's not fair!!

Hi

I am a primary teacher and have to agree that the reports are a good indication of how the school is performing at that time. If a report is a couple of years old, then they are not as useful. The two inspections I have been through were very thorough. They looked at every aspect of the school and observed every teacher. I would certainly use an Ofsted report to judge a school if I was looking for a school for my children, probably more so that the SATs results.

Mind you, you can't really do better than go and visit the school yourself. I actually chose my son's school because I was impressed with the headteacher and the children in the school all seemed happy and enjoyed being there. I was also impressed that they trusted their year 6 children to show parents around the school during the open day. They clearly had nothing to hide and the students involved were well mannered and articulate

Personally I would not take too much notice of OFSTED reports. They often get it wrong. You need to ask to visit the school. Look at toilets, signs of graffiti, level of noise emanating from classrooms and if possible speak to at least 3 different parents with children at the school.

OFSTED are preoccupied with paperwork and if the school ticks enough boxes, has all its policies in place it is likely to get a high score regardless of whether it is a good learning environment.

In conclusion: Be very wary of OFSTED

ex lecturer, nursery school chairman, etc