Do your children go to an Ofsted 'Outstanding' school? Is it?

[MrsJAlfredPrufrock]

My children go to an Ofsted 'Outstanding' primary school but it isn't even nearly as good as the their brother's old Ofsted 'Satisfactory' primary school.

How accurate is your children's school Ofsted rating?

I agree, Fennel, about the box-ticking. It's a shame that Ofsted represents its inspection regime as something it isn't. It may interest parents to know that they hardly even observe lessons any more- in a three-day inspection, they will typically spend 2.5 days inspecting paperwork and the rest of the time (with luck) watching lessons.

Mine do but I also looked at results. It's ok some parts I think yea ok that's brill but other parts am like why do they do it like that!!

my dd1 goes to an outstanding primary, its also second in the league tables for sats in the local authority. I love it.

My children have gone to 3 different primary schools - the other 2 are ranked good I think, and you can tell the difference between them. However, the main reason I like dd1's current school is because of the ethos, and I wonder whether that would be the same even if it was "just" a good school.

at the end of the day you pick the school that is right for your children, and that isn't necessarily the one with an outstanding rating or fantastic sats ime.

yes and yes and my son teacher is amazing

Yes they do go to an Ofsted 'outstanding' school but I believe they are riding on this result and if they were rated again they wouldn't get it. But because they have 'outstanding' and their sats results are good I have no idea when they will next be inspected.

My children don't go to the local 'outstanding' primary ... because when I went to visit it I took umbrage at the headmaster quizzing me about my husband's job and my educational credentials (he became quite polite having established those basic facts ... until then he had taken me at face 'scruffy mum' value and had been offhand to the point of rudeness) .... and then got more and more irritated as he told me in detail about all the things he did to stop 'riff-raff' getting into his precious school and 'damaging its rating' (exclusive and expensive uniform, ignoring 'the wrong sort' of parent at open evenings, only publicising school open days in posh independent shops and giving out misleading information to parents who lived in 'the wrong roads' about whether they were likely to get into the school were the ones I remember)..

Instead, they go to a 'good' school, which they love and which loves them in return.

Should also add that my DC's school has fantastic value add scores, even though it has lower results, while the 'oustanding' school has better 'raw' results but a CVA substantially lower than 100, implying that they take in bright kids and do...not a lot...with them.

DD went to an outstanding school and it was outstanding in every way. It was a village school and I felt very much a part of the school. I was so sad when she left and started at high school. In fact we are supporting the school still by going to the Christmas fair this year.

The teachers are lovely, the results place the school in the top 100 primary schools and the place has a happy atmosphere. I couldn't have asked for more.

Mine go to an outstanding school with 1s in all areas, and I would say that it does some things very well some not very well.

They are very good at:

• pastoral care, organising activities, (there's always something going on), behaviour management, including dealing with bullying and there is generally a happy relaxed atmosphere.

They are not very good at:

• teaching lower ability and higher ability children. The teaching is very relaxed bordering on lax and most parents use some form of tutoring or another by Y5, which means over 50% of children get Level 5 but it is not because of the teaching they receive!

Some parents like it because they are not that bothered about primary being too academic and have as a priority that their children are happy, for me it's a bit more of a bugbear but as I have just illustrated is very individual opinions.

Teacherwith2kids there are a few schools close to me that sound very similar to the one you describe, riding on an outdated OFSTED and bigging up it's "Village school" clique, sorry, atmosphere. My kids go to a good WOF primary school, and whilst I do not think that the perfect school exists, my children have never, ever said that they do not want to go to school, or have failed to say that something good has happened that day.

My son's school was last rated 'good' overall but got outstanding in many categories. He's only been there since September but I have been very impressed so far - never seen him happier.

I compare his school with the one I teach in, which was failing until recently and is now satisfactory, and frequently end up wishing I worked at my son's school.

DD2 goes to a primary that was rated 'satisfactory' when DD1 started there and was rated 'Good' when DD1 left just over a year ago - I have felt that it was Outstanding all along - fabulous pastoral support, good Value Added scores, well behaved children and a real understanding of every child's needs. My children have flourished there, and DD2 still is now she is in Yr4 - I am glad that the change from 3-tier to 2-tier means she will be staying there till Yr6.

DD1 is at Middle School in Yr6 - the school is rated Satisfactory and that is probably fair enough - it is a largish school, it is going to close at the end of this year and has been losing staff hand over fist because of the impending closure. However I cannot complain about the support my DD1 has had, first in moving schools and adapting to that and then to dealing with the pressures of Yr6. The school runs a form tutor system, and the form tutors are genuinely available to the children for support. DD1 was falsely accused of talking in assembly and was pulled up in public by the Head - her form tutor intervened, the real culprits were identified and DD1 received an apology from the head, again in front of the school during assembly.

The school is also willing to admit when things aren't working - they decided to stop setting for maths in SATs year, presumably in the hope that the pupils on the borderline of L4 would be pulled across the line. It was a failed experiment and they have now gone back to setting - DD1 now has a very experienced maths teacher in a top set and is back to her happy self. Meanwhile the bottom set have been allocated the best maths teacher in the school, which is only right.

OFSTED, schmofsted.

Our local senior school was rated 'good' with some outstanding features - I have yet to find them!! Have visited the school a number of times - it's the same building I went to when it was a grammar school all those years ago (when it really was outstanding like uber outstanding) and to be honest I wouldn't put my pets in there let alone any children - they are obsessed with ratings and don't give a flying fig about the children in their care!! If you're a high flyer then they grab you with both hands and shout from the roof tops how 'good' they are and will advertise the fact to anyone who will listen to them, the local newspaper or anywhere else the head can get his information written down, the others are left to God and good nature and results that aren't worth the paper they are written on!! Needless to say my DC goes out of town!!

The school I pulled my daughter out of at the end of Y8 last year got "outstanding" last term. Interestingly, only "good" for teaching and learning.

Undoubtedly the school knew how to play the bureaucratic parts of the system.

Some things that bother me - parents' responses to the survey delivered to the school office. How do parents know these aren't added to by teachers/the head/governors, etc? How do parents know these aren't vetted. Surely a locked box needs to be provided by Ofsted.

The week before inspection drilled into the kids how important behaviour is.

Schools not excluding where necessary because this has a detrimental impact on the grading.

No score within the sysem to encourage effective behaviour management.

The school was not outstanding in my opinion, it was just about satisfactory - largely due to the poor management of behaviour but Ofsted picked this up as outstanding and parents with children still there tell me the head now just says at every meeting "well Ofsted thought we were outstanding".

Nope and there isn't one for miles around. She goes to a 'good' school.

I don't think OFSTED is in the slightest bit accurate.

My DD's primary school has been rated "outstanding" in the last 3 inspections.

I do agree it is rather marvellous!

Mine were at a 'good' primary which I thought was hopeless, results disguised the poor teaching, academic parents held it up, teachers infighting, etc...

They are now at an 'outstanding' school. I think it ticks far more boxes, healthy eating, community involvement, etc., etc. but I don't think it is as special as it thinks it is. It does seem to be very focused on good results and the same bright, hard working children appear in the assemblies (1 of mine) while other hard working but not so able children (another of mine) feature less. There is a lot of homework in the early years and a lot of (overly complicated) discipline.

It is also quite old fashioned and I'm not sure the parents are listened to as much as we would like. I can't quite put my finger on it but I'm not completely happy.

we took our dd2 out of a "outstanding" infant school as it failed her completely in aiding with her dyslexia (the senco told us " she cant be dyslexic she isnt clumpsy" on being told thats dyspraxia she said "yes but they are the same") We moved a year later and the kids when into a satisfactory primary it was far better for all of the kids than the outstanding school was for dd1 and dd2 I learnt to ignore the outstanding and look for my own gut

just left our "outstanding" school. Teaching def NOT outstanding and other parents feel the same. I wouldn't pay much attention to ofsted.

I chair an outstanding inner city Primary school and am a former Inspector so yes, I know that it is still outstanding overall but there are aspects that both the Head and I have concerns about. For example our KS2 results this year have tanked - we knew that they would because of the cohort, who we have tracked assiduously. We can show you every intervention that we have made and although the school results look horrendous, if you look at each child individually they have achieved the very best that each of them can because of the support they have been given. We both worry that we could have done more even though our SIPs have told us that they do not know what else could have been done.

However, I also know that our school cannot be all things to all children, not all children have the same needs, we do the very best we can but on occasion we have to admit defeat and a child may leave to go somewhere that is better for them.

LattteLady I appreciate everything you have just said. Do you agree that if heads and Chairs of Governors were honest with parents about potential problems and what was being done to deal with them, that it would be easier to work together for the best possible outcomes for schools and children.

Do you as an ex inspector think it is disgraceful that a senior teacher at primary cannot construct sentences which are grammatically correct, "they was", that a Y4 teacher teaches that the vertical axis is the x axis and the horizontal the y, that children are sent home with incorrect spellings to learn and when corrected by the parents so the child learns the correct spelling, they are marked as incorrect (guage), that a teacher writes in a reading book "I listened to Johnny read allowed"? Do you think this fosters parental respect when taken in conjunction with the continual whine at every school event about how hard the teachers work and how ready they are for the holidays without a thought for the fact that many parents work longer hours with less security and receive the statutory 28 days holiday per year. Perhaps doing jobs in sewers, collecting rubbish and other hard, physical labour.

Those are all real examples from a primary school that achieved "outstanding". What's your view as an ex inspector and chair of governors about that?

DD went to an ofsted outstanding primary school and it was outstanding in every way. She had an excellent education academically, she did lots of after school activities - sport, art, dancing, choir, the school enters lots of sports competitions and this year won the county tennis tournament, the school orchestra wins the local music competitions and ended up playing in the Music For Youth festival at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

It is a happy, high achieving village school. No-one round here sends their children to be privately educated at primary level because there is no need.
And the KS2 SATS results are pretty good too - more than 65% of the class achived level 5s for English and maths.

MarriedinWhite - I will respond to your note wearing my hats separately. As a governor, I would not comment on teachers work per se, this is day to day management and as such is the bailiwick of the HT. If you have a problem, then you need to address it directly with the teacher concerned, if you do not get satisfaction then you go to the line manager and finally to the HT. However, do remember that teachers are also human... forty years on I can still remember the delight in correcting a teacher who mispelt a word on the blackboard but refused to admit she was wrong.

As an Inspector, you can only judge the member of staff on the lesson that is taught when you are there. For the most part a school inspection is a snapshot of the school on the days that you are there, supported by evidence gathered by the school and interrogated by the inspection team for veracity. If you have an issue at the school you can bring this up in the survey... one of the sad things about changing the inspection format was the removal of the meeting with parents and carers as this was always productive although one had to take some of the comments with a pinch of salt when there were some parents who had personal axes to grind.

And back to your first comment, yes, I do think that honesty is the best policy. We know what our parents expect from us and they know how we expect them to support the work that we do which is why we work together in partnership to ensure that we get the best for our children.

Bit difficult to bring up the concerns about grammar and spelling though Lattelady when the Head Teacher is also responsible for significant and regular howlers!!

I wonder if it actually the Head who types up the missives, they may well be given to someone else and not checked, have you considered that? If you do not address it yourself then how do you expect it to be resolved - it easy to complain to others but not so easy to deal with the issue - speak to the Head, they might not be aware of the problem.