ofsted poisoning our school

[marchgrove]

I posted this under 'the staffroom' but hope here more of you will find it and comment...
My local primary has just been labelled 'inadequate' by a recent inspection. I do not recognise this description. It is a lovely happy community. My daughters are both doing well, they love their teachers and the head teacher, who I believe is a great headteacher and highly respected as well as loved by the children. Whenever I have been through the school, I have only seen a hive of learning, children happy and busy.
Ofsted came in with a narrow agenda, failed the school on ONE criterion - 'below average attainment at KS1', and this meant all other achievements were totally irrelevant, and school had to deemed inadequate overall.
Ofsted has become a poisonous and destructive arm of Michael Gove's privatisation agenda. The meaning of words has been skewed reminiscent of Orwell, so that any school that finds itself in the 50% below national average in any one area MUST be labelled inadequate, however fantastic it is in all other respects. Michael Gove is determined to find victims for his privatisation agenda. He cares nothing for the impact this kind of poison has on our schools and communities. I for one, am not going to take this lying down!

Marchgrove,

Your elder daughter was - as it looks as if you recognise - POTENTIALLY disadvantaged by not learning to read or write in KS1.

As it transpired, the school gave her the extra support she nneded to ensure that that potential disadvantage didn't come to pass, which is excellent. However, if a large number of the children in KS1 had also not learned to read or write - which is what you advocate by suggesting that they 'are not ready' to learn to read at that age - then a much larger number of children would have needed that support, which might in practical terms have been much more difficult to do.

As a teacher, I have not encountered a child without very significant SEN who was not ready and able to read and write by the end of KS1, even those children who came into school in Reception from book-free homes and with very limited spoken language.

A school near my last school was 'a lovely school'. Small, homely, nurturing, lots of outdoor play and beautiful displays. Lots of nice children from lovely families in the beautiful village. Friendly teachers who had been there forever. A few clued-up parents started an exodus a little while back, when their children went up to the next stage in schooling and had their levels substantially reduced and ended up in special 'booster' classes to get up to age-expected levels. I took several of the exodus into my class. All were at least a full NC level below where the 'lovely' school said they were, and all - even those who were regarded as 'more able' and were shocked not to be in 'the top groups' - had very significant weaknesses in basic skills which suggested poor teaching from a very young age. Ofsted were called in, btw, and crashed them straight into Special Measures, in one of the most damning reports that I have ever read.

It would be a lot simpler if children were not forced in age determined classes. If they remained in KS1 until they had learned to read and write at the required level, everyone (sen excepted) would succeed.

It would be fine if the adults didn't make such a song and dance about it. The ability range in my Year 2 class is vast. The low average child with SEN is working at Reception level and the two high average children are working at a Year 4 level. Everyone else is spread out inbetween.

That's a lot of differentiation in one class and quite a lot of pressure on the teacher to pitch the work to suit everyone. It would make more sense if the children all worked together at their ability level. It would also been better results for Ofsted.

Instead of measuring ability at a certain age, we could measure progress as and when the individual child is ready to make it. There would be no disadvantage for summer born children or late starters and higher ability children could be challenged more efficiently.

But the government would rather look for problems than solutions it seems.

Fairenuff- but literacy and numeracy are at most 2 hours a day.What about the rest of teh time when you have children of very different levels of maturity and physical skills for example.
How do you produce PE lessons, topics choose a story to read to the class that meets the needs of both say 5 yr olds and 8 yr olds?

But that stuff about transferring schools and nc levels being lower than the actual grade is fairly normal isn't it? I teach secondary, when ours come through in Year 7 the nc levels are all over the place, and often don't bear any real relation to where they actually are. I thought that was why we had the cats tests too.

Ofsted is poison full stop.

Our lovely caring secondary is liable to have to become a sponsored academy to get out of SM (these were imposed on very weak evidence, but I can't elaborate).

Our results for all but a small no. Of lower ability DCs have gone up!
(One week it's A-Cs, next week it's progress and differentiation for U-D, next week we won't have got enough A* in law, which we don't even offer [buangry] very, very [buangry]

Ofsted as one of several ways of assessing a school, fine.

Ofsted as gods, definitely not for me.

Michael Gove's unthought out, rushed, often bizarre policies - not for me either. He has some good points, but the way he tackles them is at best daft, at worst highly destructive, IMO.

"But that stuff about transferring schools and nc levels being lower than the actual grade is fairly normal isn't it?"

To an extent, of course yes. Not perhaps for in-year transfers to lower KS2, who were the children I was talking about my personal experience of. We got a lot of mid-year transfers (school with a somewhat exciting intake) and, in general, we would normally agree with previous schools to within a sublevel or so. To get lots of transfers from the same school, all with levels that were VERY high coupled with basic weaknesses (number facts, leter formation, knowledge of phonic sounds) was unusual.

For the children transferring to the next stage of their education, yes, I understand it is more common for there to be discrepancies as schools try so hard to get their 'exit' levels up. However, to find whole 'SEN / booster' groups filled with children from one feeder school, especially where those children came in flagged as 'more able', is perhaps more unusual!

Good news! I just met an Ofsted inspector at the bottle bank, who tells me that there will be shiny new guidelines in September. [busmile]

How do you produce PE lessons, topics choose a story to read to the class that meets the needs of both say 5 yr olds and 8 yr olds?

Quite.

And that's what we're facing at the moment. Having to differentiate for every child within the class regardless of their ability. More fluidity is required. But as Ofsted don't take PE or storytelling into account, I'm guessing they won't be so fussed about those activites.

Not only that, fair. We were told that we should be differentiating for each child at the instant they grasped things within the differentiated lesson. Like a Baboushka doll method of differentiation, if you grasp my analogy [bugrin]!

Hi guys... Just got some potentially hot insider information...

It seems ofsted has been instructed to send their hit squads into particular kinds of schools. They're not going into small village schools, but big primaries with big budgets and big glossy facilities (like ours where LEA recently paid for lovely new buildings).

The DFE is already pushing for our school to accept academy status.
Apparently the school is expecting significantly improved results in September which would look awfully good for whoever manages to bag it.

ALL schools inspected in Cambridgeshire have been downgraded since last last inspection.

Ofsted now inspect ONLY the areas identified as weak and MUST fail any school that is below national average. Ahem. What does 'average' mean? If every school moved up to the current average, what would happen to the average? There must always be 50% below average until all are equal! it's a nonsense.

Anyone smell any rats yet?

Your last comment about finding a weakness and inspecting only the weakness is exactly what they did to the DDs' secondary.

They weren't vaguely interested in anything else.

We are already an academy, the only thing left is to make us a sponsored academy. If in the meantime we get less out of area pupils other schools will be delighted.

The government rats are happy, the local educational establishment rats are happy.

Yes it stinks!

Ahem. What does 'average' mean? If every school moved up to the current average, what would happen to the average? There must always be 50% below average until all are equal! it's a nonsense

Exactly.

This is what I was saying earlier. Ofsted are looking for ways to fail children. It is a complete nonsense and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Which is the reason the inspector by the bottle bank gave for the goal posts moving again - schools are creating a new, higher 'average', so criteria must be changed.

Exactly what happened to dd's school too Startail. If you read all the text, you'll see a very well led school with strong management and (can't remember all the exact figures now but) very high %s of good and outstanding teaching. Confident and happy children, good tracking systems being implemented, etc.etc.etc, but they can't demonstrate enough "progress" due to the fact that the published achievement levels at the end of the separate infant school are completely overinflated.
The really galling part about it is, that the inspectors were shown work done by all the children starting Yr3 in the September, and then taken away and independently marked by people from outside of either school, all of which confirmed what the Jnr school knew, but they STILL couldn't give them anymore than a 'Satisfactory'. They STILL haven't gone back in to the junior school which is sitting on an 6 yr old inspection, from another era.
Tunnel vision.

Did you ever read the Cambridge Study into primary education published in 2009? It found that if you introduce a child to too formal a curriculum before they are ready for it then you are not taking into account where children are in terms of their learning and their capacity to develop. If they are already failing by the age of four-and-a-half or five it's going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again.
They are not going to learn to read, write and add up if you have alienated them.
The report recommended that children up to the age of six should instead continue the more informal, play-based education typically found in nurseries.In Finland, as in Germany and Sweden, children begin school in the year they turn seven. In France, children begin formal education at six.Finland is regarded as having Europe's best education system, with the country's students regularly achieving top marks for reading literacy and science in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Children in England & Wales also follow a play-based education until almost 6 years old (EYFS runs until end of Reception). Children in Scandinavia all go to Kindergarten from around 2 or 3 years- it socialises them ready for school, and prepares the ground for formal learning. Children in France begin Ecole Maternelle at 2,5!

What people generally fail to take into account is that nations such as Finland have entirely phonetic, regular languages- they are much easier to learn than English, which is regarded as one of the most difficult to learn for non-native speakers. Children in the UK need longer to learn even the basics, let alone master their own language. Finland also has an almost homogeneous society- the most homogeneous society in the world in fact. Each pupil is starting school with exactly the same life-experiences, coming from a broadly similar socio-economic background (strong inclusive policies), the same expectations of their education system, which is simply not the case in the UK, particularly in England which extremely diverse, economically and culturally.

The outcomes at KS2 in our school were found to be in line with national expectations. I do not want my dd to do nothing but literacy activities in KS1 in order to impress you. I want her to have time for art and music and nature, and time to build happy and healthy relationships not just be told she's inadequate because she can't use correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, or write for a wide range of reasons and at length! It's sick.

KS1 is not purely about literacy activities! I find it extremely doubtful she does no music, art, or science, I just do not believe you.

Why on earth would you want your daughter not to be able to use correct grammar, punctuation, spelling etc?

Outcomes now may well be at Nationally expected levels, but if KS1 now is not, then I doubt KS2 in 4 year's time will be, unless action is taken now, over the KS2 education of that cohort of children. You don't say whether the judgement was actually based on National expectations, or expectations for the cohort based on prior attainment/levels of progress made.

BackforGood- exactly what secondary schools have been complaining about for years- the pupil's baseline testing in September of Y7 is nowhere near as good as the same pupils' outcomes at KS2.

KS1 is not purely about literacy activities! I find it extremely doubtful she does no music, art, or science, I just do not believe you

We do very little music. Science is covered by Topic which is one focus a term. Art in Year 2 is about one hour a fortnight.

We do an hour of numeracy every day
An hour of literacy every day
20 minutes of phonics every day
30 minutes of guided reading everyday

And that's the morning taken care of.

In the afternoon we have about 2 hours to cover everything else. After all the interruptions, we end up with about 8 hours a week to do PE (twice a week), ICT (twice a week), Music, Art, RE, PSHEE, Topic, Cookery, etc.

In between we do things like change reading books, show and tell, whole school and class assemblies, play time and golden time, school trips and visits to school from professionals, sports coaches, theatre groups etc.

And we need to find time to assess their work ready for the next day, especially for numeracy because if a child is struggling they might need to change groups.

Even an hour a day on literacy isn't enough to get really great work out of the children. Before they write it's good practice to talk about what they're writing, come up with some ideas, act it out, etc. so that they can remember what they want to write. Otherwise they just ramble on and it doesn't make sense.

There is an awful lot to fit into each and every day. No wonder schools bang on about attendance! (But that's a separate issue).

March - Your school IS inadequate. Just because you don't believe in teaching literacy or numeracy to young children and therefore find this school a perfect fit doesn't mean that other parents or Ofsted has to agree with you.

Fairenuff- I appreciate there is so little time to fit everything in, my point was though that it isn't purely literacy- they have numeracy every single day, they do have science, at, music etc. Perhaps the op was embroidering the truth a little for effect?
My children's school have 1 hour of music a week- I suppose it depends on the strengths of your teaching staff to a fair extent. The thing is, as a parent, things such as 'nature', art, music are all things I am encouraging a strong interest at home too (alongside reinforcement of their learning in maths and english). If you feel the curriculum is lacking, then why on earth wouldn't you do something about that?
It doesn't cost anything to look out of one's window and do a bird count (very boring for us mind, oh a pigeon, another pigeon, oh another pigeon, that ones got a funny leg mummy etc) to read library books together, discuss different types of music (there are radio stations for almost every genre these days, far more accessible than when I was a child).
I agree that you need a heck of a lot of quality input to achieve decent literacy levels!
It shouldn't. All be from the teachers' side though they have more than enough to do.