Is this normal? Every single primary school near me is RI

[YoHoHoandabottleofWine]

I was just torturing amusing myself in the run up to school allocations, and looking at the latest Ofsted reports, as some new ones have been published recently.

I was aware all 3 of my choices were RI, but at least one of those schools has had a recent inspection where they were still RI, and the closest 6 primary schools to me are now all RI.

I know the inspections are getting tougher, but really is this normal? Or do I live in an educational black hole??

Largish town in England with low unemployment but some social deprivation by the way.

lol...

OFSTED has become far tougher than the past. In the past it focussed on children being happy. Now the only thing matters is that children make progress and pass exams. Anything that is remotely fun is deemed a waste of time.

dd's primary school is inadequate/ serious weakness! I wish she could have a place at a primary school that merely "requires improvement".

"
Largish town in England with low unemployment but some social deprivation by the way."

OFSTED have decided that social deprivation is no excuse for under achievement. London has some of the best results in the country because 60% of adults in London are graduates.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25002401

In most parts of the UK this is simply not the case. OFSTED does not recongise that some schools have a higher number of bright kids than other schools.

They renamed 'satisfactory' RI. Apparently satisfactory is no longer, erm, satisfactory.

I live in a lovely area, and the six closest schools (including my dcs') are currently rated as RI.

The only exception is the local CofE school which is Outstanding. The parents are currently up in arms, due to the pressure on pupils, bullying and staff turnover.

Our RI school is lovely, caring and has fantastic results.

Dont believe what Ofsted say.

Ofsted reports mean NOTHING. Each team is so variable and its subjective enough that any school could be given almost any grade.

Yep I would ignore, go visit the schools and see what you think. I sent one of mine to a junior school that had "failed" (as it was in those days) scored really well in all areas but failed because it was in debt. Was in the process of selling land to pay for the new resource centre it had already built...

Load of bollocks IMHO

Ofsted is currently prowling around the town I work in, we're due in a few weeks and have been told we'll be going from good with outstanding features 5 years ago to RI.

3 of the 'good' 'middle class' very desired schools have just gone into RI.

Ofsted is ridiculously tough now. A teacher friend of mine was observed recently. Her lesson was mainly good, some outstanding features, there was one little one who understood the carpet activity, she didn't ask a differentiated question (apparently just one question would have done) and therefore her lesson was deemed RI! She is an excellent teacher!

The statistics simply do not bear out the repeated assertion that Ofsted has become far tougher. In 2008/09 66% of schools were rated Good our Outstanding. In 2012/13 that had risen to 78%. At the same time there has been a marked reduction in the proportion of schools rated Satisfactory/Requires Improvement. As far as I can see the idea that Ofsted has become tougher is a myth propagated by schools that got a decent rating, rested on their laurels and now find themselves with a poor rating.

and OFSTED shouldn't be grading individual lessons according to their own criteria ...

Outstanding /Beacon school in my area was rated as serious weakness and academised- less than a year later back to outstanding

My local primary school was graded as 'Outstanding' in December 2010 and then 'Inadequate - Serious Weaknesses' just a month ago.
OFSTED mean absolutely nothing. They look at the points progress between KS1 and KS2 and do not take into account movement in year groups (e.g. our school once lost 70% of the 'original' intake that were at the school in Y2 and gained the same amount from deprived backgrounds elsewhere in the country by Y6) and they do not take into account individual children who may not make the steady robotic movements they require children to make. Apparently ALL children must make EXACTLY the same amount of progress in EXACTLY the same amount of time and be EXACTLY the same at VERY different ages/stages of their life.
It seems 'we' are trying to breed a generation of robotic drones who will go forth and not multiply but go forth and earn as much money as they can for their qualifications and pay lots of taxes to the greedy government. (That's my take on it anyways!)

Dont worry about the ofsted grades ( old teacher here, been through countless ofsteds) As others have said, " satisfactory" is no longer "good enough" so new term invented, RI. Nearly every primary school in my area has been given that grading in the last round of inspections and I would be more than happy for any children of mine to attend these schools.
It depends what happens on the days of the inspection. Terrified staff do not always perform as well as usual funnily enough.
Next year there will probably be new terms invented for the gradings.

My local primary school was graded as 'Outstanding' in December 2010 and then 'Inadequate - Serious Weaknesses' just a month ago.
OFSTED mean absolutely nothing.

I think that labelling a school as outstanding is the worse possible thing that can happen to school. There is a risk that the staff become complacent and think that they are above critism. It could be argued that every single school in the land "requires improvement" as the perfect school simply doesn't exist.

"As far as I can see the idea that Ofsted has become tougher is a myth propagated by schools that got a decent rating, rested on their laurels and now find themselves with a poor rating."

Agree - though anecdotally there have also been some very quick 'dips into SW / Inadequate' in LEAs with very few / no academies [including one school where the inspector was open enough about it to say 'I have brought with me the pre-written report that puts you into special measures, because of the pressure to have some academies in this county'.

From my observation, in paimaries, what seems to have happened is that schools which have got a satisfactory or below in the past - because more focus was on 'absolute' results, rather than progress, these have often been schools in tricky cuircumstances - have absolutely pulled their fingers out, and in many cases have, after years of working really hard, moved up to 'Good'. (Some, though, with very tricky intakes, haven't, because of the removal of 'contextual' factors in the judgements of progress).

On the other hand, schools that, because of easy intakes, had a record of good Ofsteds based on good 'absolute' results have been caught out. They have not been used to working at full pelt all the time, an element of complacency has been opresent, and the schools have slipped into RI or worse due to lack of progress.

I have moved from a school that pulled itself from Satisfactory to Good (with a very interesting intake) to a nice MC school used to getting 'Good' or above. It has been very interesting - in particular watching the efforts of the leadership team to alert the staff about the level of work, the continuous improvement, the sheer bloody-minded persuit of progress for every pupil bnow needed - something that had becomne 'second nature' to the staff in the more challebnging school because there had never been an opportunity to do anything else IYSWIM.

It therefore measn that a different 'type of school is getting RI or SM - yes, some schools in very difficult circumstances still are, but so are complacent 'middle of the road' schools with decent 'absolute' results, and thus it has become more visible to MN type parents.

The 2 key things to look out for in the reports are what is said about Leadership/ Management and Behaviour. A school on a RI with leadership that knows the areas of concern and is putting things in place (but hasn't yet had enough time) and has no significant behaviour concerns is probably on the right track.

This is very different to a school that has weak leadership that does not have a grip on the issues and where behaviour is a key issue.

Don't just go by the overall judgement. A school can be tipped over into RI because they had a dip in results last year and/or a dip in attendance below the national average. Read through the actual comments and judgements in the reports v carefully. And definitely visit all the schools in your local area.

One school on a RI can be really on the up with a great new headteacher. Another one up the road could be dealing with long term issues that will take a miracle to solve and is on the brink of forced academisation.

just adding to the anecdotes; one local secondary went from Good to SM in the space of 6 months. Forced Academy. I reckon Ofsted looked at our county & decided that there weren't enough academies. :(

bridge where are your statistics from?
Secondly, have you personally experienced an Ofsted inspection? If not then, I'm sorry, your opinion is meaningless. How can you possibly know whether it has gotten tougher if you don't work in a school?

Wellthen,

It seems to me entirely possible that the PROCESS could have become tougher as an experience - certainly the criteria have become tougher - AND the results have become better, because more schools may be rising to the challenge.

However, as the cycles on which 'outstanding' and 'RI / SM' schools are inspected become more and more different, it becomes increasingly difficult to compare results year by year. If everyone is inspected on a 3 year cycle, the results each year are fairly representative of the whole. However if RI schools are inspected every year, and Oustanding schools almost never, the results of Ofsted inspections in a given year is not representative of the whole school population IYSWIM.

I have quoted the official statistics. You can find them readily on the Ofsted website.

I agree with teacherwith2kids post.

Don't necessarily trust Ofsted. There is an agenda, and the schools which are converting to academy status are doing a lot better than those who haven't. Go and visit the school, get a feel for them and decide what you like. X

Just to buck the trend - Ofsted swooped on Bristol last year and inspected lots of schools, but I think most went from "satisfactory" to "good", certainly out local primary did...

ilovecolinfirth - The evidence doesn't back up your assertion that Ofsted is pursuing an agenda. In 2012/13 77% of academy converters were judged Good or Outstanding compared with 78% for all schools.

Well in my area the new RI grade is useless as it seems to be pretty much given on the basis of SAT results compared to what results they think a school should have got. So if you choose your school because it was caring and inclusive, it will have RI.

Of course a certain senior school was last inspected 6+ years ago, so still counts as Outstanding (which I actually think it is). This is despite having "officially closed" a couple of years ago and re-opened as an academy. They have been expecting an inspection any day for at least 3 years. Maybe OFSTED will finally come next year when the Head changes.

But Ofsted criteria have changed, the reality is that they have some not very good inspectors (they acknowledge that themselves) and not all inspectors fully understand how to apply the new standards. Also, some schools are simply better at 'playing the game' than others and therefore know what Ofsted wants to hear and lay it all out for them. That is leading to some rogue results.