Ofsted and parent governors

[Rowgtfc72]

I am a parent governor at my daughters infant school and we think we are due an Ofsted vist before the end of term as our golden ticket has run out. Myself and other parent governors have been informed Ofsted can summon any of us for a little chat. Wondered if any other parent governors had been summoned and if so what sort of questions were you asked and how in depth was it as at the minute were all thinking of leaving the country to avoid it!

A fairly comprehensive list!
www.leicester.gov.uk/EasysiteWeb/getresource.axd?AssetID=122605&type=full&servicetype=Attachment

You won't all be expected to know the answers to everything!

Your Chair and Vice Chair should be making sure most of these aspects are being covered in meetings(full govs and committee level as appropriate) anyway when they set the agenda.

I'd imagine your Chair will already have thought about this and may well have a panel of governors in mind - in my experience, the Chair does have an element of control re which governors Ofsted speak to, although Ofsted like a mix of Co-opted/Parent governors.

Just make sure you know your stuff - learn the key statistics re progress and attainment, know the SEF, know the priorities of the improvement plan backwards, know how you can show you've monitored it. So say the school is working hard to improve Year 2 maths attainment for boys - what have the governing body done to monitor the effectiveness of that action plan? Have you visited, have you challenged? Do you know how the Pupil Premium money is being spent and can you show that you've monitored the effectiveness of that spend? And know your stuff re safeguarding. Don't be afraid to refer to notes - that's absolutely fine.

It's not too bad, honest :).

If I remember rightly, we were asked about the school improvement plan, safe guarding and about any school visit in connection to areas of the curriculum as well as general questions about meetings.

Pupil premium is usually asked about I think. I am a parent gov and spoke to ofsted. They asked about PP; what is £ being spent on, what is the impact, how are we monitoring that interventions are successful. They also asked us what we thought the schools weaknesses were. There were lots of questions but those are the two areas that seemed to be the main focus.

Pupil premium I can do! Assuming if I didn't know an answer to a question I could always direct them to where they would find it without looking like a total ignoramus.
Thanks for the advice,much appreciated.

They don't summon you, they just ask if anyone is available to speak to them.

I've done 2 interviews now...one as a vice chair and one (recently) as chair.

The most recent one, they only asked to see me and didn't request any other govs.

The mostly asked about my role as chair/parent governor, pupil premium, monitoring attainment, training and what the school's strengths and weaknesses are.

They won't be interested in you directing them to where they can find information because the point of the interview, is to see how much governors know about these things.

Don't worry too much, I'm sure you'll be fine.

But if you're worried, ask the chair and the head if the school's link worker can come in and chat to the GB to put your minds at rest.

We were led to believe people were picked and if you weren't available during the day they skyped you after six! Amazing the rumours that go round! Our vice chair is a parent governor and two of the other parent governors help regularly at school so are in dealing with the information on a daily basis. We have an excellent school with all the facts and figures to back this up, were all just a bit worried about stuffing it up.

We were led to believe people were picked and if you weren't available during the day they skyped you after six! Amazing the rumours that go round! Our vice chair is a parent governor and two of the other parent governors help regularly at school so are in dealing with the information on a daily basis. We have an excellent school with all the facts and figures to back this up, were all just a bit worried about stuffing it up.

We were led to believe people were picked and if you weren't available during the day they skyped you after six! Amazing the rumours that go round! Our vice chair is a parent governor and two of the other parent governors help regularly at school so are in dealing with the information on a daily basis. We have an excellent school with all the facts and figures to back this up, were all just a bit worried about stuffing it up.

We were led to believe people were picked and if you weren't available during the day they skyped you after six! Amazing the rumours that go round! Our vice chair is a parent governor and two of the other parent governors help regularly at school so are in dealing with the information on a daily basis. We have an excellent school with all the facts and figures to back this up, were all just a bit worried about stuffing it up.

We were led to believe people were picked and if you weren't available during the day they skyped you after six! Amazing the rumours that go round! Our vice chair is a parent governor and two of the other parent governors help regularly at school so are in dealing with the information on a daily basis. We have an excellent school with all the facts and figures to back this up, were all just a bit worried about stuffing it up.

Arghh,every time I press the back button it reposts! Apologies!

Arghh,every time I press the back button it reposts! Apologies!