Ofsted Inspection & publishing of Reports

[PrimaryConcern]

Inspection was over 6 weeks ago, no report available yet from school or Ofsted website. Previous inspection was RI, I would be amazed if it got higher than that this time too.

Ofsted website seems to say they will be published within 28 working days at the maximum, which has passed. I assume school has some right to appeal, are there any timescales that have to be stuck to?

We had the Ofsted feedback meeting. The representatives from the Trust were delightfully patronising and seemed to think parents would be bowled over by their plans to redecorate . I really cannot believe that out of everything, management and leadership got RI when everything else was judged inadequate.

I think (based on an OFSTED report a few years ago) that Serious weaknesses is when only one area is rated as inadequate. It is likely to be special measures unfortunately.
dds infants school ended up in SM when she was in Y1 and improved quite quickly so if your dc is pre-school now there may be some improvement by the time your dc start school.

It is Inadequate - Serious Weaknesses. Apparently as the Leadership and management was grade 3 RI, it doesn't matter that all other areas were grade 4.

Whoops hit return too soon!

The school are getting a new Early Years Leader in January - staff left very suddenly and they have been using temporary teachers atm. Hopefully the new person won't run away when they realise what they have got themselves into!

The serious weakness judgement does give them a shorter time-scale to improve, so hopefully there will be rapid change. The Trust are just a farce though, it was like they were trying to distract parents with "look at the shiny things!" than actually explaining how they had managed to fail so spectacularly across the board (safeguarding, funding, as well as teaching)

What the school must do, with the MAT, is draw up an Improvement Plan. This will be crawled over to check that it is SMART. Evidence will be required to ensure that progress is delivered and that goals are achieved. Some schools bury their heads in the sand of course but they really won't get away with an improvement plan that is all about decorating.

Clearly progress, attainment, teaching and behaviour and everything else is crap. I bet Ofsted barely noticed the decoration - too much else to worry about. The Governing Body might get an overhaul to ensure the SLT and the plan is fit for purpose. They have to monitor progress. Obviously they are also crap at the moment so new governors should appear. Hopefully ones that hold the school to account and can act when things are wrong.

As for more money - not much. There should be additional advice and external advisors assisting in the improvement plan, but the school budget won't see much hard cash.

It is so disappointing that some school leaders just do not know when a school is failing. They really do need replacing with people who are dynamic and can get to the bottom of the problems and improve the school. I hope this happens.

Also, as a parent, make sure you see the improvement plan or at least a summary of it. They should involve parents in the improvement, so hang on in there.

The only positive comment got the Early Years got, apart from the children being happy, was the classroom was bright and well organised. The refurb is also out of funds that have been sitting unused.

There is a new Governing Body but there won't be a parent governor on it. Someone asked about parents being able to see their written Plan, but the Trust member said it wasn't really necessary, but they would make some information available.

The funding was not tracking the pupil premium and SEN budgets properly, and the sports premium had not been spent at all. DBS and pre-employment checks weren't done.Teaching was inadequate in all years. Results way, way below national average. The behaviour was graded inadequate as there was low-level disruption in lessons. Attendance similar to national average.

How the behaviour is inadequate, but the management is RI, just makes no sense to me.

Like you say, hopefully the school will see the improvements it desperately needs.

It is an interesting issue as to what does a school do when it needs to improve and in what order. Various research documents say that initially the school should not concentrate on improving lessons, teaching etc but needs to concentrate on getting some basics right (I accept good teaching is fairly basic). However what has been proved to work best in the longer term is to get things like behaviour and the school environment right and then move onto improving teaching and learning.
I have had practical experience where a school, which was more than a bit like a jail was completely transformed over a summer holiday by painting, getting rid of some of the barbed wire and improving the classrooms, library and hall. The pupils came back to a "new" school and they immediately started to make better progress.
So some painting and decorating might be a good idea but from what has been said, there seems to be an awful lot more to do than just that. The warning signs are there also that the Trust Board is not going to be good at communication and that is definitely a mistake, you have to keep the parents on board and include them.

Some of the refurb plans do sound like they will be beneficial (updating classroom tech, new furniture), but their biggest change is one I feel will actually have a more negative impact.

How much can a parent reasonable demand information-wise from a Trust? I am quite prepared to become "that parent", as really they have been getting away with doing too little for far too long and though they talk of accountability that doesn't seem to equate to any ramifications for them. The funding issues has been dismissed as "won't happen again" - is there really no penalty when they aren't following spending procedures?

Thanks everyone for your responses, it has helped me to consider a more constructive way forward than just sit at home stewing!

If the management have been in the school more than two years they will be replaced. Hopefully there will be a change of sponsor.

What do you mean by management, The Trust? It has been under the same Trust since it went into Special Measures in 2013. The Executive Head was appointed earlier this year and she is the HT at the sponsor school (which was judged as RI by Ofsted on it's last inspection, and joined the Academy then). A new Head of school started just after the inspection and there is a completely new Governing Body since the Ofsted outcome.

"It is so disappointing that some school leaders just do not know when a school is failing. They really do need replacing with people who are dynamic and can get to the bottom of the problems and improve the school. I hope this happens."

The problem with replacing people too freely is that talented heads the become reluctant to take the risk of career suicide that taking on a challenging school involves. A head teacher need time to turn about a failing school.

This is a really interesting article. It's about secondary schools but the same is true of primary schools.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37717211

There are no quick fixes for some schools that are in challenging circumstances. Our school system reward surgeon type teachers who sack most of the staff, expel lots of pupils, concentrate resources on the upper years to get quick results. The surgeon type head teacher then leaves after two years and the school collapses.

If it's the second poor Ofsted since joining the MAT it may be rebrokered to a new MAT as part of the improvement strategy. You can ask for the improvement plans under a Freedom of Information request but they may withhold part or all of it.

Who would orchestrate rebroking? Ofsted seem very happy with the Trust and Trust themselves aren't talking as if they are about to end their involvement.

Good to know about the FOI, I will try the softly softly approach first.

It would be the Regional Schools Commissioner, part of the DfE. Ofsted aren't really involved in that.

The trust don't have to agree to it either. It can be a requirement and if they try to block it the DFE can put an interim academy board in place to run it while it's being rebrokered. I'm not saying that will happen. But it might.

Thank you. Do you know at what point the Regional Schools Commissioner would be made aware of a school such as I am describing here? Do Ofsted reports go to them automatically?

Yep. They are shared before publication. The rsc is likely to be aware or involved already but once it's inadequate it becomes more of a pressing issue.

Thank so much for the information. It's actually reassuring to hear there is a higher authority, as although the Trust are accepting monitoring from the LA, the LA rep admitted the Trust didn't have to allow access at her will, and her powers were pretty limited.

I guess it's just a matter of waiting and seeing if the rsc does rebroker it. Presumably parents would be told once it's finalised rather than at the planned action stage.

When a school is Inadequate - Serious Weaknesses, it usually is a sign from Ofsted that they do have belief that the SLT of the school can turn around the school but that all the poor data and negative things found during the inspection simply will not allow the inspection to be graded as Requires improvement.
Things like not tracking the pupil premium and SEN budgets properly, and the sports premium had not been spent at all, DBS and pre-employment checks weren't done, are all issues that can be addressed relatively quickly and easily. However inadequate teaching is going to be a long term situation.
I would suspect that the school will not be re-brokered to another Trust but will be allowed to go forward until the next inspection. There will be a visit by an HMI fairly quickly to ensure that the school development plan does actually seem sensible and will resolve issues ASAP and then there will be another Ofsted inspection, probably between 18 months and 2 years time. However if the HMI visit is negative then there could well be a much sooner re-visit for another inspection.

I suppose I just wonder what Ofsted base that belief on - encouraging staff to "move on"? Problem is, half are now temporary teachers and are actually worse than the ones that "moved on". The SATs results were really, really awful and I just struggle with everything being inadequate apart from management. But I accept I need to "move on" from that too!

They have addressed the safeguarding already and the Trust member chortled about finding the cabinet (one of the issues was to do with being able to locate files for at risk children) which I felt glossed over the very serious issue of not performing pre-employment checks.

They said they had 18 months, so presumably that is when Ofsted have said they will be subject to a full inspection, but hoped to have everything done much sooner.

Parents are entitled to see the minutes of governing body meetings and supporting papers that are not confidential. It would be a huge mistake not to give parents a summary of the Improvement Plan. Your MAT representative sounds dangerously patronising. I would be "that parent" too faced with such rubbish. Can't find a filing cabinet? Utterly unprofessional.

Regarding the LA - running this school is nothing to do with them. It is an academy. However, it would appear that the school is buying into their School Improvement Service. Often these services are a "Trust" and work as an economic unit where they charge for services. The LA will not want to see any school drag down achievement in their area.

I have seen the article about different styles of Head. However, I do think good behaviour is part and parcel of good teaching and the ethos of the school which is put in place by the Head (at the coal-face) and the Governors. Interim Governing Bodies may not have parents. What they must be is stuffed with people who will hold the Head to account and really know about school governance. A new parent Governor will not have this expertise. The new Governors must have, and expect, high standards. They must get appropriate advice and act on it. They are accountable, not the LA. They do not have to accept advice from the LA but they would be unbelievably stupid not to take advice from experts in the field of school improvement.

Few schools have the luxury of working on behaviour and let poor teaching go untouched. An Improvement Plan must include how teaching will be improved, what the timescale is and how success will measured. It will be a major focus. Everything in the report will be a focus and, of course, some are easier to do than others.

Pupil premium is not an easy one to put right if large numbers of children quality for pupil premium funding. It will take a monumental effort to get all the things in place to help these children improve, account for the money being used effectively, check the progress of the children and review the strategies in the light of evidence. If a school is not used to doing this, it will be a steep learning curve. Not least the fact that teaching is poor. Good teaching is what Ofsted look for first when raising achievement of PP children.

In my LA, Heads who turn round schools are highly prized. It is absolutely not career suicide - just the opposite in fact. They have a proven track record of school improvement - it is very valuable for the cv! But, all these Heads work unbelievable hard. No 6 weeks off in the summer for them! Often 12 hour plus days, every day! They do it for the children.

I would like to think, Primary, that the new GB will be more approachable and open than the MAT. They should be engaging with parents to get everyone on board with the improvements. They will want parents to sign up to a behaviour policy, for example..

Ofsted do not just look at Sats results, they look at progress and the quality of teaching over time. By the sounds of it, these children have been failed for years and have made insufficient progress to get good results in the Sats. (The Sats are more difficult now of course). Therefore it is probably likely the teachers who left were not very good either. Ofsted never recommend that anyone is moved on. If that has been said, it is a cover up for what really happened. A dynamic new management may be able to attract better teachers and middle managers. Let's hope so.

I think I have just read your report, Primary. I can see that Ofsted mention "green shoots" and signs of improvement. They credit the now full-time Head with that. She appears to know what is wrong and they think she can improve the school because she has made a reasonable start from a very, very low base.

This looks to me like a typical, cosy, C of E school where no-one challenges anything. The former Head and the Governors carried on as before and did not carry out their duties, so performance, behaviour, teaching etc just became worse and worse. No-one noticed. Not even 38% of parents.
It appears that Ofsted have faith in the Head and the Chairman of the Trust. The comments about assessment and pupil premium are breathtaking - to me they are almost unbelievable. This will be a priority, as will be the quality of teaching and reinforcing the behaviour policy.

The lost files on child protection are inexcusable. Unbelievable too. Clearly no safeguarding Governor was monitoring child protection. The school is criticised for having no governors of any experience. This will now be vital and will trump parent governor involvement. They just cannot afford more untrained governors. DBS checks not done - what planet were they on? Teachers not trained in teaching phonics? What on earth were they thinking? So much to do.

How many DC do you have at this school, OP? Is moving them elsewhere an option?

Yes I think you have found it. Are you a super-sleuth or have I made it obvious somehow?!? I'm on a n/c so I don't care if the school tumble me. I do appreciate you taking the time to read it. It's not exactly an uplifting weekend read!

Ofsted do have faith but I don't share it. Those reasons I can't write down, but it's more than just a gut feeling. Historical "achievements" tells a different tale. The new Head of School does seem focused and fresh for the challenge, and has come from a school with high amounts of challenging behaviour, so hopefully she will last a couple of years.

The school don't release phonics/SATs results school-wide themselves (can't imagine why(!)), so for a lot of parents this was the first we had heard of it when we got the report. (The parents were told results of their own DC they're not that bad).
There are a significant amount of unhappy parents at the school and a lot are just pulling their children out 5 gone from one of my DC class since September. None have moved out of the area. There are also a number of school staff who have DC at the school which may account for some differing feedback.

The back-slapping and mutual praise between the Trust and the school management in attendance was nauseating. There is now an Executive Board who are all professionals who have experience in schools like this one. So that is dealt with for now.

A couple of attempts were made to get them to discuss the funding issues, but we were shut down pretty fast - waffling on about looking forward and other meaningless statements. The overall message was - come and find us if you want to know more - when we wanted to hear - we will be doing everything we can to keep you informed.