If headteacher & chair of govs are best friends, who do you complain to?

[northernlass2]

At my kids' school, they have not been inspected for nearly 10 years because they were rated outstanding. Sadly, they are far from being an outstanding school these days, unless you purely look at league table results alone.

More and more parents are unhappy about their concerns being ignored, and very few complain because they know it's a waste of time. The head and chair of governors are close friends and people have experienced their children being picked on by teachers or the head, after they have complained in the past.

It's a very wealthy catchment area and the head told one parent that they needed to think carefully about whether this was the right school for their children or not because "we have some very wealthy parents".... comments like that are just the tip of the iceberg!
Some parents complained to Ofsted recently, only to be told that they would consider this at their next inspection but not before then....

Several families took their children out of the school a few months ago because of safeguarding concerns and a total lack of acknowledgement of learning difficulties, not to mention the failure to apologise for serious mistakes made by staff.

School constantly blame the kids or the parents but there is zero acknowledgement of any improvement needed within the school itself.
If Ofsted won't help and you can't complain to the governors, then who do you complain to???? What options to parents have?

This sounds like our school as well Northern Lass. It may have started out well but its never ever a good thing when the Governers and the Head are all neck deep with each other at work or socially.
Ours are related at one level too, so any complaints from parents get fed back to the Head and so on.

Its not healthy and of course creates massive resentment within parents who feel they can't speak out.

I think you need to take two approaches here.
Firstly if you feel so strongly about an issue in the school, you follow the complaints procedure through a written complaint to the head teacher and then the Chair of Governors and then a panel of governors. I accept that it will probably be a futile exercise if what you say is correct about the relationship between head teacher and CoG and the docile GB but you need written evidence of complaints being made and the school not responding appropriately.
The second course of action is to again complain to Ofsted about something that has happened which is definitely a safeguarding issue and copy in the LA Designated Officer (LADO). Again this is about getting a paper trail in place. Ofsted do keep a careful eye on complaints received and will take action with an unannounced inspection when they deem that a serious safeguarding issue has been raised by a number of parents. Actually the LADO of the Local Authority and Ofsted do communicate with each other and I am aware of where such conversations have led to a no notice inspection at an outstanding school, which was put into a category.
There is in all honesty no easy answer, without Ofsted involvement, until the GB as a whole recognise the issues (which may never happen) or the LA recognise a pattern of issues at the school and start taking a specific issue at the school.

Bubbles - it was! A horrendous situation which was masked by an 'Outstanding' Ofsted rating which meant parents were at the end of their tether. The unpicking of it all, support to staff, parents and pupils and then the building up of morale and confidence was a big job! I appreciate interventions like this are unusual, but it underlines how difficult it is to make an intervention to a school now.

How does Ofsted Outstanding mask Safeguarding? Were the Police involved? Was it reported to the LADO as admission says? Did the Safeguarding Officer of the school pass the incident up the chain? If it wasn’t, and the proper channels have not been followed, and it was Safeguarding in terms of the law, it is a matter for Ofsted. I just don’t see why the parents of the abused child didn’t take it further. However, other parents should not be talking about it either.

If you are talking about Health and Safety, then that’s a different issue. The Health and Safety Executive would then be involved. It’s difficult to judge if you cannot say what the incident(s) was about. I don’t know how many schools there are where Ofsted come in at a moment’s notice, but I suspect it’s very few.

Parents raised issues about several incidences that they felt were neglectful and abusive in school but the governors refused to stand up to the head and i vestigate so they were dismissed. The LADO finally reported these concerns to Ofsted when the news report was broadcasted. At the same time the LA lead for education instigated an intervention which advised the governors to suspend the head or they would complain to the Secretary of State for Education. Ofsted inspected about 3 weeks later.

Interesting to hear all the stories about other schools in a similar position. We have decided to move the children to another school and so they only have a month left before they are out of there! They can't wait.....!!!
I have found Ofsted to be a total waste of space, they don't even reply to emails - I've now contacted local education dept and local MP so will see if they bother to reply.....

It's such a shame because there are some great teachers at the school but they are totally let down by the leadership who continue to bury their heads in the sand and believe their own hype...... I have done what I can to try and get them on the radar to increase the chance of an inspection but if Ofsted and Local authority aren't interested then there's not much else I can do. As I said, 4 more weeks and then they never need to set foot in that place again.....!

OK, I am a chair at an outstanding school and I would consider myself to be friends with the Head but we are both professionals and we challenge each other. At the end of the day my role is to do my best for the pupils.

Ofsted and the LA will not be interested unless you have followed the Complaints Procedure, it is not their role or function . Have you actually talked to the HT? If yes, and got nowhere then use the Procedure, there is an appeal mechanism if you are not happy with the response of the Head or the Chair.

Update for you - since my post, my son has been in A&E because he suffered internal bruising from a blow to the stomach from a bully who has targeted him for the past 2 years. The headteacher put the bully on 'red' and he missed playtime. That was all she deemed necessary for 2 years of bullying with 2 serious physical bullying incidents being reported to her, and the bully then told everyone it was my son's fault for him being on red. No remorse shown but the headteacher refused to do anything else, saying she had followed procedure.
I have made formal complaints to the governors, local authority, MP and Ofsted. My son is on their SEN register and they have failed to protect him so I took him out of school early and he will be changing schools from September.

My son may be out of it now, but there are other vulnerable children who could be his next target. Safeguarding vulnerable children should not be just a tick box exercise, and actions speak louder than words so fingers crossed one of the education professionals who I have made my complaint to sits up and takes some positive action to prevent another child going through what my son had to endure.

Thank you everyone for your advice, it was much appreciated.