Requires Improvement

[WingingIt101]

Hi

My eldest will be starting school next year and so we have time to look and make decisions but it's all completely new to us.

We live in a tiny village with a little village school. Single form entry.

When we moved in the school had recently been regraded to good from requires improvement. (Good rating 2019)
However in 2022 it was reinspected and given requires improvement again.

Reading the historic reports it seems there is a really consistent finding that teaching is inconsistent - it reads as though reception is great but by the time year 6 comes around phonics in particular is the topic that is flagged repeatedly as an issue.
It also says management is requiring improvement and their own assessments of what they are doing are overgenerous. SEND provision needs improvement and more able children are not stretched.
The good points are that the children are caring and the staff want to do well.

All in all it feels pretty damning and like we just have to move house! I don't want to overreact though.

I'm mindful ofsted is a snapshot but to report the same issues with phonics for near enough 10 years tells me the school isn't trying hard enough to improve this area, and with my DH being dyslexic and it running in his family we are mindful dd may be too - if their send provision isn't good or they don't spot signs she would be disadvantaged and potentially fall behind.

It seems they've had a change of head teacher and suffered from less financial investment because they are small and have almost no pupil premium children.

Wwyd? I'm so worried but trying to take a deep breath and be practical!

@WingingIt101
Im afraid you are out of date thinking Ofsted is a snapshot? Why do you think ofsted keep inspecting this school? It is data driven. They are looking at progress and outcome data that’s causing concern. They have all this info before they show up at a school. They know the school is not addressing the issues and are not improving. The school is over generous in their assessment of themselves. Ofsted hate this. It clearly shows SLT and head are poor and governors are not holding the head to account or setting challenging targets because they don’t know what they would look like. They all think the school is doing well!

Therefore you have a yo-yo school. No one is running it effectively. It goes up and then down again. How long has this head been there? Many schools have financial constraints in the annual budget. Is this what you mean by lack of financial investment? Or do you mean poor buildings?

The Head must address less than effective teaching. Ofsted are looking at progress of Dc over time and are, I suspect, not seeing it. They look for evidence of improvement when they inspect or evidence that it’s as bad as the data suggests! They find phonics is still a problem. In y6 this really should not be an issue.

PP funding is there for Dc to catch up. It seems Dc at the school don’t qualify. This could also mean the school isn’t doing enough with the Dc who don’t get fsm either.

One form of entry (30) isn’t tiny. I’m assuming the school has 7x30 on roll! Yes. I would be concerned. They sound complacent to me.

To rephrase: finding phonics is an issue in y6 indicates a problem the school has not addressed.

Wow I think we have a representative from OFSTED here. It's bollocks. The main issue is if your child is happy and making friends and you as a parent are supportive. Everything else is just about them trying to justify jobs for themselves. Taking a child out of their local community to find better phonics is crazy!

Phonics is not really something year 6 should still be doing?? By the time they reach year 3/4 nearly all children should be beyond the need for actual phonics teaching. It seems a very odd thing for ofsted to be flagging up?

Look around the school and speak with them and local neighbours who attend. Get a real feel for the school and not just the Ofsted report. Are there over schools nearby you could get to instead of moving?

Well my local village school has just got a RI rating. One of the main failings was on British Values..... considering the oldest child in the school will be 9 expecting them to have coherent views on what constitutes democracy and autonomy seems somewhat unrealistic. Both as a teacher and a parent my experience of Ofsted is that they’re a waste of space and offer no helpful guidance unless the school is absolutely floundering.

Thank you all for the replies - our dd is not quite 3 but it will be the end of this year that the admissions process starts and having never done it before it's helpful to know what others think and what we should be looking for.

We have other schools which we are more than happy to drive to but the catchments don't include us.

It is single form entry but only just - it is described as smaller than average.

I'd prefer for her to attend the village school for getting to know friends locally but as I say, having no experience of what to consider it's been helpful to get your responses here.

I'll seek out some local families who attend the school already and I'm going to try and arrange a visit to get a better feel for it ourselves.

I don't want to ignore the report but also don't want to take it entirely at face value and gospel!

Oh gosh I have no idea what they are supposed to know at what stage! How on earth do I find this sort of thing out!?

I feel so out of my depth (and thought that in the baby stage - does it ever get easier 😅)

This.

Plus, don't forget that in a school with fewer than 30 pupils in a year group, having a couple of children with "less than average progress" - which can for for one of many really valid reasons which are nothing to do with the school - makes a really difference to "statistics" or data, as ever child represents more than 3% of the cohort - potentially 4% if the classes aren't full.

@WingingIt101
I have been a school governor and do know how ofsted work because I attended lots of training on them visiting. It’s better to understand how it works rather than hearsay.

I think the comment about y6 snd phonics might refer to readers in y6 who Ofsted consider had a poor grounding in phonics at an earlier age at the school. In other words, has the school addressed their needs which were not met 6 years ago? I assume they are not teaching phonics in y6 but it’s a legacy from the past and poor teaching. Read the report again to make better sense of what was written.

I would also suggest you read (for a bit of light bedtime reading!) the ofsted inspection handbook. This tells you what they look at and how schools are inspected. You will clearly see it’s not a snapshot, it’s evidence based to back up
data, and what should be included in the curriculum regarding British values is detailed. It’s not an onerous part of the curriculum and is a small part of personal development that is inspected. It is not likely to make a school Inadequate if it’s too lightweight.

if you can get into other schools, look at them and compare. Look at all the progress data and newsletters home tell you a lot. Look at their web sites for policies snd information and visit when you can.

Your village school might improve. It will take time though. One form entry is a smaller school but some schools are much smaller than this. It’s big enough to have teachers who support each others and are mentors for newer staff. Hopefully a lot of work will now be done to evaluate the school’s effectiveness, write a good improvement plan and successfully implement it.

@WingingIt101 You can have a very happy child making minimal progress at school. You can see posters don’t like ofsted but they are rarely wrong. Ofsted are more then capable of understanding some Dc don’t make as much progress. Some Dc arrive from other schools and are behind. Some Dc are not from the greatest homes. However it’s possible to see the whole position of each year not just y6. Schools have data on all year groups. Obviously posters don’t know this. School data covers every child. Ofsted don’t just look at y6 snd sats results. Surely you want to know if the KS1 curriculum meets requirements. If Early Years is the best it can be. If KS2 children are learning well and engaged at school with excellent teaching? It’s not about making a excuses about a few children. Do please read the handbook.

My Year 6 child has just read all of the Lord of the Ring books and is starting His Dark Materials. Absolutely no way should children be struggling with phonics in Year 6 unless they have significant special needs. Something sounds seriously amiss to me and I say that as a teacher with a healthy disrespect for Ofsted.

However it’s possible to see the whole position of each year not just y6. Schools have data on all year groups. Obviously posters don’t know this. School data covers every child. Ofsted don’t just look at y6 snd sats results.

Ofsted only look at the official data points:

• Reception levels of GLD,
• Phonics Screening Check,
• End of KS1 teacher assessments,
• Multiplication Check,
• End of KS2 exam results.

They cannot look at any other internal data: this was forbidden a few years ago as part of a shifted focus for Ofsted. They will actively refuse to look at any other data even if you are desperately trying to force them to (for example, if you have internal data to show the the current cohort's results are demonstratively higher).

Honestly so many schools getting requires improvement now.

My youngest son’s secondary school was found inadequate by Ofsted. Changed to academy, new leaders etc. We much preferred it when it was inadequate tbh - it was a much happier, supportive place.

For a small school one or two kids struggling for reasons entirely unrelated to the school can bring their results down. Small school data points are likely to show more variation than larger schools - Ofsted should know that.

Have a look at the school, ask the SLT about the comments in the report. Then make your kind up.

I’m a Chair of governors.

How new is the headteacher? less than a year and I’d hope they are able to turn it around.

My school got RI which is fair but it was in our new HT’s second week on the job and reflected a lot of the inadequacies of the old head.

I also see an impact of covid and pupils not being where they should be, which is shared by other Chairs when I speak to them.

Ultimately if we aren’t hitting the targets we aren’t going to get a Good rating, simple as that.

I’d ask to see the HT or Chair of governors and ask how they plan to improve. I’d be very happy to talk to a prospective parent about it.

Thank you everyone, so much. I am reading and taking on board all the points and suggestions- it's really helpful and giving me things to consider that I wouldn't have known / thought of otherwise!

The head joined just before Covid I think so she's not that new but has spent a big chunk of her tenure navigating that rather than perhaps being able to implement better strategies for in-school learning.

Apologies if I'm offending anyone describing ofsted as a snapshot, I had meant because they come and see 2 days and assess based on that and potentially limited criteria - but I don't know for sure and hence my asking here on the education boards.

I'm very grateful for all the inputs and suggestions!

As a teacher and as a parent I don't worry about ofsted ratings. My DCs school was outstanding - yes I'd say it was good but not that good. It all depends on the team. My school was outstanding but we are waiting for our next inspection and 'good' is so hard to get that we might not even achieve that now despite very little change from last time.

Also when I visited primary schools for my children, I knew I would be very critical given my job. I went off the feel of the place and whether my child would be happy.

Ofsted look at conclusions drawn and actions taken based on progress data gathered and analysed by the school. That’s in the handbook. The conclusions the school draws are important as these may vary from published progress data and inform improvement plans. If a school is drawing glowing conclusions that are not substantiated by an inspection, the school will be criticised.

Ofsted can give leadership a RI rating when a head is new. They haven’t had much of a chance but it’s probably still accurate. They often say that the head has accurately analysed the areas for improvement and the improvement plan reflects that analysis.

I'd visit several local schools and compare them. We went to four for our first application (subsequently relocated so DD now at a fifth primary school). All five schools were 'good' (one with some outstanding elements) but they varied so much. Some of that could be picked out from reading the OFSTED reports.

There was one I wouldn't have been happy with at all as what the Deputy Head said compared to what local parents told me didn't add up (low staff turnover, compared to lots of teachers leaving and classes having lots of change). Comparing facilities - most of them had a school library and could talk to me about how the classes used them, one didn't but claimed each class had their own books, then couldn't point those out in classrooms.

Facilities will vary depending on size of school. We looked round one first school with one form entry so 120 kids on site up to three form entry primary so 630 kids on site. And three schools inbetween those sizes. The first one looked really tiny but that was really just in comparison with the others!

Ask about pupil premium funding and funding from the PTA. One school had some lovely facilities paid for by £25k a year from the PTA.

Ask how they cover PPA time. Ours has specialist PE and art teachers who cover PPA time across the school so they know the kids and they get the specialist input.

If you need wraparound care ask about availability, whether it takes Reception kids (some are Y1 upwards only) and whether there's a waiting list.

We also decided we were less fussed about poor ratings and comments for the top end of the school. Starting out with Reception we wanted to make sure that functioned well but they've got five or so years to sort out the top end of school problems before your kid gets there!

I spent a lot of time chatting to other local parents about schools too. I got some useful comments about school communication, wraparound care, involvement of parents.

It's worth taking what they say with a pinch of salt - one was very negative about the school my DD started at before we relocated, but it turned out her experiences were based on a much older sibling going there so the school as it was over ten years ago - a lot had changed since then!

Another was very defensive and couldn't see any downsides to her children's school but it emerged hadn't looked at any others so had nothing to compare? She was raving about a sports facility they had (could only be used during summer term) but it hadn't occurred to her some schools had libraries...

Schools have an array of cheerleaders and dissatisfied parents too. The danger is a school full of cheerleaders who don’t know what a good school should be. They don’t know if Dc are doing well because they exist in their bubble. That’s where national data comes in and obviously a good look around the school. I looked at one school but as I had visited loads of schools when I worked for the LA I knew it was good. It had very many cheerleaders. Moving up to the junior, a cheerleader parent was difficult to find. Everyone I knew complained. However DD1 dodged the poor teachers. The school dodged RI. However moles told me it was borderline. It would be RI for definite now.

You really cannot trust poor leadership to turn the upper part of a school around by the time your Dc get to KS2. These issues can be embedded and there is no guarantee of improvement. A great head simply doesn’t have a poor ks2 provision. It’s wishful thinking to believe that it’s a quick fix and your child won’t be impacted. Often schools yo-yo. RI-Good-RI in a few years. It’s a common issue when there is turbulence, improvement and turbulence again because improvement cannot be sustained. You also have the anxt of not wanting Dc in so-snd-so’s class. By that time, you know the week links and you know Dc won’t progress much!!