Just discovered our school has never had an ofsted inspection

[Oysterbabe]

I know that ofsted inspections are kind of bullshit, but am I right to be concerned that the school has never had one in the 11 years it's been open?

Not unusual - a friend’s school just had one after 13 years. Not necessarily concerning unless you have worries yourself about the school’s performance.

It’s certainly not unusual but it’s not ideal. You could think you’re sending your child to an outstanding school and it could actually be inadequate. Your child could go though the whole school with it not being up to the standard it advertises itself as.
But in my opinion, Ofsted ratings are only relevant to the leadership, the cohort of students and the results for the particular period of time that the inspection is carried out. I can’t see that a school could possibly be the same place 13 years later?

A secondary school near me is still dining off it’s 2009 outstanding ofsted. 14 years ago! I did write to ofsted a few years ago about it and got a very dismissive letter back telling me it was fine.

To be fair a local school received an outstanding ofsted and a year later the head was suspended under investigation, half the staff left, the nursery was closed, dodgy building work was uncovered and the entire governing body resigned. So they are maybe only as good as the day they are written!

Secondary school was outstanding in 2014. Not been inspected since.

The school is the same federation as another local school, but they are very much separate schools. In December 2011 the linked school was inspected. At this stage our school consisted of 2 reception classes and 1 year 1 class and that was it. These 3 classes were in a temporary home as the site wasn't finished. They moved onto the site where they are now in January 2012, around the same time this report was published. The report was logged as an inspection of our school, as well as the linked one, even though at that stage they were 3 classes in a function room of a local business. They were given an outstanding rating off the back of the sister school inspection.

In 2019 the sister school was reinspected and downgraded to good. Our school still has that 2012 report as being the most recent inspection, it's still rated outstanding. Ofsted have never set foot on the school grounds.

I've known people move house to get into catchment because they want an outstanding school but it's all just complete nonsense.

I don't take any notice of OFSTED. Have family who are teachers and it's all a shit show.

If my child is happy and learning well that's good enough for me.

I wouldn't be concerned unless you had actual concerns about the school and the leadership.

The primary school my children attend has not had an OFSTED for a similar time period. It's been the same Head since then, the staff turnover is low. What the Head does is invite in as many voluntary/optional inspections as possible from a variety of organisations to demonstrate to parents that they are not resting on their Outstanding result from over a decade ago. Schools afaik don't have the ability to ask OFSTED in, as OFSTED has their own timetable and their own priorities. The only exception being if a serious breach or concern has been reported to them and they decide to do an unscheduled inspection.

It's not the schools fault that it hasnt been inspected tho. Some comments here seem to be directing their ire at the school when actually it is a failure of ofsted.

Schools can invite Ofsted inspection - Ofsted may charge them for the privilege!

I know it isn't the schools fault, but I do find the situation ridiculous. The outstanding rating is very misleading, how many parents actually click on the report?

The head has recently announced he's leaving at the end of this year. I've been half wondering if it's connected to the fact that the school is supposed to be "re"inspected by August 2025 under the new rules.

I doubt they are even good on the day they are written.
I have seen no evidence to suggest that one should believe anything that Ofsted produce.

In 2012 Michael Gove, then in charge of the Dept of Education, decided that it would be better for Ofsted to focus its time and resources on inspecting under-performing schools. So he changed the law to make schools graded as outstanding exempt from routine inspection. Ofsted could still go in if there were concerns - lots of parent complaints, the exam results slipped right down, the local authority reported they were worried. But schools with an outstanding inspection grade were otherwise off-limits to inspectors.

That lasted until 2020, when people quite rightly started pointing out that some schools were sitting on an outstanding grade that was awarded before their children were born, and they'd gone through their whole primary school careers still never having an inspector visit. Obviously with covid and all not many inspections happened in 20/21, and it takes quite a while to get around all the exempt schools when they're still needing to do the routine visits for everyone else as well plus the extra monitoring visits the inadequate ones need.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspections-statistical-commentaries-2021-to-2022/a-return-to-inspection-the-story-so-far-of-previously-exempt-outstanding-schools