Does Ofsted consider performance data?

[Ovenighttoast]

Just that really. Ofsted were / are at DC school (they arrived yesterday) and I was just wondering if they acknowledge the performance data on Gov.uk?

I only ask because Reading, Writing and Maths are bright red and "well below average"

And "Pupils meeting expected standard in reading, writing and maths" is less than 10%

Many thanks 😊

Yes. They will deep dive on subjects they're concerned about and look at what's going wrong. Bad results aren't always bad teaching, it's not that simple.

Thank you @Foxesandsquirrels - that's really good to know. The teachers are very popular with the children and the responses on Parent View seem good.

The school is already "Requires Improvement" and has been since it opened in 2013.

I think I'm clutching at straws here for a "good"

When was the last time they had an Ofsted? I'm assuming the data online is from 2019, so probably not current.

Last full inspection was early 2020 before lockdowns.

And they have a monitoring visit every year

How have the monitoring visits gone? Do you feel it has improved? Are you kids making progress? What was the reason for the RI rating?

Officially, data is not mentioned in the latest Ofsted orders. An LA adviser told me that if I put our (amazing) data in front of an Ofsted inspector, they would refuse to look at it. In practice, it’s completely different - they wanted everything. But they aren’t allowed to comment on it in the report. It’s to do with data not being published this year - expect this all to change in September.

Inspectors consider data from official data collection points (End of Reception, Y1 phonics, Y2 assessments, Y4 multiplication tables, Y6 assessments) but will not look at internal data.

The last published data is from 2019 so they will consider the data from 2022 more. Ofsted have access to this and will ask schools for and about them but they were not published nationally.

They will have the headline data to inform what they are looking at.

During the inspection, evidence triangulated through:

• Looking in children’s books, how are children supported to move their learning on, is progress evident
• Cohort details and support to address gaps in learning. Low outcomes can reflect low starting points but show children catching up ; high SEND and EAL, how are these groups supported to make progress.

However, less than 10% at expected is very low. They will want to see significant improvement on that.

Framework they are judging against is here. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-inspection-handbook#part-3-grade-descriptors-for-graded-inspections

Judgement criteria para 410 onwards.

Can’t see anything about data. And believe me, I would love this woman to be wrong about the orders as well as whether inspectors would ‘refuse to look at it’, silly cow.

Inspectors will refuse to look at internal data for subjects. They aren't allowed to consider it.

They absolutely 100% look at the "official" data points for the school and will expect you to know them and be able to reference, discuss and explain them.

Yes, and they did. But she was technically right in that it isn’t mentioned in the orders. She was wrong about them not asking to look. And as if any inspector would actively refuse! It was data that put us in the top 20. She definitely wasn’t talking about internal data and is a very senior adviser.

20%

I don’t think it would impact the score necessarily- it’s almost as though they don’t care about actual attainment anymore, just how effective the teaching is and other school procedures.

Every school around here that was outstanding (under the old ratings) has lost it but still has equally great academic results (think 50% exceeds and usually well in the 90% meeting) at year 6.

On the other hand, some of the much less academic schools have just had great Ofsted ratings, and certainly much better than they had under the old ratings.

Anecdotally, I’ve no doubt that the previous Ofsted ratings used to take a lot more consideration of academic results than they do now, and now the focus is on teaching practices more than attainment.

It would be unusual for an inspection to come out as good with red “well below average” for every category. Inspectors are probably there due to this. They will
want to know if the school recognises this position and is doing something about it. What development plan do they have and is it having any effect? Is slt effective?

I’m sorry to say that if it’s been like this for years, they are not improving. So I don’t see how this can be good. Well liked teachers are neither here or there. Ofsted will look at curriculum, progress, attainment and planning to improve. It looks like they haven’t so I would be concerned.

@TizerorFizz The only data op has is 2019 sats. If may have improved massively, she wouldn't know.

To be fair, there aren't enough schools achieving that level of result to be able to identify a pattern. In the last official set of data (2019), there were only 17 schools in the country that got 50% or above 'Greater Depth' in combined RWM.

I don’t think ours meets the combined year on year, but it’s regularly over 50% in one subject and sometimes others - same story with the others although interestingly it’s often a different subject they get their consistently high % in.

Something is working exceptionally well in these schools, which are by no means “exam factories”at the expense of other things, but all have been downgraded to “good”.

I know that the plan was to reduce the number of outstanding schools, I just find it very odd that not one of these high attainment schools has kept outstanding (although I do know some say complacency sometimes plays a part in leadership/planning etc).

Ah I see. Yeah, above 50% in one area happens more frequently so you could have a measure there.

Our Ofsted inspector this year did specifically reference our data in those initial meetings though, citing it as clear evidence that we "must be doing something right because data like that doesn't just happen". But that was because we had both high attainment and progress. Could it be that those schools downgraded had high attainment but low / average progress?

It could well be that as progress isn’t as impressive - it’s always positive but usually around 1-2 for the schools I’ve mentioned so nothing out of the ordinary (even though I believe this is based upon KS1 - KS2 SATS so doesn’t take into account progress in EYFS or KS1).

Progress scores at KS2 are KS1 to KS2.
KS1 has it's own progress score from EYFS.

That way you can better track where the progress is being made from starting points.

It is harder from schools with higher attainment to make higher progress scores if the starting points were higher (or, in this case, if KS1 points were higher) but it's still possible to be at 3s, 4s and 5s even with good KS1 results. You just can't hit the very highest numbers that some schools with lower attainment can.

From an education advice website:

The 2019 data is a starting point. The 20-22 data can inform discussion with Ofsted, but not detailed investigation. Recent data is not to be compared with earlier data due to the pandemic. Inspectors must not look at non statutory internal data but must “formatively check what pupils know and can do from day to day and week to week”. They don’t evaluate tests set up by the school. Therefore inspection is by talking to pupils, visiting classrooms, and evaluating work. However as the 2019 data is a starting point. red in every category is not great but clearly a school that has improved can show it via teaching and the work Dc are doing.

What are 3s, 4s and 5s? Haven’t seen numbers like this for 10 years plus.

I've heard anecdotally of schools with poor performance data doing better than expected in Ofsted inspections because Ofsted are finally trying to address the fact that schools in well-off areas are more likely to be good than those in more challenging circumstances, so they have basically been previously grading by parental income and circumstances.

So recently some schools with poor data who were expecting RI have been rated 'good' because Ofsted have acknowledged high pupil turnover (e.g. travellers) or high absence figures beyond school control.

@noblegiraffe I'm really glad this is finally happening. For far too long there was no incentive for schools to be 100% honest in their data.