School Ofsted reports

[sazzerbear]

How often are achool Ofsted reports carried out, is it every 4 years? TIA

It depends. Some schools will be inspected more often; generally those that have received lower ratings (Special Measures or Satisfactory). Schools may also get interim visits on a particular subject or area more often.

I'm not sure what the longest between Ofsted reports generally is - I think maybe 4 or 5 years.

It varies. A full inspection is approximately every 3 years, but if a school is graded as satisfactory, it can be more often. In addition, schools sometimes have subject inspections inbetween the full ofsted ones.

x posted with Noah!

Thanks guys!

The timing of Ofsted inspections has changed recently.
It rather depends on the result of the last inspection.

If a school is found to be:-
Outstanding ? up to 3 to 5 years
Good ? up to 2 to 4 years (I think)
Satisfactory - Monitoring inspections usually take place 12 to 24 months after.
Notice to improve - Schools will usually be reinspected between 12 and 16 months after.
Special measures - The first monitoring inspection usually takes place between four and six months after.

I think the other thing to say is that the OFSTED testing criteria changed in September 2009. So any reports prior to that are on the old regime. The general feeling is that the new regime is giving out less outstanding and good and more satisfactory and the dreaded two "fail" grades.

So any school with an OFSTED report saying good or outstanding after September 2009 is probably a school of note but many schools that are perfectly good schools will only be classes as satisfactory.

Bottom line. Do not rely on the OFSTED report, go and visit the school on a normal school day and make your own mind up.

Thanks Admission, I am visiting schools as well as Ofsted isn't the be all and end all - there's so much info to take in!

I have heard that some OFSTEAD reports do not show the thruth about the school. Could it be true?

Ofsted reports are accurate at the time of writing. They report what they find.
It takes a few weeks until they are published so any problems may well have been addressed by publication date. In a few months the school could have sorted things out.

Similarly, exam results are as last June, the school might have changed since.

My school went from Nov 1999 to March 2006 then April 2007 then April 2010

I'm not convinced that Ofsted reports are always accurate at the time of writing. I think that with the new 2-day inspection it is possible for the inspectors to be misled. They start from the school's own evaluation and they simply don't have the time to look at everything, in a large school they will often only observe a very small amount of lessons for instance. They are very useful as a starting point, and I find the contextual information very helpful, but I wouldn't place too much reliance on what they say personally.

Admission is right.

The criteria has changed recently. My school was very recently inspected - we received 'good' and had also received 'good' nearly 4 years ago. However, we were very clearly told that the goalposts had been moved and our school had improved in many areas since the last inspetion. We were also told that our next inspection could be anything up to 5 years but not before 3 and a half years.

In terms of how deep Ofsted can look - we had 4 inspectors; one was entirely focussed on safeguarding and another spent the whole 2 days doing paperwork. The other 2 inspectors did observations and met with staff and as part of the management team, I had a grilling on the first day from one inspector. We feel that the inspectors summed our school up well considering they were there for such a short time, although it has to be remembered that their priority is to check whether the school's self evaluation is accurate, rather than go through absolutely everything with a fine toothed comb.

What I have heard is that OFSTEAD inspectors could be bribed by the school officials. I believe that this is possible but not common.

Although I could not know for definite, I am very certain that does not happen.

Octavia - where have you heard that from, and do you have any proof? I've certainly never heard of, or experienced it.

I have not got a proof, no. Just some people told me that some schools are far from what the reports show and that they suspect that some officials might be in a very good relationship with the OFSTEAD getting better reports for their school as a result.

When you see all the scams in the government and the media you might think that this is also possible.

I myself do hope that reports show the true image of the schools.