"Inadequate" inspection report when previous one was "good" - Juniors

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

DS1 is in Year 1 of a fantastic Infants school where he is thriving and doing well. The teachers are great, everything about it is perfect. Ofsted view it as good too. And the Juniors has always had a great reputation. The problem is, one of the mums recently noticed that the Juniors got an "Inadequate" on their last inspection report after years of it being "Good" or "Very good".

How can this happen that a good Junior school with a fantastic reputation which has always been viewed as such by Ofsted suddenly gets an "Inadequate" and needs to have things urgently put right, and be reinspected? There has been no change in head since the last inspection.

I don't understand it. Now this mum is talking about moving her son to a different school before he has to go up to the Juniors and whilst she is happy with the Infants is now also wondernig if she is going to send her 3 year old daughter there?

Now, I am not a great believer in Ofsted reports. The nursery my younger son is at also got an inadequate under the Safeguarding criteria but it is a bloody fantastic place. It was purely a completely minor bit of paperwork that wasn't in place that failed them and once they were reinspected it was fine.

I have also seen a bad nursery (which I took my elder son out of it was that bad) get a "Very Good" which I was flabbergasted at.

So I know you have to take these things with a pinch of salt, but really, do I take any notice of the report or not?

Oh, and it also makes me laugh that these reports quite often have grammatical errors or spelling mistakes in them or are just badly worded. From someone inspecting educational standards - ridiculous! Sometimes I think they are not worth the paper they're written on.

Oh, and by the way the report just seemed to contradict itself all the time. One minute saying teaching was excellent and the next picking holes in it. It also more or less inferred that the school is resting on its laurels because of its good reputation and as a result have got blase and is not doing enough to make improvements etc. It's almost like they are trying to teach the school a lesson!

It may well have been the safeguarding paperwork that did it for this junior school too - apparently the new inspection format is very hot on this. You should be able to get more clues from the report, especially the points under what needs to improve.

As you say, sometimes Ofsted can seem to contradict what parents think about a school or nursery. I wouldn't panic about the Juniors school, but I would have an in-depth look at the Ofsted report and find out exactly where the problems are. For instance, if they failed on safeguarding, it could be just one or two part time members of staff whose CRB check is out of date.

Is it a large or small school? In a small school, SATs results can be affected by having a difficult year group for whatever reason, and a drop in results could affect Ofsted- there are lots of possibilities.

And of course the school's reaction to the report will be very important, can they take on board the recommendations and quickly put systems in place to make improvements?

RustyBear, they were judged inadequate under the safeguarding criteria, yes. But it doens't go into detail about what exactly the problem was. Just that it failed under its statutory duty blah blah.....something like that. Apparently one parent was worried over the accessibility of the site and when inspectors reported this, the school worked to put things right, yet it was still judged inadequate.

the other thing it failed on was the sustained capacity for continued improvement bit. I just don't understand this criterion. Pozzled The juniors' attainment is above average and always has been. Do they have to get 100% on their SATS before they fulfil this criterion of continuing to improve?! All this target-driven improvement nonsense, what a load of bollocks. If the children are already high-achieving, where else have they got left to go?! It seems to pick holes in the school's ability to precisely measure progress from one period of time to the next and that's why it failed.

I have just re-read the report and still don't understand how it got judged as inadequate. There was only one parent in the whole school (which incidentally is a big one, Pozzled) who disagreed with the statement that "the teaching is good at this school", and it was a "strongly disagree", and again every parent but one thought that the school is effectively led and well managed. Attendance is good too. I just don't get it.

Pozzled, I think you've got it right there. I think it will be important to see how they manage to put the recommendations into place, even if it's just jumping through hoops to please the (overly-picky, in my estimation) inspectors.

Do you know if they do a Re-inspection report so to speak? And how soon after the Inadequate one is it done?

OP, under the new OFSTED framework, if a school's paperwork is not in order for safeguarding, then the school cannot get anything more than an inadequate, no matter how wonderful everything else in the school may be. The school has to maintain a Single List of all recruitment and vetting checks and be able to produce it at the start of an OFSTED inspection. If there are errors on the list or it is kept in sections in a number of places e.g., then the school will fail their inspection. It sounds as if this is what happened in this instance.

Hi, it sounds like you have answered your own question-don't rely on these reports! The parametres for 'scoring' can be very rigid and some things the school might be doing well are not able to be included.

The best way to find out about a school is to go and have a look. Meet the head and discuss your concerns with them. You can get a feel about it from the children who are already there.

The goal posts are always getting moved to raise the standards, so it may be that the school is not getting 'worse' but is the same as always. They may just not be pushing to meet the new higher standards.

Failure on sustained capacity for continual improvement is in effect saying the school is resting on its previous good work and not pushing itself enough to improve. My guess would be that they also do not have an adequate scheme for target setting and control in place

Whilst the safeguarding issue can be addressed very quickly the one above is not. An OFSTED inspector will be back roughly every 6 months for a day to assess progress. It is unlikely that the school will get out of inadequate in less than a year and quite possibly two years for this kind of problem.

It does not make the school an automatic bad school and actually could for a child joining now be a fantastic school if the staff take on board the criticisms and make it happen over the next couple of years.

I would also add another word of caution. It is a well known phenomena that junior schools can suffer because the infant school assesses the KS1 level too generously. If instead of say level 2A they give a 3C at KS1 that means that the junior school has to achieve a higher level at KS2 to make average progress in OFSTED's eyes.

The school my friends school works in got inadequate (after previous outstandings) because one volunteer reader didn't have a CRB (and she was the head's SIL...) Big price to pay for overlooking one reader.

Our school was satisfactory despite very high sats results as our value added (the difference between ks1 and ks2 sats results) was mediocre. Our infant school has the highest levels in the area and we'd need to get mainly level 5's to get a good value added score. Out of classes with around 50% SEN...hmmmm.

I think the best was to judge s ask as many parents as you can how they feel about the school. Personally from what you've said I wouldn't be put off.

Lots of schools going down for safeguarding this time but also OFSTED appear to be being much fussier especially on the school action plan.

I wouldn't take any notice of OFSTED reports if you are happy with the school.

Thanks everyone for your replies. They're all very helpful and it's kind of a relief to see that it's happening in other good schools too.

Interesting that you say that a lot of schools are going down under the safeguarding, Nymphisseeingstars. I wonder if this paranoia about safeguarding has come about since Ian Huntley? Mind you, that was a good while ago now and I thought the safeguarding thing had only come in the past year or two?

Also interesting to hear that Ofsted are getting fussier.

I am support staff in a secondary school and it does make me laugh to read our Ofsted report which was done recently. There were alot of things judged as Good, and I KNOW that is precisely NOT the case. It just seems that if you spend all your time making sure you have EXACTLY the right paperwork in place, are a good blagger and know how to paint yourself in a good light, then you are going to get a Good by the inspectors.

I just don't see how they can get a true picture of a school in the short time they spend there. It's only by WORKING in a school that you really get to know how well things are run I think. Parents have a good idea too. But the inspectors......... pah......

It is a bit worrying for parents moving to a new area trying to find a good school though, when all they've got to go on is a silly ofsted report and a quick tour round the school.

Thanks again, all. I am definitely not panicking any more about DS moving up to the Juniors. I'm pretty sure the school will be able to turn the report around.

If you go on the OFSTED site you can see the latest information for any school. Also it gives within individual reports the detail of the number of schools found inadequate. In the period from September to the end of December 10% of primary schools were inadequate and 14% of secondary schools. It is impossible to split that down to those that were failed for safeguarding issues only.

I was told by an OFSTED inspector that usually if the school fails safeguarding it is a symptom of the school as a whole and usually there are many other issues within that school. How true that is i have no idea.

Last inspection I was involved in the school was v highly praise for the inovative curriculum. Same curriculum on next inspection was slated. How can that not be a personal opinion?

A local secondary school is in special measures for safeguarding. It is still the best mixed secondary in the area for results, and parents are still moving house before Y6 to get into its catchment. It is also known to be particularly good for pastoral care.

OFSTED should be shut down and another organisation set up instead. I'm tired of hearing about good schools being marked down for things that have nothing to do with the high quality of their teaching and everything to do with this year's particular safeguarding or H&S hysteria.

there have been numerous reports of schools being put into special measures for safeguarding.

"I was told by an OFSTED inspector that usually if the school fails safeguarding it is a symptom of the school as a whole and usually there are many other
issues within that school. How true that is i have no idea." Safeguarding is the first thing that is inspected, and if the school fails on that then the inspection is halted and the school can either be given a notice to improve/put straight into special measures, but the remainder of the inspection is not carried out until the safeguarding is rectified.

Hear, hear, Abr1de!

Nymphisseeingstars: that's just typical, isn't it? I'm just hearing those kind of things happening more and more.

I honestly don'tn believe Ofsted reports are worth the paper they're written on.

And I hate the twee way they write a letter addressed to the pupils after the report is published. As if 4-7 year olds are going to understand or care about the contents of the letter.

The other thing I hate about them is they way they pick out ONE comment by ONE child and then say "The children (as in ALL the children) have good knowledge of blah blah". Eg: something like "The children demonstrate good knowledge of hygiene precautions: one child reminded the others that they must wash their hands after planting their seeds." Bloody ridiculous and simplistic conclusions that they make......

Re: safeguarding.....DS1 came home today and told me "We have spy cameras in our school now" and when I asked "Oh, what are they for?" (wondering if it's a safeguarding requirement), he said "To check if any children are being naughty."

So I'm none the wiser as to the cameras really exist or whether it's just the teachers' ploy to get the kids to behave!

Do OFSTED require CCTV cameras in primary schools now?