There is no doubt that the Head is in complete denial over all of this. The parents have just been left in the dark. There has been no official word from the school or general parents meeting since we actually saw the report. All we had was a very low key, poorly attended parents' meeting the day before it was sent home with the children, which in hindsight I feel was designed to head parents off at the pass. No one at the meeting knew what the report said, all we were told was that it judged the school "inadequate" in 3 out of the 4 areas with the other are being "Requires Improvement" - and that was sort of muttered at the end of the meeting with the line "you'll be able to read it for yourselves tomorrow". A meeting a week after we'd had it would have been far more productive and well attended.
We have not heard a word since and that was almost 4 weeks ago. Parents are desparate for some sort of update and to feel they'e being kept in the loop. Every day the children are coming home saying that things are changing and there seems to be all sorts of ad hoc initiatives being introduced, with little or no explantion. Presumably in an attempt to appease inspectors. These are secondary school children so they're old enough to know something's afoot and to be unsettled by it all.
Everything that has come directly from the Head and Governors since the report has come in the form of snatched soundbites and letters in the local newspaper. From this, and among all the "it's not our fault, we don't recognise our school as it's described in this report and it's all political" type comments, we've managed to glean that the school will now have adademisation forced on it but that an academy sponsor has not yet actually been idenfitied.
It really is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs. The Head has managed this whole affair extremely poorly in my view. I think that people would have far more respect for the Head/SLT and Governors if they collectively showed a little humility and acknowledged the fact that the decline of the school over recent years is at least something to do with their combined ineptitude as a leadership team. I mean, the report criticised them on proper use of systems designed to track pupils' progress effectively, failure to adequately monitor the performance of teachers and to provide effective training to raise teaching standards and on top of that they were also criticised for awarding teachers generous payrises on the basis of inacurate information about their competence to do their jobs properly.
The Governors were separately criticised for not being well enough informed about the school's strengths and weaknesses, for not having the skills and knowledge to challenge the school and for not effectively managing the performance of the Head and other teachers! All that and they're all still taking no responsibility and are instead banging on about the fact that OFSTED didn't want to know about the range of trips and extra curricular activities and work experience programme the school offers and the fact that the inspectors refused to observe the classes of their best teachers when they tried to direct them to them. The way they are refusing to take any personal responsibilty is astonishing.
I know academies have their critics too but as far as I'm concerned we can't get this current leadership team and governors out fast enough!
Sorry for the long rant but I feel I need to do it somewhere!! 