Inadequate OFSTED report

[rara67]

The local senior school is an academy. It cost £38m to build. There is no other choice in the area. It has just been awarded an Inadequate - special measures OFSTED. Any advice for current and prospective parents please? Who is ultimately responsible? How quickly can things improve? How involved can parents get? Many thanks

I would be careful to take OFSTED too seriously these days. Read their full report - all the points - literally - before you accept their verdict.
Ofsted are obliged to label a school inadequate even if it is mostly good, if it fails in just ONE category (Michael Gove's new framework).
Talk to parents who already have children at the school with kids from a similar background to yourself, and see what their experience is.
If you find these contradict OFSTED, get behind your school and the teachers there, and join campaigns to get rid of Michaels Gove and Wilshaw.
www.thinking-about-education.co.uk/parents-petition/
www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-coalition-government-sack-michael-gove

That makes it sound like it is a failure in one category out of many. For clarity, the categories are:

• Achievement of pupils
• Quality of teaching
• Behaviour and safety of pupils
• Leadership and management

A school will be judged inadequate if it fails in one or more of those categories. Bluntly, I do not see how a school which is inadequate in one of these categories can possibly be regarded as anything other than inadequate.

prh47 - the scores were as follows:

Achievement of pupils = 4
Quality of teaching = 4
Behaviour and safety of pupils = 3
Leadership and management = 4

So, a very sound "Inadequate"

tiggy - thanks for your positive comments but phrases from the report such as "School leaders do not show the capacity to make the main improvements that are needed" are very worrying. Where can I see the action plan? I appreciate it wont be finalised but the way the covering letter to the report read, they knew that this was coming so surely there is already some sort of plan in place. How do you recruit new governors? Perhaps such a bad report will encourage some really supportive parents? I just feel that someone should be accountable and every effort should be made for the 1000's of children who have not, are not and will not get the kind of education that every child deserves (or at least something close to it). I cant think of another example where a failing monopoly continues to get so much business!

Thanks and agreed. Our primary school as you may know "Requires Improvement" however we have much more faith that this is being resolved and that the management DO have the capacity. The Prospects MD advertises his email on their website so I need to contact him and see how I can keep up to date with the plans. I will also contact our local councillor as I know he is some way involved with the school. I am not sure if it is within an MP's remit. I guess I want everyone to know the problem, take some responsibility for it and show some true commitment in getting it out of the mire, asap. Oh, and try to encourage others to do the same!

"it is not true that perfectly acceptable schools are being deemed failures for no good reason"

My DD's school was just given an inadequate rating. It got inadequate for achievement of pupils despite "All groups of pupils, including those eligible for free school meals who benefit from the pupil premium make good progress in Key Stage 2. The gap between these pupils and their classmates is closing. These pupils outperformed others of their age group nationally in English and mathematics, as shown by their results at the end of Year 6 in 2012"
They also got inadequate for teaching despite all lessons observed during the inspection being good or better.
Ofsted judged that behaviour and safety needed improvement despite commenting that "Observations during the inspection found that pupils were polite and well-mannered, especially during lunch time, and no lessons were disrupted by inappropriate behaviour."
Leadership and management were judged also to require improvement. Why? Because pupils at key stage 1 have been performing below national average for some time.

Personally I don't believe in early hot housing anyway, so this is just an extra selling point for the school in my opinion.

All I'm saying is don't take an ofsted report at face value without reading it carefully. You may find it's actually quite a good school.

"They also got inadequate for teaching despite all lessons observed during the inspection being good or better. "

They got a 4 for teaching even though all the lessons they observed were good or upstanding?

How did they explain that in the body of the report? Or is the teaching good or outstanding but the children make no progress?

My understanding is that it was based on lack of sufficient progress at KS1

tiggytape, you are right.

But through my dd's school's ofsted experience, all I can say is that it doesn't reflect how I and all the parents I have spoken to feel about the school. We feel it is a mostly good school, and the 'inadequate overall' is insulting and a demoralising. I am supporting my dd's teachers and headteacher as are many other parents...