OFSTED jargon please help

[PurpleTomatoes]

Looking at secondary school for 2022 entry.
Looking at OFSTED reports for 2 schools. I know OFSTED aren't the be-all-and-end-all and there are many other things that need considered but i'm wondering what the wording is really telling me. Is it just the wording, or does it mean something that I don't know about? Is the good school now worse than the RI school?

School A
"Good school .... with concerns that standards may be declining". Then it goes onto say what it thinks is declining. e.g. "pupils work hard but don't progress as well as they could" and "in some subjects pupils don't have the time to develop subject specific skills" and "Pupils are not supported as well as they should be" and something about curriculum sequencing and how its in the wrong order. (October 2019 report)

School B
Requires Improvement with a few good points and where it can improve. When looking at website and prospectus and other things provided by the school, all action points (well, the ones I can click on and see or the ones that the school have openly said they need to improve and provided what they are doing about it) e.g. curriculum needs improved and they have completely overhauled the curriculum and made languages available to all where they weren't previously and school management have been sorted out where previously it wasn't because they were having a rough patch when inspected. All evidence provided by the school shows the action points have been implemented. (2017 report)

Which is better? A good school which may (or may not) have declining standards or a RI school which has acted on the OFTED actions?

That is a tough one as the inspection framework in 2019 is slightly harder (in some respects) than the 2017 one. I’d look at their Attainment at 4+ and 5+ and their Progress 8 scores on the governmental compare schools website.

Yeah its a funny one. It's the "standards may be declining that's confusing. They either are or they aren't. OFSTED are sitting on the fence and its very not helpful.

Don't know whether it makes a difference but School A's report is a section 8 and School B's report is a section 5.

From 2019: School A has better "pass rates" in maths and english than school B and also a better attainment8 (5 points higher). School A also has slightly improved stats each year (blip in 2018 where it went down by about 20%). School B stats increasing steadily in all areas.

Can you find each school's progress 8 score? That will tell you how much progress they make from getting them in year 7 through to GCSE.

Section 5 is a full report where they give the school the grade
Section 8 is a short inspection, they don't grade the school, it determines whether the school needs to have a section 5 and be re-graded or not.
I would expect from the dates and the wording that school B is expecting an inspection this academic year (probably after Christmas with everything going on at the minute). School A based on that will probably be expecting a section 5 this academic year.
If you're lucky both schools will be inspected before the applications go in for 2022 admissions (which will be october 2021) and you have something which puts them both on the same level. But don't hold out for it - it might not happen.

I agree with others, look at attainment and progress scores. Atainment 8 is all about reslts, schools in better catchments will (usually) get higher attainment 8. Progress 8 is the more interesting one and shows how much the school has done for the DC. Anything with a + sign in front of it (and consistently) is good.

When it comes to it and you don't have new reports to look at then gut instinct and which offers the best opportunities for your DC is the one to go with.

You haven’t quoted from the RI report for school B. What exactly was wrong? They will be due an inspection to check on progress.

I would actually look at the pattern of the reports over several years. Have either of these schools yo-yoed in and out of RI? Have they largely been good? Was the RI a single blip?

Then look at the attainment results on the government web site. Look back over several years. What are the points scores for the grades attained? What is the pattern of these? What is the pattern for progress 8? Look up as much data as you can because this is what Ofsted do.

The comment about declining attainment standards for A might be a slight decline year on year. But this comment would hold no water if progress 8 was excellent. So my guess is their progress isn’t as good as it could be due to the curriculum being taught in the wrong order and teachers who leave dc floundering a bit. So a Ofsted have said you are a good school - but watch it! You can do better - it seems to be coasting. What were their areas for improvement? Also what are the proportions of higher, middle and lower attainers? What progress do each group make? Look at the detailed data.

For B - you need Ofsted or HMI to evaluate the school improvement but the government stats will give you a steer. You will have no idea if the changes to SLT or the curriculum have had the desired effect. Just saying what you’ve done isn’t the same as it being effective and addressing the RI issues by sustained improvement.

A further inspection at both would help. At the moment school A might have had a sufficient push to improve. B is coming from a worse position and they might take more time to sort out.

There's an article about that phrasing here
www.google.com/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-running-unofficial-sub-grade-system/amp/

@Guymere thank you for the detailed reply. Very helpful.

Unfortunately there isn't a pattern of reports. At least they are not available on the OFSTED website. Both schools became academies and the report before they converted isn't available. From the gist of what I've read School A was good before converting and school B was either unsatisfactory or RI. I do know that in the past (many years ago) school B was good or outstanding at every inspection but lots has changed in the school since then.

School B report says things like "weak progress compared to other pupils nationally", "most-able pupils not consistently challenged", "recent improvements in teaching and progress monitoring leading to better pupil progress but it is not yet consistent enough", "Languages not available to all pupils", "In some subjects teachers do not give consideration to the order topics are taught in". There's something about a long period of inconsistency but the new leadership team have direction and what they have already implemented is improving the school but some changes haven't had a chance to make a big impact yet.

I'm aware that I'm no inspector, I was just going of information provided. You're right, I really could do with both of them having an inspection this year so they can be judged against one another from the same criteria. I would love it if OFSTED came up with a plan that was just - we are going to inspect all schools in X town this term - then there's some consistency between the local schools and a level playing field.

Ill definitely be digging into the more detailed data though. Thank you for that advice.

@mmmmmmcheeeesssseeee thank you for explaining the differences in the reports. I didn't realise a section 8 meant they didn't grade the school. Seems a bit of a waste of time to me. They went through all the data, inspected lessons and wrote a report - for what? I know it had some purpose but they may as well just have given the school a grade at the same time.

@AlpineSnow Very interesting. Thank you!

This here (from the article)
Silver added: “Is it better to be a ‘good’ school with a chance of becoming ‘outstanding’, or an ‘outstanding’ school with ‘declining standards’?”

Exactly what I'm questioning!

An Ofsted spokesperson denied that the approach taken in the reports was new and said: “Our inspection reports have always set out clearly whether a school is performing well, or whether standards have declined.

. Well its not very clear to me. If they didn't use the word may then it would be clear. Its adding the may into the sentence that adds the confusion.

They seem to be saying that if Outstanding was an A grade, then Outstanding with concerns that standards may be decline would be an A minus. I agree it's confusing for parents and must be annoying for the school aa it creates doubt over whether it's still a good school.

I think you can get a look at attainment for lower, middle and higher achievers via the government web site. I think they go back to 2017.

Also please remember very few schools are outstanding. A lot that are will be grammars or have not so many challenging dc. It’s very difficult to get outstanding now and I wouldn’t expect that. Getting good is a decent achievement.

Sounds as if A is still better overall but needed a bit of a shock to stop it becoming a 'coasting' school- ofsted have become much more aware of those over the past couple of years. The comments youve just posted for school B dont sound good at all.

Agree it's very unclear, very good advice above about good further sources of data.

Have a look at the schools through the gov website

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england

Find your school and then open up results over time to see what is available under that, also results by pupil characteristics.

The last one opens up a lot more specific info on disadvantaged pupils and prior attainment which will show how many low ability, middle ability and high ability children they had coming into the school. Also English as an additional language etc these show the challenges the school faces in order to get the results that it does. Sometimes a school is doing great considering the children who come through their doors. It will just give you a bit more information about the usual cohort.

The school my son attends has a Progress 8 of 0.71+ but children with English as an additional language their P8 score is 1.89+.

I'd be wary of the figures from A, as it sounds as though they aren't entirely accurate. I'd also suspect that the intake who would have gone to B in the years after the RI, but went to A instead were of a lower ability/poorer behaviour level or some very good teachers are now long gone and it's not actually showing up in the figures as yet - but will in 2/3 years.

B, though, sounds as though they already have a lot of major problems and whilst they may be improving, the base level, culture, facilities and staff may not be there yet.

I'd look very closely at A for signs of them effectively saying 'everything's fine, nothing to see here, move along now's and B for 'that was THEN, not now' especially if they've had a cull of experienced staff in the last two years.

does the RI have a new head??

A new Head can mean a lot of turbulence before anything settles down though. It can work of course - until they move on to their next project. The comments about B are not great and certainly need attention from experienced leadership.

@Lucinda76 the RI school got a new head before the last inspection. A bit of digging has found the school was unsatisfactory then became an academy with new head and leadership.

@MitziK yes, what you have described seems to have happened. A lot of parents seem to have jumped ship in the last few years from the playground gossip.

@Guymere I had a look at the data and figures as suggested for low, middle and high attainers. School A figures are all better than school B’s in all areas. It’s mainly average or above average progress. (All above 0 anyways) Some quite a lot. Their average progress for the last 3 years has been +1, 0.4 and 0.6. (Thinking this is the impact from people jumping ship from School B?)
School B doesn’t seem to do a lot for high achievers but this has improved recently but seems to do a lot for low achievers. Their overall progress seems to have gone up a lot more than School A. They’ve gone from below average in 2017 (-1.2), slight increase in 2018 (-0.9) and in 2019 a big jump to being average (-0.1). (Thinking this is the impact from the new head?)

Where does your dc sit, attainment wise? If they are going to be in the priority area for that school, it might be the best fit for them. If school b is getting great progress out of low attainment kids and your child is likely to have low SATS scores, it could be good for him/her. But if your child is a middle or high attainer it seems like he/she would be better off at school a.

It could be the improvements made by the new Head or less DC who are in the difficult to achieve good progress from. DC who have high absence rates, SEN of some types and pupil premium children can drag progress down - but not necessarily. I think a single year improvement, but still -, wouldn’t be good enough for me.

I would also look at 6th form results. Who gets better A levels? The numbers of higher achievers would also be important if your chills is one or the category you think your child is in. Progress in every category for school A is fairly good.

It’s difficult to tell if parents are choosing A over B. Looking at their admission stats published by the LA might tell you - distance admitted.

Both schools became academies and the report before they converted isn't available.

It probably is, but it will be under the previous name of the school before it became an academy. Once they become an academy the old school closes and a new school opens.

I would say DC is in the middle attainment band. (Maybe slightly in the higher attainment band but maybe not). Regardless DC is top half of the middle ability.

Thank you everyone for pointing me in the direction of looking at more detailed stats and cut off distances.
School B has only 14% of the middle attainers achieving 5+ in english and maths at GCSE (23% at 4+). School A is much much higher at 60% 5+ and 49% 4+. School A's higher attainer results are both 90's unlike B's which are 70's . I can see now why the school B needs improvement.
Both schools have no 6th form so there are no 6th form results to go off but school A has a higher percentage staying in education or going into employment.
School A has a cut off distance which we are (just - by 2 meters eek - hope it stays this way!) inside. School B accepted all applicants from last 3 years. So school A defiantly the one to be at by the looks of it.

I think I'm starting to understand now that the wording in the report was just confusing and nothing to worry about now I've looked at everything in a lot more detail.
We have got our eye on another School, School C, which it very popular, great results, teachers, extra-curricular, consistently good and outstanding in a few categories etc. and we probably wont get a place which is why I was worried about the reports of the ones that we are more likely to get a place at.
Still going to cross all fingers and toes that both A and B get an inspection before we have to put the forms in next year!

Again, thank you everyone for all your wonderful advice, its been extremely helpful