How to under Ofsted and parent view

[Lieger]

*Edit - messed up the title. I mean understand, obviously!

We’re looking at two schools for DS for 2025. Both have recent Ofsted reports:

• School 1 is outstanding, but less popular with parents (80% recommend on parent view, parents have some issues with bullying)
• School 2 is Ofsted good but gets glowing feedback on parent view (as an example, 96% would recommend)

I find reading the actual reports is difficult - it’s like they’re written in a code I don’t really understand. Can anyone help explain why a school would be more popular with Ofsted than with parents and vice versa?

The outstanding school might just be focussing more on doing what ticks all the OFSTED boxes. Things like sending home a patronising letter when your child's attendance dips below 90% asking you to "work with them to improve attendance" even though they know that your child is definitely too unwell to return to school because you called in to tell them so on your way to the hospital!!

I’m sure it’s true that some schools are better at playing the Ofsted game, but aren’t Ofsted wise to that? Are Ofsted able to spot when it reflects a genuine ethos and when it’s just box-ticking?

There's obviously a framework but the inspectors so have quite a lot of autonomy and discretion. The quality and experience of the inspectors will play a huge role as will just the timings of their visit. So much of the grade is just pure luck which is where the problem lies. The quality of inspectors has been dwindling over the years as well. I've heard it's the worst it's ever been.

From my experience good schools focused more of happy children and outstanding are much more on it with paperwork.

My SEND son was asked not to attend ofsted week because they were trying to get outstanding and his challenging behaviour would disrupt the class and stop them getting outstanding. I know of other SEND parents with similar experiences so I don't set much store in ofsted ratings because I know schools do this

How? they spend a maximum of 3 days with the school. Maybe 25% (maybe more) of that time is spent looking at forms and data and filling in more forms.
They spend maybe 10 mins in any one lesson. 20/30 mins talking the kids, 20 mins talking to staff. An hour doing deep dives on specific subjects.
They don’t have time to really find out much more than what the school has already told them.
It is really an exercise in checking if the school are assessing themselves correctly.

Oh I see. Naively assumed that they observed whole lessons.

@Lieger , the latest ofsted framework (from Sept 2019 onwards) is very different to the previous framework, and it is more difficult to get (or retain) an outstanding rating. However the ratings have been deliberately decoupled from results (which can be looked up separately). This means it is also easier for some schools that were previously held back by the progress of difficult cohorts to get a Good rating. They can now demonstrate high quality of teaching, safeguarding etc and get a Good rating whereas under the previous framework they would have been whistling into the wind.

Do check the reports to see if they were "full" inspections or shorter "monitoring" inspections. Monitoring inspections can't change a school's rating, they can only say "yes you're still good" or "you may be outstanding but we'll have to do a full inspection to confirm it".

It takes a lot of hard work to tick the boxes for outstanding.

One problem with outstanding schools is that they can attract a lot of sharp elbowed parents who move in to the area for a place. Some may have chosen the school over private options and have unrealistic expectations of it. Also, the children of sharp elbowed parents can often be sharp elbowed themselves, which might partly explain the bullying.

One thing always worth checking out is the Headteacher's open day speech. Inspiring headteachers attract good staff.

They also only observe about 3 subjects ... they do deep dives on those and ignore the rest. So if they choose a subject where the subject leader is on maternity leave, or sick leave, the result may be less positive.

The subject leader's input is pivotal because they have to explain the entire curriculum rationale, e.g. why topics are taught in one order rather than a different order.

I would expect to prefer an ofsted good school over an outstanding.

Being good at teaching and good at ofsted aren't always the same thing and often there's a direct conflict.

So many faults with the ofsted system.

The whole report is weird and you have to do a lot of reading between the lines. For example, all the comments about the teaching were very positive, except for one mention of the SEN provision not always being sufficiently tailored. Maybe actually it is tailored but not written down in the right way. Presumably that’s why it’s not outstanding but that’s just my assumption.

Does your child have SEN?

One thing you can be sure of, if an Ofsted reports highlights something that can be fixed, then it will be fixed. Probably by now, and certainly by the next time Ofsted calls, they will have compiled evidence to show that the SEN teaching is more tailored than it was before.

No he doesn’t. But it’s just an example of how unhelpful the report is.

Very much happens in our are with one school

I'll add a massive red flag on parent view and ofsted.
In our area a school that got outstanding recently is slated by a huge % of parents. It's pastoral is rubbish. It's one size fits all. Narrow gcse options. Academic focus but not much for you if you are middle or bottom. Lots fighting & disruption. It's even got own parent Facebook page to moan.
BUT house prices in the 1 mile area to get in depend on that school reputation. So no one would tell ofsted what is talked openly about.
Parents walk away if child has any SEN and move schools.
Parents will not risk the premium on house price tho

Take note of this post, and other similar ones later in the thread.

School 2 is probably more nurturing

That, surely, gives you your answer then.

All schools care about attendance. They are set targets by the DfE, but for good reason - poor school attendance impacts children's learning and therefore their life chances.

Schools that seem heavy handed on it may have a bigger attendance problem to solve than others.

You are looking at this way too scientifically, anyone with experience of Ofsted will tell you that it's very much not a science and pouring over every word for hidden meaning is a waste of time

Also parenrview is a random selection of views from parents who firstly even know it exists and secondly can be bothered to register and fill in the questionnaire

Children are at secondary for at least 5 years there's no guarantee that the teachers who were ofsteded will be there on the day your child starts and statistically unlikely to be there when they reach year 11

Listen to the news this morning about ofsted

@Lieger I live in a County where all dc can sit tests to go to a grammar school. All except one of the grammars is Outstanding. Are these schools playing a game to get Outstanding? No, of course not. They are popular brilliant schools all the time. They don’t change anything for Ofsted because they don’t need to. The secondary schools are mostly not outstanding but many are good and parents like them too. They have different challenges but Ofsted do have a lot of data on schools prior to inspection and the inspection really confirms initial views.

They are very keen on seeing a sequenced curriculum (for obvious reasons) and if dc make good progress ofsted are happy with teaching quality. They don’t look at individual teachers and critique them. The reports give a steer on what a school should do to improve and I would see if this has been done. Ask for evidence. All teaching outcomes must be evidence based.

My concern for your choices would be that you describe one school as strict. I would evaluate very carefully as to whether this suits DC. For me, it’s a No. This one aspect will be the ultimate difference a pupil will notice. They will also notice poor teaching but that can be improved and change very quickly. All schools must chase up poor attendance but some will be more aggressive than others but they probably have reason to be.

Also what do parents at your primary think? Do they have older dc at these schools? They are a good source of info.

Ofsted reports are very hit and miss.
a DC of mine attended a school which was frankly not good at all. A lot of unhappy parents. But ofsted thought it was outstanding. Because the head was a former inspector who knew what boxes to tick.
a DC also attended, more than five years ago, a different school where organisation, management and safeguarding were a shitshow. Parents knew this, and were tearing their hair out. But as far as ofsted were concerned, it was good with outstanding features until last year, when they were re-inspected, these issues were identified, and it was downgraded to "requires improvement"
So as far as I've seen, Ofsted miss most problems, and their reports are wrong as often as not. Talking to half a dozen parents who know the school tells you far more.
If an ofsted report identifies specific issues and says a school is poor or "requires improvement" then they may be right. But if they label a school good or outstanding, it may just mean they've missed the issues that parent are well aware of, or that they've got someone on the staff (e.g. a former inspector) who knows what boxes to tick.

The best schools have a low turnover of staff and have very little families leaving because people are happy with the school. That is the key information you need to find out.

Ofsted will be scrapped in the next few years. It's an appalling organisation not fit for purpose and these reports are shockingly misleading. I'm surprised English parents are not really aware of this still. Look for happy children, diversity, a range of teacher ages & experience, informative info about the curriculum, support available, play approach, work on UNICEF rights respecting schools awards and levels. What do other parents say in real life. A teachers car park still filled up at 4.30pm is NOT GOOD.

I would be happy to see teachers facilitating sports and clubs at 4.30 and not taking so much work home. A good school is where staff are valued but all going home by 4.30 is a bit of a luxury these days. It’s a quiet time for meetings and seeing parents.

I also think that parents don’t have access to all the data Ofsted do. It’s quite possible to be an outstanding school and have some grumpy parents that don’t like it. Outstanding isn’t box ticking when some schools really are fantastic. By saying it’s box ticking, it totally undermines the work done by that school.

Leadership of a school is important but a head’s job is to know what Ofsted want. Above a to know what dc need. It’s not a secret society and they should not be scrapped. Parents never had any robust evaluation of schools in the past and too many were poor and had been poor for generations. They didn’t do the best for dc and at least Ofsted have an evolving framework which heads should understand. It will evolve again with the new head of Ofsted but it won’t be scrapped.

I agree Ofsted is necessary but I think the reports should be presented more systematically so parents can understand them. It’s great that Ofsted see the inner workings of the school in the way parents can’t, but they need to be clearer and more specific. I know two local schools that are diametric opposed in quality but you wouldn’t really know that from their Ofsted reports. Having said that, the local outstanding schools have glowing Ofsted reports that are well-deserved. I also don’t think the one word ratings are helpful at all.

I was looking back at an Ofsted report for a local school from the year 2000, and it was 49 pages long! That just shows how the framework has changed over the years.

These days, the inspection process is more collaborative, with lots of conversations and feedback on the day. The report itself is just the bare-bones summary - a record of the visit - but it isn't very helpful to parents.

The one word judgement is meant to be a parent-friendly headline, but it isn't particularly helpful to parents either. It is too polarising.

@Lieger @shivermatimbas Don’t parents actually read the whole report though? The front page has all the categories with judgements. The reports have changed because parents aren’t going to wade through page after page. I’m not quite sure how they could be more parent friendly. They won’t say Mrs A is a crap teacher. Years ago you could work this out but not now. Generally the head takes the rap but they are paid to do the job. However they aren’t happy about that either. So who is responsible for a school and what it does.

I think schools should rate inspectors. Many have been slt in schools so absolutely know what it’s like being inspected. Some can be officious and somewhat blunt. However most schools are getting through it and so are most heads.