In general, how good are Ofsted at picking when schools are putting on a show for them?

[Uniteed]

For example, a class having a science practical lesson for the first time in 2 years, whilst they are there?

It feels quite fraudulent.

“picking up” - can’t edit title!

Agree they can often tell,

But students and staff can feel that are unable to talk freely about things, due to the pressure that is often exerted before and during an inspection.

My experience is that they are a lot more savvy than they used to be.

They're like mothers. They can sniff out the one undusted shelf, or open that one cupboard where you've dumped everything. They just know.

No teacher is ever going to say anything negative about their school to an Ofsted inspector, no matter how awful the school or the SLT. Honesty wouldn't be worth a failed Ofsted and all the ensuing horror of follow ups and repeat inspections. You tell them it's wonderful and pray they believe you. The kids, otoh, might.

Not completely true, if you're already in school that requires improvement and been going through the cycle of repeat monitoring inspections and full inspections... this has been the experience of some - although many may move schools not all....

Not school but Ofsted inspected our LA recently who have practised every Monday "for Ofsted" for months and months. Would have thought that when there were no children about to throw a curve ball it would have been easier to put on a show but they got absolutely slaughtered so it obviously didn't work and they saw through it all. Should add that parents were very vocal filling in surveys and emailing directly experiences and FOIs which might have helped.

Ooh, which LA was that if I may ask? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to say publicly!

Doing a science practical is literally asking for an Ofsted inspector to ask the nearest pupil 'how often do you do these?'. Better to do a textbook lesson and hope they forget that practicals are a thing.

They talk to the kids, they look in their books, they ask 'are your lessons normally like this?'.

DerbyshireAreaSENDFullinspection_Sep24.pdf Here you go, an absolute disgrace

Ofsted can tell. Inspections that are 'managed' are easily identified and actually would.dig deeper if they thought this was the case.

@Uniteed teachers will want to present their own favourite lessons when Ofsted is around - probably that science teacher would love to do more practicals but has found that the demands of the National Curriculum and/or budgetary issues have squeezed them out - there's a report online which says that the proportion of ks4 students doing regular practical work dropped from 44% in 2016 to just 26% in 2023: www.sec-ed.co.uk/content/news/dramatic-decline-in-practical-science-in-the-classroom/

The lesson observations make up just a small part of the inspection. There’s a huge amount of data that is looked at, deep dives into subjects, interviews with middle leaders and SLT, interviews with kids, looking at kids books… etc
They do recognise that a lot of the lessons they see over the course of their visit will be extra ‘showy’.

It's also in parents' interest to be positive - a negative judgement is likely to lead to a school getting worse before it gets better, because it will find it harder to recruit good staff.

Is there anyone in any job who, if they were being individually watched and assessed wouldn't do it to the best if their ability, and probably better than on a normal day?
Anyway, OFSTED is now much much less about lesson observation and more about results, data and subject deep dives etc. Individual teachers and lessons aren't graded now, for starters

You also can’t just do a random favourite lesson. They expect them to be correctly sequenced and check previous learning to see how it fits in

Yep, I was just about to say the same thing - observed lessons are now assessed as "Secure" or "Not secure" rather than given a grading.

No school will be judged based on how many science practicals they do.

Students are likely to be quizzed about what they have learned during the lesson, to make sure they are making appropriate links with other parts of the curriculum.

All schools put on a show for Ofsted, just like you put on a show at job interviews and first dates and politicians and celebrities put on a show when interacting with the public and any ordinary worker puts on a show when the manager is walking through.

It’s normal, not nefarious.

Ofsted, of course, know this, just like employers and interviewers do, and we, the viewing and voting public do. The idea that Ofsted inspectors are gullible innocents is laughable. They’re hard as nails.

It’s really hard to pull the wool over their eyes I would say. Children & teenagers will just tell them how it is. They get lots of opportunity to do so with no teachers present & there is also an opportunity for parents to fill in an anonymous survey.

If they never do experiments then I imagine they will just say "why are we doing this today sir/miss - we never usually do"

They can see through a lot. My child was in an Ofsted monitored lesson and another child was asked what they had learnt today and they said 'nothing'. The teacher must have been furious. It's a mixed comp. They got an outstanding. I think they are wise to all the tricks including difficult teens who couldn't give a stuff if the teachers job is on the line.

Ofsted are as useless as a chocolate teapot. When they visited my son's previous school, loads of parents filled out the parent questionnaires highlighting all the massive concerns they had. School still got "outstanding". It's ridiculous

They can also sense when parents are being orchestrated to complain en masse.

A genuinely outstanding school that I know of gained an incredibly toxic parent who wound up a lot of otherwise unengaged parents into a frenzy over nothing.
OFSTED obviously had to look at the apparent issue, and found nothing of concern, because there truly wasn't anything behind that parent's accusations.

That parent made the headteacher and a couple of class teachers lives absolute hell over a period of two years. For absolutely no reason. Unfortunately the parents she wound up didn't realise she was nuts until after OFSTED was over. Fortunately the school retained it's outstanding grading, but the head could easily have ended up like that head who took her own life, had they done badly because of that woman.

Yep, at our last inspection an orchestrated group of parents with grievances gave negative feedback on parentview but they were still only a small percentage. The inspector was made aware of the clamour and spoke with the relevant department and found them to be doing an outstanding job. They know that schools can only work with the tools that they have and that sometimes parent expectations are unrealistic and unreasonable.

I always wonder about student interviews (where they are planned, and not the Ofsted inspector randomly talking to the nearest person).
My nice compliant, eager to please DD has been asked to take part in 3 Ofsted interviews (3 different schools)
My DS, who is more likely to give a "no holds barred" account, has never been asked.

I'm not sure too. But my more forthright kid was picked for one of these once so maybe it's a bit random at least.

The inspectors select the pupils. Prior to the inspection, they have access to the data about achievement levels etc. They pick names at random, either to cover all abilities, or to facilitate a deep dive into a particular area. So if at the last inspection there was a slight concern over the process of the most of the least able, they might select children from that cohort.

Those children aren't just picked to talk to them. They're also the children whose test results and written work will be examined*

*Caveat: that was how it worked at the point when I retired just a few years ago. I'm happy to be corrected by those teaching at present.

Yep, still works like that. The inspectors pick the names.