Any thoughts on this new drop in regime?

[NannyOggsKnickers]

Can't put too many detail. You never know who is reading.

New system of drop ins by senior staff. Was originally sold as pupil tracking. Now it seems that they will be making judgements on marking, behaviour management, classroom ethos and class paperwork.

Surely this cannot be enforceable. What would you do? The drop in could be as often as twice a week. And all info will be recorded centrally with teacher name attached.

Academies are the problem. All the stuff that is outrageous and demeaning and causes stupid and deathly workload can be written into your contract and then the unions can do nothing. Their strength is in upholding the STPCD, which is a great and hard-fought for document. But Academies? My old Head, when pushed on matters of fairness and workload would always, eventually, end up closing the matter with "and anyway, we're an Academy, so I can do what I like" and that is the prevailing academy attitude. I did once say to him, "Yes, but you're not above standard employment and discrimination at work laws" and he looked confused and rather shocked. I think it's something the new combined NUT are really going to have to try and sort out. I am now back working for one of the last LEA run schools left, but how long we'll last un-academies is anyone's guess.

thebookeatinggirl

Absolutely. And because a lot of Academies (sponsored and converted) are good or outstanding in rating, they are likely to get away with these practices. This is because if outstanding, all they need to do is maintain the results and they will get left alone. This means the Staff and Pupils most certainly do not get left alone and instead, treated appealingly-all in the name of 'results'. Even if good, these 'light touch' inspections and going to mainly focus on data and SLT will do anything to maintain that, at the expensive of their Staff.
I despair!

I'm in a Catholic LEA school with a Head who I believe was once a union rep and who is opposed to academisation. Our conditions and workload seem to compare favourably to most places. The diocese may force us down the academy route at some point but they appear to have lost interest in it for the moment at least. I know a local Jesuit school was pretty unhappy with the proposed MAT structure as they were going to be in a MAT where they would be the only Jesuit school so it may never happen.
We had a two-day inspection under the new framework. The first day there was very little lesson observation. We used to have a fairly onerous marking policy with lots of detailed written feedback and pupil response. They could not have cared less about it, when the Head tried to show it off they told her that they weren't bothered because as long as kids were making great progress it showed the feedback they were getting was working. The marking that they actually picked up on as good was of the quick, corner cutting variety like use of highlighters to indicate strong and weak parts of work without writing long comments and the use of whole class crib sheets to feed back to the group. We've now scaled our marking policy back massively to reflect this.
I think a lot of the stuff being forced on teachers in order to please Ofsted is now quite out of date. They seemed fairly indifferent to student-led learning, discovery-learning style lessons, carousels and the sort of 'fun' activities that were preferred when they came 5 years earlier. I think the school's results gave them a good idea of what judgement we would get and the visit was really just to confirm that.

Were you inspected last academic year Dumbledore? A two day inspection is now considered a full one that can change a rating and is going to be rare as hens teeth now. In June, the gov brought in a new short 'one day' inspection that will only include 2 inspectors (employed directly by OFSTED now) and won't do a lot of what you wrote and won't seek to change a rating. If they do, they will come back with a full inspection team another time.
I think my school must have been one of the first inspected under this new regime last week.

Yes, the first day was two inspectors, mainly looking at data and meeting management and the second day I think there were six. We went from good to outstanding. Our results put us in the top 100 schools for progress 8 so we were expecting the second day.

I should have said that the framework we were inspected under was broadly the same as the one being used this year. The main change in June was that the second day if you get a two day inspection doesn't have to take place so soon after the first day. Our two days were consecutive but now they can do the second day up to a couple of weeks later I think.

Oh I am so glad that you were able to go from good to outstanding. I was worried that they weren't going to bother and this gives me hope it will be used properly!
We were told that they weren't due to the new English and Maths 9-1 data being unreliable because it's so new (even though we had gone up 20% more on average than before) and I was cynically thinking it was an excuse not to come back!

(We are also a top 100 school for progress 8 and that's why we were so confused and shocked)

We'd been top 100 for progress 8 or value added for a few years running. Perhaps that made the difference? Anecdotally I've heard of a few judgements changing (up and down) since the new framework came in.

I think I might welcome CCTV/webcam in classrooms if parents could access it. I read about a nursery in London doing this years ago.

Why on earth would it be good for parents to access the CCTV?!?

Teaching unions are utterly utterly spineless and shit.

If your school told you you would all be teaching naked from now on, you'd receive a little shitty letter on yellow paper from Keith McFailed Teacher and Gladys Grudge calling you to a meeting in a draughty village hall where NOTHING would happen.

OP - there are other schools that trust their staff. You don't have to work for Harris academy.

No, parents should not have access to cctv any more than teachers should have access to cctv cameras in their students' homes.

Unfortunately, cauliflower it is not a Harris Academy or an MAT. It is a high school academy converter. All on its lonesome.

These pernicious attitudes are spreading from head to head!

We have moved from formal lesson observations ( these were apparently too stressful for us) to random 20 minute drops in whenever slt please. That of course will be a lot less stressful 🤔
I have no problem with the head knowing what is going on in the classrooms but am a little worried about these, sods law will say they will all be Friday p6 with lower sets y8 and 9.

We are a proper school (!) and have formal, hour long observations. We also have learning walks which used to be about the HOD getting a sense of what the dept was doing and seeking and sharing best practice. Now they are entirely focussed on, and use the same pro forma as, lesson observations.... Also book scrutiny, pupil monitoring (involving the observation of teaching) and everything else. It is all about checking and monitoring us as teachers. There is no trust and that is why i handed my notice in last week with nothing to go to, and I am the union rep... My mental health and work life balance are too important jeopardise.

My union can't do anything apparently. So we've already had one hour long observation, I have another next week with a huge list of requirements of things that must be seen, regardless of whether they fit into what we are actually teaching at this point, a book scrutiny in 3 books the following week, learning walks on morning tasks, spag tasks, and then another hour long observation. All before Christmas. Not to mention two parents evenings and meetings which drag on because nobody can leave on time until the head is finished.

And the union have no teeth at all. I'm almost praying to be capabilitied so my unqualified trainee can take over and I can go off sick and look for other nicer jobs. There must still be some schools that aren't like this?