Phonics lead and Ofsted

[teach30]

Hello, I'm new on here and sorry to make my first post about "them"! I'm phonics lead at my school and we have a separate English Lead - we were told this was good practice. Obviously phonics and reading are getting the "deep dive" and Ofsted are probably due in the near future as we are getting a new head. I was just wondering if anyone else was in the same situation and how it works during the inspection - do we go in together/individually? Can we request to go in together/individually? Thank you!

[ChishAndFip]

Our Reading and phonics lead went in together.
In my school, the Reading Lead knows more about KS2 rather than early reading and I think this set up did us no favours as it was clear to Ofsted that the Reading Lead was not as knowledgeable as they should have been about early reading.
In hindsight, it would have made much more sense to have a Phonics and Early Reading lead as one post.

[ChishAndFip]

Sorry I meant the Reading Lead was the English Lead (as Reading comes under her role) and as she was presented as the English lead, was expected to therefore be as knowledgeable as our Phonics Lead.

If our Phonics Lead was our Phonics and Early Reading Lead, we would not have needed to have the English lead involved in the Ofsted meetings and we would have presented ourselves in a much more positive way.

In a good school, this shouldn't be a problem but if you are at a school which has made lots of changes recently to ensure Phonics and early reading are up to scratch, it may be the case that your English lead is not quite up to date with what's been going on with reading and phonics.

[Useruseruserusee]

I’m the literacy lead at my school and we have separate phonics and writing leads (I cover reading). I would definitely do the deep dive with the phonics lead.