Can ofsted dictate which lessons you teach?

[NCTDN]

If in a job share and they visit on your day, can you be told to teach a subject your job share would usually do on their day?

I'm not a teacher but as no one else has replied, my understanding is that Ofsted won't ask the school to make any changes to its normal timetable. What the school asks teachers to do is another matter!

There are lots of myths about what Ofsted expects. The school inspection framework is quite helpful in setting out what it doesn't expect schools to do (see paras 74-77)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-inspection-handbook

One thing it says is that schools are expected to provide a copy of the timetable so I would imagine that if the timetable is changed they might ask why.

Ofsted wouldn’t do that, but your SLT might (although they shouldn’t).

We had an ofsted inspector in to do a one day 'mockstead' (for various innocuous reasons). She did want to see certain things (phonics/ reading in every phase) and so the timetable was adjusted for the day. However, I run specialist autism provision within the school and I said I would not change the children's timetable- this was accepted without question.

We’ve just had one and they will say what they want to see. But it wouldn’t make sense at all to ask someone to teach a subject they don’t usually teach. That isn’t very helpful, sorry.

What if Ofsted decide to do a Deep Dive on a subject that isn't timetabled to be taught when they are in?

We had to change our timetable for the deep dives as they said they didnt have enough to see

Yeah, your timetable will change to reflect the subjects they wish to deep dive. That may mean you end up teaching a subject that you do not normally teach if you're part time or if you are covering a class due to staff being ill or being out with an inspector. The message I got from an Ofsted inspector was that they aren't really bothered who is teaching the lesson as long as the kids are in: it's them they are interested in.

@Iamnotthe1

Yeah, your timetable will change to reflect the subjects they wish to deep dive. That may mean you end up teaching a subject that you do not normally teach if you're part time or if you are covering a class due to staff being ill or being out with an inspector. The message I got from an Ofsted inspector was that they aren't really bothered who is teaching the lesson as long as the kids are in: it's them they are interested in.

See I contacted Ofsted on twitter about this and was told this would be taken into account when deciding what deep dives took place and that context would also be taken into account. If normal practice is not for a particular teacher to teach a subject then it would not be expected that they did. It's completely unreasonable to expect otherwise as it isn't normal practice.

@LyndaLaHughes could you do a screenshot of that tweet? Would be v useful!

@LyndaLaHughes
See I contacted Ofsted on twitter about this and was told this would be taken into account when deciding what deep dives took place and that context would also be taken into account. If normal practice is not for a particular teacher to teach a subject then it would not be expected that they did. It's completely unreasonable to expect otherwise as it isn't normal practice.

Unfortunately, this is another theory vs reality moment with Ofsted.

A local secondary had a deep dive into Engish at a time when the entire department was isolating with covid. The head requested to defer or at least change the focus as they only had cover supervisors and supply staff in. Ofsted said no: if the kids were in, they were coming to inspect.

I also know of local primaries who have had ask part time staff to teach subjects they wouldn't normally teach or to come in on days they wouldn't normally work. A deep dive typically consists of lesson visits across 4 primary year groups. It just isn't possible to do the dives in the one day set for them if some aspects of the timetable aren't changed.