Ruth Perry Inquest

[GrammarTeacher]

Anyone else following this. It's devastating. The awful way the inspection was handled is very believable to me. I've had good and bad experiences with OFSTED and the bad was dreadful. Some of the verbal feedback was hypocritical and contradictory. Fortunately I attended it remotely with camera off because I was one of the 'majority who cry' according to the lead inspector. The whole experience and aftermath led to me stepping down as a staff governor to protect my mental health.
The weight of knowing a result that you can't share with colleagues yet is a large one and difficult to bear.
I do believe we need accountability but there must be a better way! But what can we do?

In reality, if safeguarding is important, which it is, then it should not be being checked every 4-5 years!

Exactly. If safeguarding is that important, why have large numbers of Outstanding schools not been done since 2010! No need for them to be audited then!!?

I'm sure I read somewhere that the safeguarding incident also involved pupils play-fighting, and claiming that it meant they were unsafe, as well as seeing a child flossing (dance) and claiming that is was something sexual (which is obviously completely ridiculous). I could be wrong on this though.

And this is what our Education secretary decides to focus on…

@Hardbackwriter I completely understand what you're saying.
I think the trouble with the ofsted system is, this was something that could have been rectified within 30 days.
Ruth Perry was also not allowed to disclose the outcome for 2 months.
And that ofsted result would taint the school for years.

That's the trouble with the system. It's set up to fail schools.
How about a system where everything is looked at and advice is given. Why penalise a whole school and community over something that could have been rectified in 30 days. It's not okay.

Yes, it feels humiliating and vindictive. And even if Ofsted don’t give a flying fig about the welfare of school staff, surely they ought to consider the affect on children (and the wider community) of grading their school as “Inadequate”? As we know, children tend to take things personally, even when told that something isn’t their fault.

Ironically Ofsted always ask about how school monitor staff welfare

Ofsted and DfE are not the same and Ofsted chooses how to interpret the law and the framework it operates in. It is not civil servants in London making decisions about how inspections go - that's on Ofsted.

As for not being allowed to talk to people, you are always allowed to seek advice for mental health whatever Ofsted tells you and I hope any teachers/headteachers on here take that "prohibition" with a pinch of salt. Medical practitioners have to maintain confidentiality, they are not going to go round telling people that a headteacher has been to see them because of a draft Ofsted report.

Do they really? And yet there are a lot of threads on here and elsewhere about how poor some SMTs are when it comes to looking after their staff.

Yes that rings a bell with me as well.

I, too , have reported that appalling post by a poster, who - interestingly- has name changed or never posted before.

I taught in Sweden for years and somehow they managed to run an entire school system without any equivalent to Ofsted inspections. They do have e.g. fire or building safety inspections but nothing about the quality of education. You choose a school by looking around it and speaking to current parents and students. The exam results are public so you can get a bit of an idea about academic standards, but for the most part people just send their kids to the closest school without checking up on it or any of the stress families go through in the UK.
I don’t understand why England couldn’t just scrap Ofsted and not replace them with anything. All the money wasted on them could go directly to schools. Do we actually need them for anything? I’d never think to try to find a government report to help me decide which doctor to register with or where to get my car fixed. What makes school different?