Teaching & Ofsted = Snowflakes?

I get the feeling that Ofsted is more like an Ockenden review than CQC. Try chatting to some obstetricians about those

I get the feeling that Ofsted is more like an Ockenden review than CQC. Try chatting to some obstetricians about those

oh I know all about Ockenden reviews in detail, but thats slightly different. Ockenden was paid on a case by case basis ie the more patients that came forward then the more Ockenden got paid, in essence that is a private company investigating for profit. Ofsted is not.

TBH I tend to stop listening when people use the term snowflakes.....

You're not a teacher who's gone through offsted then OP? It shows.

TBH I tend to stop listening when people use the term snowflakes…..

Sorry I was too late to change the thread title to include snowflake - shun responsibility/ownership

You’re not a teacher who’s gone through offsted then OP? It shows.

thats my point, thats why I am asking !  I am not the only person who doesnt understand why regulation in teaching is so harmful, so please explain !!  The 2 HT's on the BBC this morning certainly didnt explain it very well, they just said it was unfair to call a school inadequate, and that a HT shouldnt have to keep quiet about a report for 50+ days.

From the teachers / head teachers I know:  My impressions - I am not a teacher

the measures you are judged on are unrealistic and bear little relation to actual teaching
many of the inspectors have little or no education experience

its adversarial and punitive not collaborative and nurturing.  You are marked down on what you are doing wrong not praised for what you do right

It creates huge amounts of unneeded bureaucracy

Its highly prescriptive so no room for innovation and flair and reduces schools and teachers ability to be creative

Scoring can be very arbitrary

the inspections take up huge amounts of time and energy of the staff but add little vvalue

Little note is taken of the starting point of the pupils only the end point.  So an excellent set up in a sink estate scores lower than a mediocre set up in a leafy suburb

Wot TJ said, I've also heard that there is no feedback on routes to improvement,so OFSTED rock up, tell you you're good/shit and then it's your problem to sort out, which given that they are the "experts" you'd think they'd have a wealth of strategies on how to improve. This is likely related to the prescriptive nature of the inspection/schooling, stuff like every science lesson needing to be a practical.

The grading at schools that Ofsted do looks at separate domains in the school, so for instance teaching can be outstanding or good, but at the same time it's leadership may be graded as good or even inadequate. the Domains are aggregated and the school is given an overall grade. Some Domains are weighted more heavily, and in this case, although the school was in most domains graded as Good, Ofsted felt it's leadership was poor, and so it dropped from Outstanding to Inadequate. Which is going to be clearly a blow to those involved in the school. Ofsted can feel like interrogation by the Inquisition and in the couple that I was just tangentially involved as a governor and Head Governor were stressful enough,

It's the grading in Leadership that the sister of the Head has called into question and suggested that the Ofsted team relied on poor or little evidence which then was a major contributing factor in her suicide. The fact that Ofsted has said that they'll continue inspections seems on the face of it to be a poor reaction to continue with a regime that has been a contributing factor in the death of some-one frankly

In GP world we have a similar system under the CQC, and while I think there's clearly evidence that standards have been dragged up over the years, with now 88% of GP practices rated as Good, there needs to be a better system that reflects the fact that we all pretty much know what we're doing and can be relied upon to get on with the job - largely because we're all professionals and it's what we do. I imagine school leaders feel broadly similar.

This is a good article about part of the problem

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-complaints-procedures-are-a-cause-for-concern/

I work in a highly regulated and often inspected work environment. The purpose of inspections IS to find something. I would much prefer little or no notice, rapid review, an honest critique and a realistic plan to address the findings. We do get warnings and preparation, but this is a relatively short timeframe. I don’t want to know how we worked when watched, I want to know how things are done without being watched!

Inspectors have the power to close us down, withdraw drugs from the market, stop trials. We don’t get outstanding to inadequate, we get pass or fail (and worse, stop immediately). I’d like to see ofsted do the same.

so OFSTED rock up, tell you you’re good/shit and then it’s your problem to sort out

It's not quite like that. while Ofsted can feel demanding, they ask for evidence of what you claim, not look for reasons why you're not performing well. So if you say something and claim that it's improving attendance or whatever, the next thing Ofsted will say is "demonstrate that", or "show us the evidence you've gathered to back up that claim"

Good schools are good because they can (largely) jump through the hoops that Ofsted set. Schools (and GPs for that matter) have been regularly inspected for so long under the same regime now that honestly if you can't get a rating of Good, you broadly don't deserve it.

Thanks for the responses from the non-teachers who have been quite insightful  🙂

To me regulation is something that does need to be there, and it sounds like teaching does need a review, but why haven't teachers called for that in the past as part of pay reviews etc? It is awful that it has taken a death to highlight it and still no action taken.

Unfortunately regulation via Ofsted/CQC etc is difficult as it is still the government marking its own homework so it can be very flawed, and I have seen it in hospital settings.

In GP world we have a similar system under the CQC, and while I think there’s clearly evidence that standards have been dragged up over the years, with now 88% of GP practices rated as Good, there needs to be a better system that reflects the fact that we all pretty much know what we’re doing and can be relied upon to get on with the job – largely because we’re all professionals and it’s what we do

I disagree with that - safety needs regulation and you can get bad apples in all walks of life, but yes frameworks need to be effective and fit for purpose, it potentially sounds like the Ofsted framework is not currently fit for purpose.

From an NHS perspective, I learned more about the CQC when they responded to concerns about a failing Trust. Ockenden said not only did the Trust fail, bit the regulator failed. The CQC's response was that they outlined the issues, asked for plans to remedy and monitored that plan. The head of the CQC then pretty much shrugged his shoulders and said thats our job.

The calls to stop inspections are ridiculous. Yes the head should have not been in such a bad place mentally but calling for a stop to inspections is stupid. We no to little idea about this particular case so no good offering judgement.

TBH I tend to stop listening when people use the term snowflakes…..

You should avoid this mindset. To stop listening to someone because you don't like one thing they said or where offended by something means you have closed off your view and mind to information that although you may not agree with can help you understand something from other angles.

Ofste inspections are now announced the day before, leaving little to no time for the school to 'prepare'. In the past schools did have the lead time to 'go in to a false state and everything gets review, policies updated, curriculum changed, behaviours change, and teachers work even more hours', however that opportunity has now been removed.

My objection is the sporadic nature of inspections- the 4 local primary's that are outstanding were last inspected in 2007, 2008, 2012, 2017. Our 3 local secondary's are all outstanding- inspected in 2008, 2009, 2012.

That's half a generation ago for some of those schools.

chatting to a friend about it, he was saying safeguarding is a big deal, the school is rated with one word 'inadequate'.
an extreme example, ofsted is in on monday, on sunday night the school perimetre fencing falls down due to high winds, the school is no longer secure, it fails at safeguarding marked 'inadequate'
doesnt matter that the kids grades have improved ten fold..

maybe ofsted should have a better balance. and rate different things to then give an overall rating.
not a failure based on one little item

I think one of the thing Ofsted look at also is value added so you may have school that gets force results than another be get a better Inspection result as it uplifts the students more. At least my partner goes on about this subject a lot.

Mrs Sandboy is a Headteacher.
TJ, a few posts up has it spot on.
Realistically, it’s an impossible job. The key is to focus on the kids.

safety needs regulation

The CQC inspection does not, and never has looked directly at whether doctors at a particular practice are safe. They do use indicators and look at patient information to tell them things about (for instance) how well certain drugs are being controlled, but CQC is largely about processes, not efficacy of treatment

TJ and Nickc are bang on. Ofsted inspectors aren't actually paid that well and don't get expenses eg for accommodation so it could be argued they're not necessarily attracting the brightest and the best. A very good state school in Sheffield has just been downgraded to 'inadequate' and hence being forced into joining an academy chain (it was the last one to remain indepedendent). It does make you wonder.
It can create animosity within schools if you happen to teach an option subject that bright and motivated kids sign up for and the poor souls who get the also-rans have a much more difficult job which is not necessarily reflected in the evaluation.

That’s half a generation ago for some of those schools.

I think the same thing happened here, the Outstanding grade was from 13 years ago under a different Head.

I've worked in internal audit, assurance and other 'checking' type roles for decades and the key issue is 'culture' - i.e. does it have a blame culture?

One place I worked, whenever a dept was going to be reviewed by Internal Audit the dept would actually perform their own review beforehand to see what issues existed, so they could fix them BEFORE Internal Audit did their review. These as you can imagine weren't cheap, and they employed contract auditors to do these reviews (such as me). This was because in that business a poor Internal Audit review was a career-ending event.

Is this the same for a Head Teacher?

Good analogy on the radio this morning. A one word review might suffice for an ice-tray/cable/keyring bought on Amazon but not for a school. On the flip side, aspiring heads don't want to go to schools with the highest rating because of the fear of losing it.

A team come in an rightly try and find out where they are not hitting standards and produce a report which is then shared with the HT, with items that need improvement?

You dreamer

My biggest complaint about OFSTED would be what I would call policy by inspection.

Some one decides that say differentiation is the order of the day

This isn’t announced. They just go and down grade schools that aren’t going what they want.

This then goes on a ridiculously expensive bush telegraph where experts sense what’s going on and sell this knowledge to schools

Schools start making sure they differentiate more. Until the next new thing

That literally means that each change of what they looking for will end a number of head teachers careers

One other problem with ofsted is that schools graded good or excellent weren't inspected for many years, therefore some schools had jumps from excellent to adequate or requires improvement in a single hit.

I know of more than one head teacher that took early retirement purely because they got nervous that an inspection was coming after not having one for a decade or so.

edit- one of those schools still hasn't been inspected since, and their last one was June 2009

Just to give you some idea.
Mrs Sandboy was taking a Governors Meeting on Zoom at home on Wednesday evening and because she needed a quiet house, me and the kids had been banned from the living room.
As I was cooking, I could hear some of the conversation, I asked her later some questions based on what I had overheard and she said that a parent Governor still hadn’t done their Safeguarding training and if the school was to be inspected, it would receive a “requires improvement” based solely on that!!

Ofste inspections are now announced the day before, leaving little to no time for the school to ‘prepare’. In the past schools did have the lead time to ‘go in to a false state and everything gets review, policies updated, curriculum changed, behaviours change, and teachers work even more hours’, however that opportunity has now been removed.

Mrs Pondo worked till midnight the day before her last Ofsted, then was up before six to crack on again - I doubt that's unusual. And she's well organised!

I suspect few would argue that schools don't need inspection, but a regime that imposes this much fear is not fit for purpose.

Thanks for more helpful contributions, they do help me understand the situation a little more. It still shouldn't have taken the death of a colleague though for senior staff to start raising concerns about regulation, or have they always done so and it has been silenced?

a parent Governor still hadn’t done their Safeguarding training and if the school was to be inspected, it would receive a “requires improvement” based solely on that!!

I can see that this would appear minor in the scheme of things, But having worked in well performing organisations and poorly performing/poorly led organisations, its this kind of thing that does show where the cracks are and bigger issues can start from.

Most teachers will be at work now, is the timing of the original post a coincidence? Most will probably ignore a thread that includes “snowflakes” in the title anyway!

Inclined to agree with TJ.

As others have said, several things are graded. I understand the inspection for the head involved in this tragedy was good in all aspects but one, but still came out inadequate. As in so much of life, no one can deal with nuance.

MrsMC has dealt with ofsted as a governor, and as a social worker. Seems to be no allowance for funding and staffing crises as I understand it.

Audits in the Civil Service also seem to generate a crisis of fear. Our case audits seem to among colleagues. I get top marks in audits as I keep on top of my record keeping. I also have noticeably lower productivity than colleagues that don't. When ticking the boxes is the priority, the end goal gets lost.

For balance though, a guy on the radio works in tne meat/food industry. He can have up to 50 days a year of government, industry and customer audits that he has to pass. Vastly different work scenario, but he felt teachers were mollycoddled, to use his words. Which says more about the culture around inspections than the teachers, I suspect.

oh I know all about Ockenden reviews in detail, but thats slightly different

I meant in terms of adversarial/fault-finding nature rather than funding

I blame the parents! 🙂

If there wasn't such a bloody bun-fight to get their precious babies into 'good' schools the Ofsted grades would hold less importance.

Stop giving parents so much choice too - go back to sending kids to the local school by default.

And then there's the environmental impact of them traipsing their kids to the other side of a county to a school one grade better than the one a few miles away.

#snowflakeparents

a parent Governor still hadn’t done their Safeguarding training

The question there is by how much? In my industry lapsed training means not being let on site/removed from your role - so in reality if that person hasn't done it for months because they're "too busy" then they shouldn't be a governor anymore.

It's also worth noting that the comment above about the "bush telegraph" is accurate, the college my partner works at got ofsteded last year, and got a "good" because they figured out the boxes they needed to tick and ticked them. Have teaching practices/standards/pass rates improved? Nope, it was all management bullshit (newly implemented holistic stuff which meant that when asked for evidence, there was none, because it was all to new) which tells me that something is very wrong with ofsted itself as well.

One of my relatives works as a consultant to prepare schools for inspection - a 'pre-MOT', if you like.

This seems crazy - heads spending valuable hours, days, weeks even making sure their papers and policies are in order rather than focusing on their day-to-day job, with the threat of an instant rating change from 'outstanding' to 'inadequate', without any chance to correct things before their ranking is set for the next however many years, and their career is under threat.

I can understand the urgency of dealing with serious safeguarding issues that inspectors find, but there should be a period in which schools can deal with less serious problems, particularly paper-based ones, before the hammer comes down. And Ofsted should be working collaboratively with them to do so, rather than issuing a short, damning report and walking away.

Education urgently needs a blame-free inspection culture.

“too busy” then they shouldn’t be a governor anymore.

This was a new governor who basically couldn’t be arsed!
Calling them out in the meeting was the first step to them standing down.

Edit, as I said before, the focus is on the kids. I was in school last week making bird boxes with some of the children when this boy came up to me and said “ this is the best school in the world”. I don’t need to read an Ofsted report after that!

The question there is by how much? In my industry lapsed training means not being let on site/removed from your role – so in reality if that person hasn’t done it for months because they’re “too busy” then they shouldn’t be a governor anymore.

I think the issue that it's not just that person that's penalised - the whole school gets a bad rating.

Most teachers will be at work now, is the timing of the original post a coincidence? Most will probably ignore a thread that includes “snowflakes” in the title anyway!

No not coincidence at all. As I stated it was on BBC news this morning, Teachers will be able to respond all weekend. If someone put some challenge in about my industry I would want to help educate and inform - isnt that what teachers do for a living 😉

I think the issue that it’s not just that person that’s penalised – the whole school gets a bad rating.

And so it should ! Safeguarding is core to a school. If it cant maintain key standards then something is at fault. You could argue some of it is box ticking, but it is also very much about culture and approach.

TBH I tend to stop listening when people use the term snowflakes…..

Likewise.

Sorry I was too late to change the thread title to include snowflake – shun responsibility/ownership

I don't think the objections being raised are shunning responsibility or ownership though.  They are showing concern/responsibility for their staff and recognising that those who get criticised may not have a viable route to challenge the criticism or the power to solve the problem.  Your assumption seems to be: (1) Ofsted are right; (2) Head teachers have the power / cash / resource to fix the problem; (3) Meeting the ofsted target is more important than the children's education.

Now HT are paid well (rich according to another thread) and part of being senior is that you are paid for your level of responsibility, so why is it so bad that they receive this report?

They are paid OK, I don't think its exceptional, but one of the problems in teaching (and many careers) is that to get pay significant progression you had to be promoted.  This results in very good teachers but shit managers running schools and hating it. The training to become a teacher is how to teach children not manage adult staff.  You must see the same in the medical field? where people who were great nurses or doctors are in charge of a group of people and unable to lead them effectively AND (and organisations are very bad at training people to do this for obvious reasons) unable to manage upwards either.   Now when CQC come to visit you, if everything is clean, the patient case is correct, etc but when they talk to the staff they say the management is crazy do they give the whole hospital an "inadequate" badge?  Are you stuck with that badge for years?  Do the "customers" shop around for hospitals based on that badge?  If they did and attendance fell (unlikely in an overstretched NHS) do budgets get cut (likely making the bits that were good before bad now) and job losses follow.

The HT on the BBC were saying that the HT receives the report but can not share it with the senior management team for 50+ days? Why is this?

I don't know - I've never heard of it before - but having heard it, my response is "well that sounds stupid, and seems like more evidence that Ofted is screwed up (or that Local Authorities was of dealing with Ofsted is)" rather than "well that's evidence that the teachers are wrong".

Also that there is no support structure in place for the HT. Why would they need a support structure?

Head Teachers are not the autonomous CEO of a company that people regard them to be.  Many are employed by a local authority and are in effect "Branch Managers".  Any other organisation that had that sort of structure would have a mechanism to support their managers to achieve their objectives.  Schools in England also have this extra weird layer of management - the governors - who can be as much of a problem as a support.  The governors may not be at all aligned with Ofsted on where the priorities should be.  Does the head dance to the tune of their regulator or the governance structure?  (For your CQC analogy its probably similar in care homes - where the board and the CQC may be pulling in opposite directions).

The idea that schools should be subject to inspection is not generally the problem, it has always been the way.  Ofsted don't regulate Scottish Schools, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Education do.  Whilst teachers in Scotland hate HMIE visits (and I'm sure your colleagues hate CQC visits) they don't seem to create the animosity of Ofsted.  Why is that?  Are Scottish teachers tougher?  Unlikely.  Are Scottish schools all better run to start with? Unlikely.  I know one teacher who has experienced both and described them as totally different.  The HMIE experience was much more constructive despite the Ofsted report at her old school actually being far better than the overall gist of the Scottish report.  I also know a retired HMIE inspector.  He is a former very experienced teacher.  I believe all HMIE are.  You may or may not welcome his views but there's no doubt they come from someone who has been in the classroom; has managed other teachers; has balanced school budgets; is realistic about what is possible - and I think most importantly doesn't walk into one school see something great and assume every school should or even could do that.  He describes his HMIE experience as an eye-opener on the different challenges facing different schools with different demographics/parent involvement etc.

The problem with Ofsted reports is amplified in England because parents are much more likely to "choose" their school than send to the local school.  The government has encouraged parents to treat Ofsted reports as a kind of league table of performance but thats a stupid thing to have done.  Now parents who care will pick the best schools (and go to great lengths to get their kids in) and those who don't care, or don't have ther skills to manipulate the system themselves (and those who have caring or other commitments that mean the balance of factors is the closest school) end up in the poorer schools which end up in a spiral of decay.  Ultimately when that happens Ofsted or the Local Authority should be closing down inadequate schools.  But to do that you need alternative local capacity so its almost unheard of to close a school because it is failing the educational needs of the pupils.  Compare that to CQC - they have closed care homes, I'm not sure about hospitals.  But if CQC give a generally dreadful report and its not resolved very quickly its headline news and funding gets found to sort the problem.

If I was designing an inspection regime for schools I would assess, give feedback, ask for plans to correct issues, reassess how those plans were going, then judge them not only on how they were doing but on how they had dealt with the areas for improvement.  I probably wouldn't want to put them in boxes at all - so it would essentially be "areas of excellence", "areas of improvement" and then an overall recommendation to the local authority whether some external intervention was necessary (and before publishing that I'd expect the LA and School to have a chance to agree that plan and include it in the report).

echo much of the above; my wife is not a teacher but is school staff, has worked at three schools and has as luck would have it, given that some haven't been inspected for a long time, she's been through Ofsted at every school she's been at (so much so that she is worried they follow her around)

As I was cooking, I could hear some of the conversation, I asked her later some questions based on what I had overheard and she said that a parent Governor still hadn’t done their Safeguarding training and if the school was to be inspected, it would receive a “requires improvement” based solely on that!!

A previous school had similar so I can well believe it. It was a SEN school so had specific safeguarding issues, and although my wife couldn't discuss full details there was a problem with a pupil who because of particular needs had some classes at home but still under the control of the school. Some sort of form was missing so they couldn't prove that he was at home which failed their safeguarding (and someone lost their job over), and consequently their grading went from outstanding in all areas to inadequate - which I think is the problem. Yes, as an incident that was serious (in theory a SEN pupil with no proof of where they were!) but to grade the whole school and everything it did in one word just doesn't reflect the overall picture.

Most of the teachers I know and mix with through my wife welcome inspection, and value the feedback and opportunities to improve that they bring. It's the final mark and repercussions of that one word that needs fixing.

For balance though, a guy on the radio works in tne meat/food industry. He can have up to 50 days a year of government, industry and customer audits that he has to pass. Vastly different work scenario, but he felt teachers were mollycoddled, to use his words. Which says more about the culture around inspections than the teachers, I suspect.

It probably says more about the subjectivity of the criteria.  In the food industry it is easier to say pass or fail because things are tightly defined.

In a classroom how do you assess behaviour when one or more of the kids have issues which can lead them to go off at no notice?

How do you assess whether the results achieved are down to the school or the affluence of the local community (I suspect this is more of an issue for affluent areas where private tuition is an option)?  I was told recently by one proud parent how they were ‘gaming the university admission system’ by transferring their children to a local state school for sixth form while employing tutors from their public school for extra tuition.  You can guarantee that they aren’t sending their kids to a ‘struggling' school

Is it better for a teacher to deviate from the lesson plan because they realise that a significant proportion of their pupils haven’t grasped the concept from the last lesson?

Ofsed always has been and always will be subjective.  The focus on paperwork is an attempt to make it less so but results on a focus on the inspection rather than the goal.

One can criticize the regime, and TBH, everyone can get behind me in the queue to give inspectors an ear bashing...BUT. The inspection regime broadly hasn't changed now for 20 years. Nothing that inspectors in either CQC or Ofsted look for should come as a surprise to any well functioning school that's even slightly concerned to pay attention to the shit that we have to sort out in order to pass at "Good" i.e. a normal functioning well run school/ GP practice.

Folks saying things like if the wind blows down the fence the school will be rated as Inadequate or Failing are talking bollards frankly, and no school will get a Needs Improving overall rating if just one new governor hasn't done their training yet.

The system is shit, but like GPs nearly ninety percent of schools manage to get Good or Outstanding rating.

I can give an example from my own work as a nurse where inspections can make care worse.  I was working in a care home running a dementia care unit.  It was a specialist built unit designed for patient freedom and safety

One of the criteria we were judged on was the number of falls patients had.  Seems reasonable?  Well my / our ethos was to allow the patients freedom and the right to take risks.  This meant we would have more falls than some units especially given the patient group.

The only way to reduce the number of falls would be to remove patients freedoms either mechanically to stop them getting out of their chair, chemically by sedating them or by staff constantly telling them to sit down ( I have seen all these done)  Restricting patients movements leads to distress in those patients.  I would not do this.  What we did instead was mitigate the effects of the falls and the likelihood of the roaming patient falling ( body armour on patients - yes really!   No sharp edges / corners, handrails everywhere, remove trip hazards etc etc)

So we ended up with a higher number of falls that units which used a restrictive ethos and thus were marked down.  This is despite the fact complaints about falls from families were low - because I explained to families the ethos of the unit and told them that the increased freedom and therefor peace of mind of the patients would inevitably mean increased risk of falls.

I came under pressure to reduce the number of falls from senior management.  I refused to restrict my patients freedoms.

In this case the steps taken to reduce the number of falls would actually make care worse

I think teaching and offsted inspections have similar situations especially if you have special needs kids. context and nuance is needed not a simple pass / fail score

And so it should ! Safeguarding is core to a school. If it cant maintain key standards then something is at fault. You could argue some of it is box ticking, but it is also very much about culture and approach.

It's not just safeguarding - that's just the example quoted, and it talked about a single, non-student facing member of staff. But the point is that a school can be doing an excellent, safe, inspiring job and still be rated inadequate.

Just having four ratings doesn't help, either.

Well my / our ethos was to allow the patients freedom and the right to take risks.

Yeah, that's fair enough,  but did you have a policy that explains it, a risk assessment that looked at what might happen if you allow unsteady pats some freedom and that you made some efforts to explain that to patients and families and had evidence that the overall impact of letting pats roam freely was better for their health? Because you and I both know that's what CQC will ask for.

I was criticized by CQC  because I allowed reception team members to take a standard DBS as they didn't speak or interact with patients in private, (it was a cost saving)  BUT my policy said that everyone gets an enhanced DBS. It didn't effect the overall rating, but the Leadership domain was critical of what I was doing.

TheBrick
Free Member
The calls to stop inspections are ridiculous. Yes the head should have not been in such a bad place mentally but calling for a stop to inspections is stupid

Not necessarily. If inspections aren't adding value, and are driving people to suicide, then pausing and reviewing would be a good idea.

My wife has recently been through Ofsted, though not in a school setting. She was less than impressed, with it being very much a box ticking and paperwork exercise.

Oh yes - all well documented.  Didn't matter.  the only thing that mattered to the inspectors was the number of falls per patient.  Care commission in Scotland IIRC

Its a while ago now and I don't remember the precise details.  Its just an example of where a simplistic quality measure can lead to perverse outcomes

My now retired head teacher pal who worked with special needs kids told me of similar things

Not a teacher, but a Cub leader so wildly different, but it is stressful for those 1.5hrs a week having responsibility for those kids, cant imagine what thats like fulltime!

As a parent OFSTED grade is probably the only metric you have when choosing a school, so the effect of it must be huge on the teachers & easily lead to a feedback loop of conscientious parents taking out the good kids...

as for the title

this is really quite offensive

Teaching & Ofsted = Snowflakes?

because this

There has been the tragic news of a Head Teacher taking their life recently, post receiving the outcome of an Ofsted report, and that is very sad, and it shouldn’t have come to that.

idk maybe im just being snowflakey about it

It didn’t effect the overall rating, but the Leadership domain was critical of what I was doing.

And that's the thing - from what we've seen above, if it were ofsted doing the inspection then it would have.

I have mixed feelings on this. For context, I have two young kids in primary school, my wife is a primary teacher but I work in the private sector. We've talked about this a lot and also with her teacher friends. It's tremendously complicated, I think.

I am scrutinised in everything I do, every time I present to senior mgmt., or in front of my boss, it's scrutiny that feeds performance reviews and ultimately my career prospects. This naturally gives me less sympathy towards the teaching resistance to observation... however that's assuming the assessment is equivalent and I don't think it is.

I do think, that teaching is quite resistant to change and has a culture that has turned observations/ofsted in to something bigger than it is/should be. But, I think as lot of this is down to what Ofsted has become - a cursory review that outputs a (relatively) binary judgement in a mire of conscious and unconscious bias.

My other half, early in her career was in a school that was assessed as requires improvements (equivalent - old standards in place at that time) and took very direct and very unconstructive feedback that directly contributed to the schools rating. The experience took my wife many years to get over, and she confessed that on the way to the work on the second day she seriously considered crashing her car to avoid having to go in. This is someone who has subsequently been rated outstanding on multiple occasions and has led the introduction of new modes of teaching across her academy.

Which then leads you to why. I don't honestly know and we talk about it quite a lot, trying to work through it all. Ofsted reviews are very very brief, taking an incredibly small glimpse; they're trying to KPI things that maybe shouldn't be KPI'd; the level of variance in assessment and quality of assessment is certainly not fair; KPI's can be very much affected by the socio-economic cohort; the ramifications of the rating are huge - far bigger than they should be; a constantly changing 'how you should teach' as education becomes increasingly politicised.... the list could go on.

They're not snowflakes.

The safeguarding and lack of fence issue caught out my local school when I was a governor there. There was a fence (an old chain link one, with a gate) between the carpark and the playground, but because the car park wasn't fenced, and there was a door into the school from that car park that was used by students, the ofsted rating was inadequate for safeguarding, (nevermind that the door was electronically locked, so only the receptionist who sat just beyond it, and staff with passes could open it, and there was a further similarly locked door the other side, forming an airlock.

At great expense a 6 foot security fence and parking barrier was put up around the car park.

 Care commission in Scotland IIRC

Ah, right...Heard some "things" about the care commission

The ofsted of the school in question is praised for its pastoral care for children and the kids are noted to be happy, healthy, performing well and behaviour is good, the teachers worked as a team and the parents were supportive of teh school - does that sound inadequate? the school is rates good in all areas apart from one. you get branded with teh lowest grade in any area you get - in this case management - there is little to no opportunity to rectify this prior to external publication.

Ofsted is the reason my wife left teaching (after 18yrs). its hugely stressful, implemented by those with little or no experience and with little to no regard as to how happy and healthy the kids actually are. You can get an 'inadequate' rating even if teh kids are happy and getting good grades. There is no opportunity to do anythign outside of teh prescripted methods required by ofstead even though those methods maybe impractical or not suitable for teh school or the range of abilities at the school.

It is well documented that those schools with higher numbers of SEND childern get lower ofstead gradings (and why school hugely oppose sharing out the SEND kids equally -see Brighton and Hove schools for an example) and this is because the day to day needs of those children do not match the requirements needed for ofsted.

the private school inspection system is much more low key, collaborative and offers assistance to the schools to implement better systems. my wife much prefers this and says its better in every way.

You should avoid this mindset. To stop listening to someone because you don’t like one thing they said or where offended by something means you have closed off your view and mind to information that although you may not agree with can help you understand something from other angles.

I can’t listen to everyone so I have to choose who to listen to. “Snowflake” is a handy heuristic that the chance of my missing something by not listening to the speaker is slim. Likewise “woke”.

as for the title

this is really quite offensive

Teaching & Ofsted = Snowflakes?

because this

There has been the tragic news of a Head Teacher taking their life recently, post receiving the outcome of an Ofsted report, and that is very sad, and it shouldn’t have come to that.

idk maybe im just being snowflakey about it

No - on the BBC this morning both HT's said they thought it was unfair to be rated inadequate. I cant recall the what they preferred but it was just 2 ratings either good or not so good. Teaching is a profession, you should be able to accept standards and measurement of standards.

From what has been stated above the framework for how they get to that rating needs updating. needs updating, but to try and says that schools should be able to be rated as inadequate/bad/shit  is wrong.

Teaching is a profession, you should be able to accept standards and measurement of standards.

Few would argue otherwise - it's just that the current system doesn't work.

This naturally gives me less sympathy towards the teaching resistance to observation

I don't think they are, teachers I know through my wife and elsewhere welcome observation and inspection and the chance to have external constructive feedback and chances to improve. It's boiling a whole school, multiple departments and facets, all down finally into one word based on the lowest rating across the facets which is the issue.

Another point which I don't think has been covered. As well as the travesty where it was decided that Outstanding schools didn't require regular inspection, despite changes in leadership changes, etc. - meaning some schools haven't been seen for 10+ years - the opposite also happens. If a school gets one of the low ratings, based on one point perhaps, it can take ages to be formally reinspected and regraded. I know covid in between but the school I referred to above, deemed inadequate because of one major SG issue and a couple of minor observations. My wife doesn't work there any longer but is still friendly with some staff, that inspection was 4 years ago, the issues were fixed in a matter of days, all other aspects were good or outstanding and still the school carries an inadequate rating.

Compare to 'the real world' (tongue in cheek) where some have said they are constantly scrutinised and appraised. Imagine that you made an admin error on your expense form one time - claimed the wrong mileage allowance or something. As a result, the whole of your performance has now been rated as below, and you will carry that rating around for the next three years in spite of what you do in the meantime. Oh, and not just you - everyone else in your Department, because you screwed up.

Fair?

...and a school with a poor rating may well find it more difficult to recruit the best staff and so produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just as well we're not giving SPAG marks for some of these judgemental contributions about education.

From the teachers / head teachers I know: My impressions – I am not a teacher

the measures you are judged on are unrealistic and bear little relation to actual teaching
many of the inspectors have little or no education experience

its adversarial and punitive not collaborative and nurturing. You are marked down on what you are doing wrong not praised for what you do right

It creates huge amounts of unneeded bureaucracy

Its highly prescriptive so no room for innovation and flair and reduces schools and teachers ability to be creative

Scoring can be very arbitrary

the inspections take up huge amounts of time and energy of the staff but add little vvalue

Little note is taken of the starting point of the pupils only the end point. So an excellent set up in a sink estate scores lower than a mediocre set up in a leafy suburb

My wife has been a teacher for 20+ years - this pretty much sums up my views on her OFSTED Experiences.

I've never known another industry where such blind panic ensues as soon as you get the notification of inspection - During previous inspections she has been in School until the early hours the night before preparing for the OFSTED visit.
She's been stressed to the point of making herself ill over these events, which is not acceptable in any workplace (Note - she's not a 'snowflake' she's an experienced professional who just wants to do a good job)

I also work in a tightly regulated industry (Engineering - pressure equipment for Naval Ships) we get adequate notice of periodic inspections from the likes of BSI and our customers/end users inspection teams - they're normally pretty thorough, but the ultimate objective is always a collaborative effort to make things better.

Obviously this would be different if the HSE turned up following an industrial accident, which is totally understandable - but we're talking about periodic evaluation not intervention following an incident.

In my opinion teaching is stressful enough - and the current OFSTED approach is fuelling this - i totally agree Education needs to inspected/evaluated regularly but there must be a better/more effective/less adversarial way of doing it.

Sorry haven't read most of the thread but glad to see it here as was going to start one. I'm not anti inspection, in fact I'm quite pro inspection, however Ofsted is political and highly unfit for purpose.

I have direct experience of the impact their ill informed and down right nasty inspection approach can have.

Large secondary school, wife works there as support staff, son is there as a pupil and I know the head little bit outside of the school. Scholl has been consistently outstanding for years, and had had an inspection for a long time.

Ofsted rock up last summer and trash the school. There were issues of leadership that needed to be addressed and the attitudes of some pupils but these were not stopping the school from being good on the teaching front (the main reason for a school). Ofsted have changed the rules so there is much more emphasis on safe guarding to the point it over shadows everything else and is extreme. This resulted in Outstanding to inadequate in one inspection cycle. Just after Covid when all the norms had gone out the window. Ironically a new deputy head had come in and was already tackling some of the behavioural issues which was pissing the kids off. Ofsted wound up the kids int heir interviews with and the kids didn't realise the impact of mouthing off to the inspectors.

Ofsted clearly came in with a pre-detemrined agenda and executed it. Probably to further the governments agenda for all schools to be part of multi academy trusts by the end of the decade, this school was a stand alone academy.

School knew the outcome of the report before the holidays, weren't allowed to communicate it until Ofsted published months later, the head came very close to being another death, that person has now left the school and teaching completely. Massive changes have been made, the school is forced into being part of a multi academy trust, it's automatic once you get an inadequate rating, no chances to improve, no appeal short of going to the courts.

It's amazing how many schools have gone from outstanding to inadequate in the last year, this is not isolated, schools where Ofsted had failed to carry out inspections for a long time and then came in with a completely different agenda on the back of the most socially disruptive period in this country since the second world war. Ofsted need to be held to account for their abysmal performance and arrogant approach.

In my opinion teaching is stressful enough – and the current OFSTED approach is fuelling this – i totally agree Education needs to inspected/evaluated regularly but there must be a better/more effective/less adversarial way of doing it.

Not to mention that 'pre-announced' audits create an artificial environment for assessment anyway.  Is your school outstanding because everyone just killed themselves to look Ofsted ready, or is it outstanding because its always great.  Similarly is a poor performance a sign its always poor or that the head made everyone jump through 100 hoops for ofsted coming and a couple of things which are usually ok got dropped in the process.  When you compare it to other schools that Ofsted went to that month were the best ones the ones putting on an artificial show and were the worst the ones where the head said, "don't bother even if we tick 100 boxes, they'll find something so lets show them what normal looks like".

No – on the BBC this morning both HT’s said they thought it was unfair to be rated inadequate.

You do realise thought that only people with fairly polarised views go on TV/radio?  I mean "I've got a view thats nuanced and quite sensitible" doesn't make good stories.  I'm sure teachers in general are not fundamentally opposed to the word inadequate if it is genuinely reserved for those cases where things are so bad the authorities should consider closing the school.  If the kids are safe, happy and learning well it seems an irrational label to use even if there are areas for improvement.

The calls to stop inspections are ridiculous. Yes the head should have not been in such a bad place mentally but calling for a stop to inspections is stupid

I think if the inspection regime is doing more harm than good there is a good reason to pause it.  I don't think anyone expects there will never be inspections. If I was the head of ofsted I'd have paused inspections if it was implied that my inspectors had caused someone to take their own life.  At the very least I would have used that time to review training with inspectors on how they deliver bad reports and the mechanisms for staff to challenge/appeal a judgement.  If my aim was to make inspections help drive better education (as it should be) I'd also set up a helpline that lets a head or other SLT member confidentially get support if they have a poor report but also to help ordinary school staff get advice if they think that the head/SLT is wrongly prioritising ofsted prep over pupil education/staff welfare.

Who regulates ofsted?  Who measures them to see if 20 years of ofsted reports has actually increased the education levels in the country and closed the attainment gap? How about the number of teachers leaving because ofsted compliance is bigger priority than teaching?  Those are metrics DOE should be measuring ofsted on.

I teach in Scotland so not Ofsted. What troubles me about the inspectors here is the power they have to unofficially dictate policy.

When an inspection gets announced the first thing the head does is get on the phone to their heidy pals who've recently been inspected and ask what the inspectors looking for. What ever those things are then get rushed through in the soon-to-be-inspected school, often regardless of whether those things are a good fit in that school. If these things are desirable there should be a proper policy of rolling them out across the country rather than this system of second hand recommendations based on who knows what.

One of the many problems with Ofsted is that some inspectors come with a pre determined result and an 'agenda' - some are akin to Met investigators who had decide who was guilty based on being black or Irish and then go find 'evidence' that props up their pre-judged result.

Interesting reading all the post suggesting that the system is heavily flawed internally and possibly politically.

So why has it taken the death of Head Teacher for this to come to the surface when people here are talking here about 20 years of poor outcomes?

Is it the same as the NHS that things have been getting steadily worse for years, staff have raised it, but neither government or the public has listened until it has really started to affect them ?

I work in the nuclear industry, if our inspections by our internal regulator, ONR or WANO were as binary and unconstructive as the picture painted of OFSTED the whole lot would have been shut down years ago.

We get inspections followed by a meeting with management to discuss the findings. We then get a period of time to make any improvements necessary. We would far rather be pulled up on minor issues than either something major or nothing at all. It's not good if it's your area that needs to improve but there is always something to do. It's more like an MOT with differing levels of improvement rather than pass/fail (unless you really screw up, obviously).

So why has it taken the death of Head Teacher for this to come to the surface when people here are talking here about 20 years of poor outcomes?

It's just taken that for it to make the news, those in education have been talking about the problems for years. And this suicide definitely isn't the first, there was one in Scotland a few years back which lead to an all too temporary change in approach by HMIe*.

*they're not called that now but everyone still calls them that.

Is it the same as the NHS that things have been getting steadily worse for years,

The CQC is badly led, understaffed and the union is currently sounding it's workers voting on strike action I think. COVID has disrupted the normal inspection routine, and for a while now we just get an email telling us something along the lines of  "There's nothing indicating that our rating should change" - We're a Good rated GP in a rough-ish neighbourhood. I'm confident that if we got the 48 hour call (the min time limit they can announce an inspection if there's say: A whistle-blown child SG issues been raised) that we'd pass muster. I don't think the CQC is as overtly politized as Ofsted if I'm being honest.

It's been known about for years, it sadly takes events like these before people take notice.

See also Grenfell, successive Govs of all hues failed to act on reports that the cladding materials being used on tower blocks was an issue. They even had a 'near miss' at Lakanal ('only' six died that day) and still didn't act.

And just like Grenfell I suspect nothing really will change here either.

My wife was head of a big department (26 staff) in a big secondary. She had lots of practice that was so good it was rolled out across the authority and other teachers starting similar posts in other schools came to her for advice. When she left she was headhunted for a local authority level post doing similar stuff.

When they were inspected they were rated satisfactory. None of the practice in her dept was praised and the inspectors found several things to criticise. To give an idea of the sort of stuff they picked up on, one of the criticisms was that they had issues around security of confidential documents. This was because when she temporarily left off working on a file and left the room she locked the room door but not the desk drawer where the file was. Apparently the advice is that all confidential files should be behind 2 locked doors at all times. A valid point no doubt but it shows the sort of mean spirited and largely irrelevant nit picking the inspectors engage in. She's enough of a professional to know that's just how it is but it shouldn't be that way.

When I headed up a department in FE we had an Ofsted inspection. Our success figures across every department were consistently above the national benchmark, and in my own area of electrical installation were almost 100%. The inspection started on a Monday morning and inspectors were asked not to observe a particular class (you can do that) as it was being delivered by an agency tutor who was starting on that Monday. Long story short, he was observed. Three times, three f##king times! Nobody else in the whole department was observed and we were castigated because he didn't know his class! Result-Grade 3.
If I'm ever put in front of an Ofsted inspector again it'll be like the scene in Shawshank when Red goes into the parole board hearing at the end and tells them exactly what they need to hear.
Ultimately Hurricane Ofsted blew on to another college or school and we resumed getting virtually all of our students through their qualifications, many of whom were very challenging and, at their stage of life and maturity, almost unemployable.

TLDR: I am, through experience of many inspections, very cynical about Ofsted and their agenda.

From my experience inspections are not done well

I was marked down for having no or little ICT in my lesson. WiFi has been down for 13months.
Inspector saw now learning intentions nor a plenary. They did arrive 10minutes late and leave 10minutes early.
The main issue isn't a professional dialogue about standards (which it isn't) but the fact it gives parents a stick to beat teachers and schools with and in the modern world the kids to.

A few people have posted about the work / stress of preparing for inspection.

Is that not odd in itself? Surely an inspection should be an evaluation of how the school normally operates, not how well they've prepared for them coming in.

I remember thinking this back when I was still at school, it struck me as pointless even when I was a teenager.

Interesting reading all the post suggesting that the system is heavily flawed internally and possibly politically.

So why has it taken the death of Head Teacher for this to come to the surface when people here are talking here about 20 years of poor outcomes?

Have you been living in a bubble?  Every teacher in England has been complaining about Ofted since it was created, and it seems like they've been getting more vocal every year.  Absolutely the question should be why did the media only pay attention when someone dies, or probably more to the point when someone managed to get a viral tweet about it?  Because its not new.  In fact everyone in teaching will tell you its a significant factor in teacher retention, and that gets media attention.  Of course league table and headline catching "reports" make good stories.  Schools making steady progress doesn't sell papers.  Teachers angy about Ofsted doesn't sell papers either - ofsted so bad teacher commits suicide - OMG thats an editors wet dream.

All my teacher friends have either retired early on gone part time and ofsted is a large factor

an extreme example, ofsted is in on monday, on sunday night the school perimetre fencing falls down due to high winds, the school is no longer secure, it fails at safeguarding marked ‘inadequate’
doesnt matter that the kids grades have improved ten fold..

Is that actually wrong?

It's unfortunate timing for sure, but I'm less convinced that "the kids weren't unsafe for very long" is an adequate explanation. What state of repair was the fence in prior to its collapse? What measures should the school have had in place to effect an emergency repair in the event of an incident? Did they keep the children indoors until the fence was fixed? "I'm sorry we had to peel your child off the M6, but you see, the fence only collapsed last night."

a parent Governor still hadn’t done their Safeguarding training and if the school was to be inspected, it would receive a “requires improvement” based solely on that!!

... Good?

You've got someone working with children who hasn't completed safeguarding training and that doesn't "require improvement"? The required improvement being "ensure all staff complete mandatory training"?

If they aren't "student-facing" then it may still suggest that the school perhaps isn't taking its training seriously. Even if it is a single isolated oversight, it has to be flagged up surely? If there's a serious incident a week later it'll be headline news, there will be fury erupting all over the Mail and Express about multiple failings that went ignored.

From reading comments here it sounds like the current implementation of Ofsted isn't fit for purpose and needs an overhaul. After all, who watches the watchers? But I find it hard to rationalise that the concept of inspections is a bad thing (and when I'm in charge they'll have random unannounced spot checks). If there's any organisation which really should have regular impartial checking by a third party, it's childcare and healthcare.

But I find it hard to rationalise that the concept of inspections is a bad thing

No one is sayng that - just that inspections that are not fit for purpose but can have huge career effects are wrong

... which makes total sense.

I think there is more to this than just the Ofsted inspection. There will be an enormous amount of pressure to maintain a good measure, or to improve. That pressure will come from the board of governors, the academy trust and parents (curent and prospective). Ofsted is just an instrument of the overall process.

This was because when she temporarily left off working on a file and left the room she locked the room door but not the desk drawer where the file was. Apparently the advice is that all confidential files should be behind 2 locked doors at all times. A valid point no doubt but it shows the sort of mean spirited and largely irrelevant nit picking the inspectors engage in.

Not following a procedure is nit-picking now? The rules are there for a purpose, whether you agree with it or not. And not following it while being assessed would indicate things would be even more lax during normal operation.

Again, industry, blah blah, auditor, blah, Lead assessor

You have rules. Follow rules. Record everything or it didn't happen.

I think there is more to this than just the Ofsted inspection.

Undoubtedly.

No-one of otherwise sound mind takes their own life over a bad work review. It's likely that such a thing was the tipping point for the unfortunate teacher, but it cannot have been the only factor.

No-one of otherwise sound mind takes their own life over a bad work review.

the highest rate of suicides among chefs is for those who have Michelin Stars, the more they have (and thus more to lose) the higher the rate.