Ofsted spotlight on region’s schools (From York Press)

See me

I'm for this.......and against this. Let me explain. I want excellent schools. To achieve this, we want teachers spending nearly 100% of their cerebral effort on teaching, not trying to get to grips with a performance management system that is convoluted, misses the goal and changes constantly. The result is, like fusion energy, they absorb more energy than they create. The 'types' that migrate to auditry bodies like ofsted are seldom great achievers in their own right. Mostly, they can talk a good story but are bl00dy useless. By this very article, the reader can deduce that they keep changing the goalposts and therefore demoralise the teachers.

Who the hell really takes a long look at this body and challenges their worth. Nobody does.

Pete - it's easy to forget how lucky we are in York. Our schools generally do well, and the local authority is recognised nationally as having an extremely good school improvement service. Maybe in York, the council knows its schools well enough - knows their strengths and weaknesses, and has the skills to help them improve - that we don't need an external inspection regime.

A lot of the country isn't like that. Local authorities that don't know their schools. Local authorities that have poor relationships with their schools. Local authorities that don't have the capacity and skills to help schools improve.

Some sort of independent inspection regime is necessary to ensure that schools are on the right track. And part of the process of continuous improvement is that every now and again, it has to "raise the bar", or else we would soon end up with all schools being judged outstanding, and have nowhere to go.

Let's not forget that this shouldn't have come as a shock to anyone. Ofsted published their inspection framework, with detailed grade descriptors, in the summer term last year, giving schools plenty of time to get to grips with it before the new inspections started in September. What Ofsted are expecting of schools is not that they jump through artificial hoops - what they look for in the inspection is evidence of good practice, what the school should be doing every day.

Most schools find the Ofsted inspection a positive process. Yes, it's stressful and hard work while it's happening, but that's only four days from the initial phonecall to when they leave after the final feedback. Usually the inspection does reaffirm the good work that the school is doing, and as long as the school leadership team is in tune with how the school is doing, the outcome of the inspection should not be a shock to anyone. If it does come as a shock then clearly the school needed to be shocked!

"Most schools find the Ofsted inspection a positive process".

To quote Mandy Rice-Davies:- "They would say that, wouldn't they!"