Jed slept soundly. He had
arrived late and I had guided him to his seat and given him the materials being
used in the lesson. There weren’t many; it was 1979 and the queue for the banda
machine was not unlike the Black Friday rush for TVs in ASDA. It was a well
heated room up three flights of stairs and I understood that Jed may be tired;
after all who knows the daily experience of others prior to our lessons. I let
him sleep quietly on and the class soon forgot he was there. It wasn’t a bad
lesson as I recall; I was probably doing something personal with a poem but
regardless, Jed slept on. At the end of the lesson the class and I connived for
them to leave really quietly, sharing the joke.
It was my first year of
teaching in an interesting East London comprehensive so I woke the LEA advisor
for English and newly qualified teachers and asked how he rated my lesson. Jed must
have offered something but it wasn’t memorable. I was promoted 4 times in 9
years at that school and Jed’s dreamy assessment was the only time I was ever
observed teach.
School management teams did
not observe us; teacher tutors were yet to be invented and LEAs were weak on
monitoring. We needed someone to observe good teaching and disseminate good
practice rather than leaving each teacher in an island, and each school in a
desert. Standards of teaching, discipline and management were poor in many
schools. It would be another 13 years until Ofsted was created in 1992.
I was first observed by an
Ofsted Inspector in the mid 1990s. Our head managed to successfully challenge
30 judgements made by lead inspector Valerie and the report ended up as nonsense with half
complete sentences. I passed her in the car park and for some reason I still
don’t understand, the inspector told me that she would stalk me throughout my
career. She left Ofsted soon afterwards.
Mynext inspectors, at Chauncy,
were a local authority team who criticised a languages carousel that the deputy
lead inspector, the local authority’s Languages advisor, had himself helped
create.
The next team was led by a
tweedy, bejewelled Lady Joan and a gentleman who was distraught to come across
a tomato ketchup sachet that a child had stamped on. His emotional upset was decisive.
Ofsted team number 4 told us
we would need a value added up around 1030 to get an outstanding grade. When
questioned at national level about a local school receiving the outstanding
grade with a value added of 998 I was told that school had shown progress. A
nearby school got Grade 1 overall seemingly because the courteous male head
charmed the lead lady inspector. I’ve never charmed an Ofsted inspector in what
is now 5 inspections.
“Chauncy is an exciting and
inspiring place ,” declared lead inspector of Team 5. We benefitted from her
background as an English teacher even if she didn’t like my repeatedly quoting
the John Lennon title, “How do you sleep/”
Here’s a thing. You stand a
better chance of a good written Ofsted Report if the inspector is an English
graduate. Some of them can’t write and at least two have been found to have
used the “cut and paste” technique (Academies Week 06-09-14)
A friend has abandoned his own Ofsted Training in disgust when
his school was unfairly inspected last
month. The lead inspector steadfastly refused to follow Ofsted rules and
advice. Whatever the Ofsted guidance it is the lead inspector who interprets
and can destroy.
Guess who you complain to if
unhappy with Ofsted nspectors? Well,
Ofsted, of course.
A nearby Headteacher was told
to shut up by an inspector shouting at her as he dismissed the school’s
achievements. No less than Wilshaw himself invited her to his office so he
could apologise for disgraceful Ofsted behaviour. Like bullies everywhere the
brave Wilshaw didn’t turn up – at his own office.
I have two local colleagues
upset by a Grade 2 (Good) Ofsted and mealy mouthed, semi- literate, negative prose
. Their conduct on inspection had left a bitter taste and thoughts of
alternative employment.
Teaching is such a joyous
fulfilment for most teachers but just how powerful is the unjustified, data
driven misrepresentation of a lifetime’s work that one can receive almost at
the whim of an inspector.
Teachers all over the country
are hounded by flapping headteachers preparing them for Ofsted. Meeting after
endless, distracting, tiresome preparation for Ofsted meeting forcing teachers
to worry about looking good to Ofsted rather than helping children learn.
Teachers walk away from their vocation over Ofsted, and many headteachers have
been sacked on poor reports.
It might be easier if the
Head of Ofsted wasn’t’ a bully himself. I well remember visiting Wilshaw’s St
Bons in Newham in the 1980s. A school characterised
by teachers on corridors shouting at point blank range at students. Discipline was
very tough. Expectations of academic achievement were high and the school made
great strides up the new league tables. There are those who think the ends
justifiy the means.
Mossborne Academy was created
for and by the now knightly Wilshire and expectations are fantastically high.
The uniform is one of those nice expensive ones, students may not gather in
groups larger than 3 and parents failing to attend admissions interviews have
had their children’s school place declined. Illegal of course, but the message is clear: you will do precisely
what we say or you will leave.
Strangely the only employee
from Mossborne I know, a teacher highly rated by the head is almost useless. Maybe the ethos and
student compliance can carry the weakest teachers.
I have many stories about
Ofsted and even though my inspections have always given us “Good” you might
think I just don’t like other people’s rules, measures of success or inspectors
themselves. And you would be right: anarcho syndicalism is a state of heart and
soul
HOW TO SUCCEED WITH OFSTED
Expel
difficult children.
Don’t
take weak kids into school.
Select
at age 11.
And now to expand:
Billy was a troubled Year 7
child. We worked with him until it was
clear that we were doing nothing for him and he was spoilng others’ chances. We
could easily have expelled him and he would be gone from all accountability
measures. We knew that expulsion would druin him so we found expensive alternative provision.
Billy came back at the end of Year 11 to thank us.
RAISE is the official booklet
showing how different subjects and groups of students have achieved. Ofsted use
Raise to condemn or praise schools, regardless of other aspects of education. In
Raise, green is good; blue is bad.
Billy was the defining factor
in turning 13 different categories blue. A more sensible Headteacher would have
expelled him for the sake of Ofsted. I am fond of quoting songs and poems at
inspectors, so when faced with the news that our success as humanitarians with
Billy made us failures in their terms I gave them some Owen:
“Was
it for this the clay grew tall?
Oh,
what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To
break earth’s sleep at all?.”
Ofsted thought I was speaking
in tongues. The poem is called “Futility”
Google “School Performance Tables” and you will see
that secondary schools are measured on the ways different groups of children
perform. How do SEN, Free School Meals, white boys with Level 3s at age 11
achieve in the school at age 16. Schools fail inspections if they don’t “close
the gap.”
Wander round your local
schools’ performance tables and wonder at the inclusion of SUPP (for
suppressed) This is where there are so
few low attainers on entry at age 11 that the school has no significant gap to
close.
Look at the most selective schools
and you will see that they also have very few kids on Free School Meals, so no
gap to close.
Look at Grammar schools and
be in awe of how few disadvantaged kids are allowed in. The myth of grammar schools aiding the escape from poverty
of bright working class kids is borne out by their Raise, their government
Performance Tables and their Ofsted reports.
Well done you schools.
Able children make more
progress than the less able – controversial? To say that a child who has
managed a Level 2 by the age of 11, having made 2 levels of progress in 6 years
will be able to make 3 levels of progress in the next 5 years does not hold up
mathematically and certainly not in practice. For a Level 5 child at age 11 to
make 3 levels of progress in the next five years is comparatively easy. Ofsted
will measure your school against levels of progress so I suggest you do what so
many high achieving schools somehow, accidentally, manage – keep ‘em out.
And now, in colour for the
first time in 28 blogs and 50,000 words
,in graphical form, the work by @JTrevorBurton taken from his” Eating Elephants”
site. Clearly, schools with a low
average point score at age 11 really struggle to let Ofsted see them as Outstanding.
Schools with the highest point score on entry, miraculously, seem to find it a
matter of near certainty to be given an
Outstanding Grade..
Seems simplistic? Ofsted rely
massively on data.
The brighter the intake the
easier to show progress.
If progress is outstanding,
teaching must be outstanding.
If progress and teaching are
outstanding behaviour and management must be outstanding.
QED.
Ofsted Grade by Prior Attainment as of 30 April 2014
A few notes of explanation:
- These are the 2,684 secondary schools in England with both a KS2 prior attainment score and a current Ofsted grade.
- 85% of these schools have a KS2 average point score (APS) of higher than 26, but lower than 30 i.e. the four columns labelled 26, 27, 28, 29 in the chart
- The number of schools in each APS “bucket” is shown at the top of the bar so there are 748 schools with KS2 APS of 27 or higher, but less than 28.
Ofsted has been criticised for knee-jerk reactions to the latest scandals. Thus they descended on Birmingham last summer and suddenly two schools rated, by Ofsted, as Outstanding, were now, after all, Seriously Weak. Ofsted never explained how their inspections failed to notice the serious weaknesses. But they certainly hammered the schools when the world was watching.
The tragic case of Baby P in
North London throws up another Ofsted oddity. In 2007 Haringey Social Services,
inspected by Ofsted, was given a “Good” grade. When the poor boy was murdered
and the case took over national news, the record of the Good grade had
disappeared to be replaced by an Inadequate ruling. And Ofsted ducked all
criticism whilst damming those it had inspected..
This isn’t nice is it? The
head of social services got her day, and payout in court, but she was destroyed
by the press.
I know it is going back a way
but the Head of Ofsted 1994 -2000, Chris Woodhead who created the bullying
regime, making headline , announcements
like, “30,000 bad teachers in our schools,” never liked the question about his
full relationship with a sixth form girl whilst “teaching” her and then lying
on oath about it when challenged It was legal back then. He said teachers
didn’t deserve a payrise whilst demanding, and getting, a 30% rise for himself.
(New Statesman 26-04-99)
Academies run by a government
approved superhead, Rachel de Souza, were so well informed of the date Ofsted
would visit that they imported star teachers to perform on the inspection days
( Guardian 17-08-14) Accurate to the day emails from De Souza saying “only 3
weeks to go until Ofsted visit” are a mite embarrassing but I guess it’s OK to
look after your mates in these matters.
The Academy Chain, AET,
really really, really can’t rest easy now that their trustee, David Hoare, has
been appointed Chair of Ofsted. So good is AET that it was barred from taking
on more schools amid reports of falling standards (Guardian 12-08-14)
The underperforming AET chain
of academies could tell staff that Ofsted had given notice that it would
inspect 12 of its schools in June 2014.And
they were spot on.
The National Union of
Teachers – a voice rarely heard by Wilshaw – claims, “Ofsted no longer has the
confidence of the teaching profession.”
They are Gove’s enemies of
promise so how about Primary School headteachers:
“The NAHT can no longer work
with Ofsted’s adversarial approach.”
The Logal Government
Association, again in 2014, said that a
series of u-turns and leaks had “undermined Ofsted’s credibility.”
School management and local
education authorities failed to promote the highest standards in schools. This
does not mean that the imposition of an aggressive regime dominated by data and
fear is the way to treat teachers and school communities. We need a fair and
impartial professional view of what makes a good school and this is certainly
not a perpetually Ofsted- ready school where we justify actions on what Ofsted
want.
On Wednesday of this week
Wilshaw addressed the nation in ways that allow the press to believe that we
are in a perilous state. We are not. Teaching and achievement in schools is
light years ahead of where we were when Ofsted was created in 1992.
Ofsted has not complained
that the political interference of the last 4 months means that GCSEs are now
harder to pass. Ofsted did not comment on the 10% national decline in pass
rates that resulted. The bar below which schools are said to be failing has
been raised again by another 10%. So more schools are bound to fail Ofsted’s
GCSE driven inspections.
What a pity that the Chief
Inspector of Schools has to impose guilt to get on the radio.
If only Ofsted’s ideology had
progressed beyond bullying in those 20 years . If Ofsted leaders could see a
way towards constructive conversations with schools packed full of
professionals working their hardest we would welcome their help – maybe in a
loving embrace.
Dennis O'Sullivan (Headteacher)
