Ofsted & Schools

['Press Start']

Most people will look at this thread and quickly mark it as one of the ****est on the site. For some however it's quite a stressful time in trying to figure out which schools to 'try' and send your little ones.

I know there are some teachers on here and I was wondering if average Ofsted reports means average school, great Ofsted means great school? there must be some politics at play surely? or is it as simple as if the school ranks highly by Ofsted then its a great school, the end.

Any tips or ideas for choosing schools (apart from visit them of course)? any advice form parents who have done this before? Anyone been in a catchment for a below average school but had above average schools closer to there home? (my situation)

[punio75]

Ofsted give you an idea but nothing more.An inspection often depends on the personalities involved, in my experience..


Visits are key- you'll get a good feel for the place. Speak to the head and current parents if possible..

[dataDave]

A good school can turn to ****e in just months depending on new management. My old school, and the one I spent 5 years working at, went down the ****ter because of the new female head allowing any and all rejects from other schools study there, as well as trying to take a leftist no-discipline approach with a largely 'chav' community. What a fool.

It was never a great school to begin with but she certainly ran it into the ground. I can't believe they gave her the new building.

[Brad]

Can't really comment on the ofsted bit but regarding catchment, where we are (Cheltenham) your child is basically set to go to one school based on catchment. Catchment areas seem to change every year. Your best options if you want a different school are either to move or try for a grammar school. Might be different where you are though.

[Kieran76]

Don't just relay on SATS figures to see how good a school is, look at the progress that children make when at school, you should be able to see that in the OFSTED report. Ask about the curriculum, what other clubs and activities do they offer.
My school was graded Outstanding by OFTSED in our inspection last year and we are a multi-cultural school in the heart of the east end of london. A lot of our children start school with low standards of English, what really impressed OFTSED was the progress that our children make during their time here, most children make significantly higher than average progress. These are the things that really matter.
Also, if you are fortunate enough to have a bright child have a look at what the school offers for Gifted and Talented children. Quite often all a schools resources are put into struggling children.

[vanpeebles]

I'd go by exam tables and results rather than ofsted reports. You can have a school full of nutters with a good ofsted report because they are ticking the right boxes where as a school full of fairly decent kids that just potters along would be average. Schools are like football teams regardless of your players the right manager can make all the difference. A bad head just drags everyone down.

Just add, I'd only pay attention to the maths, english and science scores and ignore all the nonesense course scores with the CVA.

[charlesr]

How old are your kids? Just starting reception?

I send mine to the school at the end of the road because it's closest.... The school is above average I think though. However, I make damn sure they do their homework as soon as they get in and if they want to stay up a bit later ("not tired") and read a book or whatever, I tend to let them as long as they aren't showing signs of tiredness.

I also try and give them lessons that no schools give. For example:
- bike riding: all 5 year olds are quite capably of riding without stabilisers and mine can do small wheelies already without me telling him (he just watched me - I don't say "try this", I just do things and he can decide if he wants to copy it later).
- entrepeneurship: You don't need a job. You need an income. People that fail miserably at school go on to be on the world's successful list.
- communication: son is quite shy with new people (not at all with friends though) so needs encouragement in this area, so we role play. e.g. I pretend to be a new person of the same age that he is meeting for the first time and he tries to keep up a conversation with me and find out my name, what I like, where I live, etc.
- drawing / art: they do this at school, but I try and leave stuff lying around for them to use whenver they want.
- music: difficult at their age because they don't want to sit down for more than 10 mins, but have a piano which I leave tunes on by number; they press the numbers in order.
- gaming
- value of objects (money and personal)
- tell them I love them every night when I go to bed.
- cooking and nutrition: If you can't look after yourself by the time you leave home then hard times ahead

[Kieran76]

I think you might be surprised what some schools offer then Charles. I am a fully trained cycle instructor and have just taken 12 kids through their level 2 bikeability on road cycle training course, this was during the normal school day. Our school runs 3 bike clubs a week, 2 in the week after school, one for juniors and one for infants and a saturday morning bike club from 10-12. If the kids arrive at 9 then they get an hours football coaching as well. This costs them just a pound and we also hold a bike repair drop in as well.

Our school also has an entrepeneur club where children in year 5/6 can bring in things from home to sell for a maxium of 50p. All food must be homemade and profits are split with the school.

We have a small vegetable plot in our school and my class grew some giant onions, yesterday we made french onion soup and ate it in the staff room. Tomorrow I am teaching six kids how to make guacamole and salsa as we have been researching Mexico as part of our Olympics topic.

These sort of things are not to be found when simply looking at SATS tables.

[charlesr]

That's totally ace dude. Although a real entrepeneur would have paid the other kids 40p to make things for him and taken 10p for each for themselves

[Kieran76]

That's totally ace dude. Although a real entrepeneur would have paid the other kids 40p to make things for him and taken 10p for each for themselves

The real salesmen were the ones who sold tat for stupid money until we had a parent come in and complain, hence the 50p limit.

[bangaio]

Right, I will try and hold political bias to one side here:

I teach in an average size comp in the south east - 70% nice middle class (arrogant) catchment 30% Super low income deprived families.

Ofsted is one measure and one only but the most visible. When they inspect the already have largely made up their mind based on pupil progress on what was CAV - how far the pupils have been taken. For example our feeder primaries are very good and kids have high levels, we can only take them so far. School's with ****e feeders can do a great deal and make more progress to KS4. An Ofsted report can however give an idea about the leadership and direction the school is going in but a school can plummet in a few years and we have seen local schools do just that. Schools are really only ever getting better or getting worse!

Don'y rely on exam results either - all schools play the game of using a range of qualifications to boost the ratings although from 2014 this will change as some the counted in league tables will no longer count. Primary is less of a game though. Also bare in mind the type of kids they take - one local grammar was rated only as good however if we had their results we would be clearly outstanding.

My advice is really what people have said - look around, get opinions from current parents - as many as you can. Talk to the head, meet teachers - it really is a feel thing. You will know I guess.

I would also add that if your kids are primary age, get them reading, read to them get them doing homework regularly, have them do sums, get them into sports clubs etc. (and I am sure you will do). The major issues we have at school are parents who did none of this, have their kids bored out of their minds with reading ages 7 years below their own and just couldn't give a toss what happens in secondary school. Support the school and most kids will do well anywhere!

['Press Start']

I think you might be surprised what some schools offer then Charles. I am a fully trained cycle instructor and have just taken 12 kids through their level 2 bikeability on road cycle training course, this was during the normal school day. Our school runs 3 bike clubs a week, 2 in the week after school, one for juniors and one for infants and a saturday morning bike club from 10-12. If the kids arrive at 9 then they get an hours football coaching as well. This costs them just a pound and we also hold a bike repair drop in as well.

Our school also has an entrepeneur club where children in year 5/6 can bring in things from home to sell for a maxium of 50p. All food must be homemade and profits are split with the school.

We have a small vegetable plot in our school and my class grew some giant onions, yesterday we made french onion soup and ate it in the staff room. Tomorrow I am teaching six kids how to make guacamole and salsa as we have been researching Mexico as part of our Olympics topic.

These sort of things are not to be found when simply looking at SATS tables.

Cheers Kieren. This is the type of thing I am looking out for when visiting schools. Evidence of learning through doing rather then pen and paper (also important of course). Evidence of good after school clubs and teaching through fun and exploration.

We have a very bright child (He knew his ABC's at 2, he is 3 on Friday). My fear is he is so bright he will enter a big class and because has already attained levels ahead of most teachers will think 'ahh he is okay', he does not need much effort put into him'. Like his dad he is 'very' easily distracted so if left to his own devices we fear he might get lost amongst the crowd.

Today I learnt one school near me (my catchment school) improved their Ofsted by giving the kids 2 hours of homework most nights, this is primary school we are talking about. I am not sure I would be happy with him having that amount of homework getting in the way of home life.

Charles's original post is also important but we have the home stuff covered .

Good advice Van, and Punio. Dave you are right, a good school now might not be in 3 years.

Thanks all for the advice. Any more welcome of course!

edit: bangaio. Just noticed your post after I made mine. I'll be reading that after breaking bad.

['Press Start']

Right, I will try and hold political bias to one side here:

I teach in an average size comp in the south east - 70% nice middle class (arrogant) catchment 30% Super low income deprived families.

Ofsted is one measure and one only but the most visible. When they inspect the already have largely made up their mind based on pupil progress on what was CAV - how far the pupils have been taken. For example our feeder primaries are very good and kids have high levels, we can only take them so far. School's with ****e feeders can do a great deal and make more progress to KS4. An Ofsted report can however give an idea about the leadership and direction the school is going in but a school can plummet in a few years and we have seen local schools do just that. Schools are really only ever getting better or getting worse!

I understand. A friend told me some schools have an average ofsted because the kids get a lot of attention/development at home, therefore need less 'development' at school. This means some ofsted reports are skewed by the fact the school is bringing the kids further because they aren't getting certain things from home life.

Don't rely on exam results either - all schools play the game of using a range of qualifications to boost the ratings although from 2014 this will change as some the counted in league tables will no longer count. Primary is less of a game though. Also bare in mind the type of kids they take - one local grammar was rated only as good however if we had their results we would be clearly outstanding.

I spoke to my uncle in law today who is a retired secondary school teacher. He said when he left the percentage for exams went from 47% to 71%. He went on to say you would think that is because the kids have been taught better and therefore achieved better results but in fact subjects were changed, pupils were taught to the question rather then curriculum and some good, useful but hard subjects were dropped in favour for stat increasing subjects.

It really is a feel thing. You will know I guess.

Your right. Most decisions in my life I have based of feeling and I thought this time as my child future is involved I must try and get into the figures, stats etc etc. But still it comes back to the good old gut.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

BTW, your school is South East as in Oxfordshire?

[koopatroopa90]

Just to further add to the whole "good" school vs "outstanding" my mum is the head of a very high achieving primary school and she had ofsted about a month ago. They could not achieve "outstanding" in progress or whatever because the kids are already getting level 3s at the end of KS1 so even if they get 5s at the end of KS2 they won't have gone up enough levels to achieve a score beyond "good"!

They got "good" overall but apparently would have been "outstanding" last year before the way ofsted was carried out was changed (categories merged etc). I don't know about other schools but my Mum uploaded a her letter to the parents alongside the ofsted report on their website and she addresses everything ofsted picked out brilliantly so if any of the schools you are looking at have done similar they might make interesting reads...

['Press Start']

Just to further add to the whole "good" school vs "outstanding" my mum is the head of a very high achieving primary school and she had ofsted about a month ago. They could not achieve "outstanding" in progress or whatever because the kids are already getting level 3s at the end of KS1 so even if they get 5s at the end of KS2 they won't have gone up enough levels to achieve a score beyond "good"!

They got "good" overall but apparently would have been "outstanding" last year before the way ofsted was carried out was changed (categories merged etc). I don't know about other schools but my Mum uploaded a her letter to the parents alongside the ofsted report on their website and she addresses everything ofsted picked out brilliantly so if any of the schools you are looking at have done similar they might make interesting reads...

Thanks for posting. Very useful and informative, cheers.