Ofsted - What An Experience!

They've just left and I must say that I was surprised that it was an even more negative experience than I imagined it could be.The team of 6 (1 of whom was just seeing what it was like so she could go and ruin the morale at another school) had an average age of around 55, if not higher. None of them had been a teacher for a number of years, quite clearly. I don't see how someone who is so far removed from the regular classroom experience can make an accurate and constructive assessment of full or part-time teachers.

The speech at the start of the inspection filled people with hope, but from there it was downhill. The lead inspector explained how this was to be a "positive experience", but it was anything but. Accusations were made of the school that were simply untrue - statistics-based accusations that had to be retracted. Many staff in so-called "important" departments (3 out of 7 maths teachers for example) were not seen at all and conversation such as these going on during observations:

Inspector: You should write your questions on the lesson plan.
Teacher: Have you looked at it? They are highlighted in yellow.
Inspector: Oh - well you should name the student that you are targeting each question too.

Frankly, that is a stupid comment, as any practicing teacher would know straight away. Why not just write a script and get actors in to teach lessons through a screenplay?

Another inspector was quoted as saying "I can't give you an outstanding for that lesson because you didn't do such-and-such". The teacher replied with "Can you give me an example of what you mean?", followed by a period of silence and then eventually a "No".

When the report gets published I will be interested to read it, purely to see the rubbish that they have used as evidence to downgrade us (which is what I presume they have done - I don't actually know the verdict yet).

My opinion is this:

We are going through a period of austerity measures when it comes to public spending. Most teachers are striking over their pensions (work longer, pay more and get less - like anyone's going to be happy about that). Ofsted costs £200 million per year (a quick and easy saving one would think). They need to make out that schools are getting worse to justify their existence as a quango that is vital in the drive to push standards up, and therefore convince the government into not getting rid of them.
Either that, or as a colleague said, the new government needs to downgrade schools at the beginning of their term in office and then upgrade them at the end (as our next inspection will be towards the end of their current term); they can then claim during the election campaign that standards are improving having dropped under the previous government. Cynical but not beyond our beloved politicians I would say.

I've said it before, but the only way Ofsted can be of any use to the teaching profession is to change radically in the following way: inspectors should be current, practicing teachers, and the money that currently pays for  inspectors should be spent on cover staff.

The atmosphere at my school has been awful over the past 48 hours and will remain so, probably until the end of term. Thanks for that.