New Head Of Ofsted Starts Early

He's not even in the job yet and he's already begun in earnest - Sir Michael Wilshaw has made two statements to brighten up every teachers' Christmas holiday:

1. Local troubleshooters should be employed to speed up the dismissal of incompetent headteachers, as the time elapsed between Ofsted inspections can be too great and the damage will already have been done. These troubleshooters would report to central government.
2. Scruffy teachers should be "rebuked" and the attire of the staff should be mentioned in Ofsted inspections.

The first idea seems a good one in theory, but where are these troubleshooters going to come from? Are they going to have teaching and/or management experience or be former headteachers themselves? Aren't they Ofsted inpsectors?

How are they going to judge whether a headteacher is incompetent? Are they going to look at data alone or seek the opinions of staff, students and parents from the suspected incompetent's educational establishment? Ofsted already hand out a questionnaire to those three groups which appear to be largely ignored, certainly as far as the staff one is concerned. The parental one (which is only ever filled in by those who want to gripe about something) appears to be the only one they actually take any notice of.

When they report back to central government, what will actually happen? No-one actually knows, although I reckon that a piece of paper will end up on a civil servant's desk at a cost to the tax-payer of thousands of pounds.

As usual it will boil down to league table positions alongside unrealistic target grades and whether they are met or not. Pointless therefore, and for the job of"troubleshooter" more "jobs for the boys" for those who have no place or desire for a place in education for real, although I know of a few potential candidates for a position as one.

As far as the "rebuking" of scruffy staff, this is a total nonsense, although a practise that has been going on in my current school for a few years, and is verging on bullying. Wilshaw cites the fact that we expect doctors and lawyers to be smart, so why not teachers? The fact that doctors and lawyers get paid far more money than teachers might have something to do with it; it's not just the cost of a suit that's the issue, it's the regular dry cleaning bills that need covering on top.

He even stated that a comment should be made in official Ofsted reports regarding the appearance of the staff. Why would people have any interest? Another waste of money.

Studies have also found that the appearance of a teacher to be irrelevent when it comes to their classes' learning. This is the tyrannical Wilshaw showing his true colours with idiotic statements and policies.

Teaching has just died a little more.

Link to the article: Here!