Dropped In

It hasn't happened to me for a while, and I know colleagues of mine have been put through it recently, but I had the dreaded "drop-in" from the department's line manager. They picked a good time to drop in on me: Friday, last lesson of the week, with a bottom set in the upper school. Thanks for that.

To be honest, in my years as a teacher I've got used to this sort of thing, although having said that, this was the most menacing I've ever had. As bottom sets go this one is doing pretty well: they are a nice bunch and we get on, which helps. The line manager turned up about half way through, didn't say anything to me and just went around picking up books, presumably checking whether I'd marked them - fortunately I had done that week. Even when I tried to engage with the line manager I was totally ignored, and then 10 minutes later the line manager left. What was quite nice is that one of the students had had a go at the line manager about something that they had chastised them about.

This sort of thing, as I have said, is not uncommon. It stems from Ofsted and makes teachers feel small and insignificant. I'm sure that it's designed to do so. I was having a discussion with a member of senior staff about the origins of Ofsted, they having taught for far longer than I have. Ofsted was initially set up to make sure that standards were reasonably high in the classroom, and if a teacher was struggling, a network of support was utilised in order to help that teacher improve. Nowadays it is quite the opposite - it is not a supportive thing and because Ofsted wields so much power, senior staff in all schools feel that they have to do the same in order to get their staff used to the concept for when it happens for real.

In my 10+ years of teaching I can only remember a couple of positive experiences when it comes to observations and drop-ins. They have become an exercise in character assassination where anything that could be levelled against a teacher is levelled against that teacher, depending on whether they are flavour of the month or not. I tend not to be flavour of the month, I hasten to add.

Lesson observations are so subjective - a very good or very bad lesson stick out like sore thumbs, but those inbetween could be judged so differently by different people. I have fallen victim to this, even when observed by two people, the most senior (and one who likes me least) judgement counts. Don't start tuning up your small violins, it's not meant to be a moan or cry for sympathy at all. A few years ago I would have asked you to break into Vivaldi, but I really don't let it bother me too much anymore. That's not entirely true, I get really wound up and end up arguing with the line manager on a regular basis about judgements, but I have accepted that I will never get any positive comments because I am not an automaton or a kiss-arse.

Ofsted is a device to oppress teachers now and has lost its initial function which was to be a supportive body for schools and teachers. It is something that almost certainly needs to exist or schools could rest on their laurels, but Ofsted has got too powerful due to political rather than educational reasons. Ofsted has become a device that politicians use to justify idiotic policy changes and a desperate bid for votes at the next election. And it's just about to get worse, isn't it Sir Michael?