Time to sack OFSTED?

The news that some one thousand schools previously considered by OFSTED to be 'outstanding' are to be re-inspected causes me great concern for a number of reasons.

My first concern is how inspectors can assess a school as 'outstanding' and then suddenly reconsider their assessment as the teaching was subsequently regarded as "not have reached the highest standard". "The teaching was below standard," doesn't cut it because it it was then the school wasn't outstanding, was it?

This doesn't speak of poor teaching but substandard inspectors and this should trigger an investigation into OFSTED and, as we so enjoy our blame culture, inspectors and those who control them should be in the dock. It's inspectors that should be rolling here nit schools and their heads!

Of course we could always look to a conspiracy theory approach and wonder to ourselves whether there might be some future correlation between this re-inspection and the creation of more academies (which according to some of the reel Akademmix put it recently: 'Academisation' or 'Academification' - bunch of blinking loonies!!!). If this occurs then the inspectors are substandard at all, they're much worse and so is the source of the intervention and unseen direction.

In an education meeting recently I was shocked to hear a head speak of how some schools were being placed in 'special measures' so that they could be taken over and made into academies as a 'hostile take-over'. Boardroom terms for education, shocking and yet fitting as we see our schools taken out of the state education system and transformed into academies where freedom of information, parent governorship and many other aspects of schooling that we have taken for granted are no longer.

I'm happy to see inspectors work with the schools and any rise in standards has to be good but I'm not so sure that 'no notice' inspections are the right way to go. The few days warning schools get now is stress-inducing enough, but to have an inspection just descend is destined to put already overworked teachers into a place where the stress will be ever present and will be detrimental to the good running of our schools and will cause more stress-related departures of extremely good teacher.

Let's look at the realities:

Budgets are being cut and so teachers have to make choices:

a. Teach and because the budgets for TAs (Teaching Assistants) are reduced they also have to clear, do presentation work and the many subsidiary tasks that are not part of the teaching role proper.

b. Spend more and more time on the processes and paperwork that will be needed to satisfy, and provide audit trails, for the OFSTED inspectors and ignore the TA tasks.

c. Do the TA work, the lesson prep', the marking, the teaching, the clearing away and the various roles within the school (special needs, curriculum and the oh so many other little areas like after school activities, visit planning, the PPA - for which support is going by the board for some because of budgets and staffing issues) and all the required paperwork and see how long it is before a different career (or breakdown) beckons.

d. Just teach and be resigned to just making do and doing enough (which will work until the new disciplinary process sees you gone by the end of that term).

e. Place a knotted hankie on the head, stick a pencil up each nostril and consider the future as a retired teacher and wonder what your CPN will be like and what pills you'll be on!

I fear our education system is becoming commercialised and removed from the state and the pressures and manipulation of means and methods are leading us to a very bad place indeed. So if you're a parent or a dogcollar - get involved and join your local governors, friends of and anything else that will get you involved and informed . . . Hug a teacher (well say "Thank You' anyway - you won't get an ASBO for that!) TODAY!

I guess these words from a recently retired teacher who left on medical grounds of stress after their second OFSTED in as many years sums it all up:

What's the difference between OFSTED and a plastic surgeon?

A plastic surgeon tucks up features . . . . .