The Ofsted report arrived this morning, though it is still not on the Ofsted website. It’s indicative of Ofsted’s priorities that the school’s senior management have had it for weeks.
I was naive to expect Ofsted, part of the educational establishment, to take parents’ concerns seriously. In their survey they asked questions about how well the school communicates with parents and students (answer: appallingly), but the answers to those questions do not form part of the inspection judgements. In fact, there is no analysis at all of parents’ comments, proof that when it comes to listening to parents and students, both the school and Ofsted merely go through the motions.
The report says ‘many Year 11 students already choose to continue their studies elsewhere’, a wilful misreading of the situation. Year 11 students like my son had no choice, after last autumn’s unilateral decision to suspend the sixth form.
When students return after the Easter holidays, we may know more about how many teacher and support staff jobs have been done away with. Several teachers have told me they are afraid to speak their minds under the current regime. If the teachers had been bolder, and joined parents last autumn, they might not now be losing their jobs.
Tags: ofsted, seafordhead, seafordheadcommunitycollege, sixthform
April 8, 2008 at 3:41 pm
For those of us who have not yet seen the Ofsted report, what was general conclusion please?
April 8, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Of course, though I wonder why it hasn’t gone up on the Ofsted website yet. I may fire up my scanner again.
There are four grades, outstanding, good, satisfactory and inadequate. The inspectors found nothing outstanding, and nothing inadequate. The found the school’s overall effectiveness and the achievement and standards merely satisfactory, while personal development and well-being were judged to be good, as, bizarrely, was leadership and management, though in this category they scored poorly on using targets to raise standards and on promoting equality of opportunity and tackling discrimination. Teaching and learning were judged to be good in meeting the full range of learners’ needs, but the curriculum only satisfactory.
April 8, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Though there is something that I have only just noticed…the report judges the school as a whole and then there’s a column where the inspectors assess provision for 16-19s against the same criteria. Yet here the inspectors often say they could not find any evidence to make a judgment, although the school at present has both Years 12 and 13 in progress. If the inspection happened next academic year, when there will be no year 12, I could understand it. I wonder if this is a subtle criticisism?