Ofsted 'ban' inspectors from conducting 'mocksteds'

[salsa]

Put that way JamesDean, why not? Next thing, headmasters will be doing fundraising activities for mocksteds! Imagine that! Maybe it's being done already... All those cake sales...

[Loopyloulou]

A school not very far from us, previously ranked "satisfactory", arranged one of these "mocksteds", took action as a result, and suddenly became "outstanding". It is of course the same school with the same pupils, same teachers, same headmaster and same resources. I suppose the headmaster deserves a merit for his homework, but it illustrates the failures of the inspection process. Some parents have fallen for it, which is very sad.

[loobylou]

A school not very far from us, previously ranked "satisfactory", arranged one of these "mocksteds", took action as a result, and suddenly became "outstanding". It is of course the same school with the same pupils, same teachers, same headmaster and same resources. I suppose the headmaster deserves a merit for his homework, but it illustrates the failures of the inspection process. Some parents have fallen for it, which is very sad.

On the other hand it could be a great school which previously had been miserably failing at jumping through pointless hoops but otherwise providing a good education/experience for its students. And now, with the benefit of the head learning some hoop-jumping techniques, it could be a great school which can jump through pointless hoops AND provide a good education/experience for its students.

[salsa]

Or they could have genuinely improved.

[loobylou]

Or they could have genuinely improved.

True!

[moved]

Ofsted long ceased to be about school improvement. That requires collaboration rather than a snap judgement. Heads do this in clusters now often inviting an out of area consultant.

[Kata girl]

Health services come under scrutiny from a number of agencies but the inspection agency most akin to Ofsted is the CQC or Care Quality Commission. There are differing views on whether inspection leads to improvement but it's role is really to hold up a lens to services within a health organisation and get a snapshot based on set key lines of enquiry. It is becoming more common for the trusts with larger infrastructures to arrange mock inspections using a combination of internal and external staff who are assigned a ward or department and 'inspect' and then feedback. Usually a one day exercise as opposed to the three days or thereabouts of a typical CQC. The quality of the mock findings can only be as good as the mock inspectors. External staff would normally provide their time for free- released by their employer for the day.

[mystery]

I don't have a problem with inspectors helping schools improve or providing a mock inspection - so long as it represents value for money in terms of improved educational outcomes for the children. But, the thing that could be bad is if they are effectively selling "inspection secrets" i.e. how to present things in a falsely better light - in a way that is convincing enough to affect the judgement - than is actually the case. I suspect this does go on, particularly now that inspections are so short and rely so much on what people say to them. Judging from our last school inspection the following kind of massaging is / would be possible:

- making sure children only say positive things to inspectors

- keeping a fairly tight control over which children and parents and children the inspectors speak to

- vetting letters from parents to the inspectors sent in via the school office

- improving the narrative in the report on "extras" provided by the school by supplying the inspectors with embroidered information

- providing questionnaire findings from staff and parents which have only asked what you want to ask or which have been massaged afterwards


Unless inspectors were to spend a long time in a school properly watching a lot of lessons ( more than the just the fancy one pulled out of the bag ready for the inspectors), reading a lot of children's books and had some accurate idea of the ability of the children they were watching (as opposed to the school's judgement on this), in my view the inspection process is always going to remain badly flawed and the money would be better spent on text books, interactive maths schemes for the whiteboard and better initial teacher training including making sure that all primary teachers have the highest standard possible in spelling, punctuation and grammar as well as maths.

[ToadMum]

Re questionnaires, I don't know whether it's an Ofsted edict, but the schools tend to ask parents to go to ParentView rather than fill in paper ones.

[Guest55]

Unless inspectors were to spend a long time in a school properly watching a lot of lessons ( more than the just the fancy one pulled out of the bag ready for the inspectors), reading a lot of children's books and had some accurate idea of the ability of the children they were watching (as opposed to the school's judgement on this), in my view the inspection process is always going to remain badly flawed

Inspectors do spend a lot of time in lessons - they tend not to watch a whole lesson but stay for twenty minutes or so. They also do short drop-ins and might see a lesson on day one and then the follow-on lesson the next day. You can't get away with a 'show' lesson anymore.

Looking at books is a big part of inspections - both sampling and just picking up books in lessons they visit. They want to see progress during the year. Many inspectors can judge whether the lesson/work is pitched correctly by talking to pupils.