Revelations

theprimaryhead6 Comments

 

I’m not going to lie. It’s been a hell of a year.

Ofsted broke my heart.

I cried.

I ranted.

I blogged.

I fought.

It took three months for the inspection to materialise into a final published report. Many inaccuracies of the draft report were changed but the tone of the report had become damning and cruel.

For a while I considered packing it in. Over three years I had given everything to that school. I believed I had made a difference. I believed that it was a better place than it was when I first arrived.

I was obviously wrong.

I turned to others for help. I got it. Little by little I began to regain shreds of self-belief. Shards of evidence that suggested I wasn’t off my nut and that I did, despite the report, know what I was doing.

I kept my chin up, you know, for the kids. But deep down I still felt it. I mean, how many RIs have I got left? Better jump than be pushed. But then again, what does a failed Head do?

After a while people said – move on. It was like when somebody dies in a soap. Three episodes later and everyone’s forgotten about them. Well, I was still mourning the loss of my ‘good’ Ofsted. I couldn’t move on.

I complained.

My complaint came back. Many points had been upheld. Victory! Some hadn’t. And I’m a teacher at heart, so, of course, I focussed on those bits.

Then people began to say: seriously, move on.

And I did.

I went to a conference. I got some ideas. I worked with some inspirational people. I threw a few ideas around with my Deputy. Pretty soon I was feeling the spark. That moment when you think you’ve hit upon something big. My SDP was starting to take shape.

Momentum gathered.

Every now and then I would stop and realise that I hadn’t thought about Ofsted for days.

On 7th July the results came out.

O M G!

Well whadda y’know?

We did really well. We got the results a certain inspector said we never would.

Victory!

Then I started to think that it wasn’t fair. What is the point of results if you don’t have a good Ofsted to go with it?

Then three things were said to me at the school summer fair.

  1. The ex-governor: When I saw that every disadvantaged pupil had made a level 4 I thought, that’s it, we’ve done it. We’ve closed that gap. We’ve made a difference. I was so proud. Well done, everyone!
  2. The parent: Isn’t there something parents could do to tell Ofsted that they’ve just got it wrong? This is a great school.
  3. The Year 6 pupil: Thank you for being a Head that didn’t leave us straight away.

Those three statements hit me like a cliché hitting me really hard.

I was reminded about what is important.

  1. Helping those children who need it the most is important.
  2. Enabling parents to support their local school is important.
  3. Leaders that stick around are important.

I realised why I had begun to be excited in the preceding weeks. Because in September I’m going to help secure those three very important things. Not for Ofsted, but for us. I’m going to work with my team and help the school get better and better at doing the right thing and we’re going to measure it ourselves using the right instruments.

Ofsted can choose to see what they like but I’m not doing it for them.

I’m over it.

I’m in love with my job again.

It’s going to be a hell of a year.

Now leaving from runway number 3

theprimaryhead3 Comments

You know that feeling when you’re flying on a plane at that height somewhere in between the land and the clouds, and you look out of your window (or you lean silently over the sleeping man to the side of you in order to look out of the window) and you see the earth all peaceful below you. Maybe you’re close enough to see little cars, moving like ants, or houses all nestled in neat little rows. The organisation of it all seems so well structured, even the irregular fields seem to have a sense of order. As you look down, trying to ignore the snoring of the sleeping man, you bask in the serenity of it all. Everything is peaceful. Everything seems right with the world. None of the arguments, fights, wars or politics that cause so much stress, pain and heartache for so many people are evident. You wonder why the world doesn’t seem so peaceful when you’re actually on it, you wonder why people can’t appreciate the beauty of life on earth and just get along with everyone else. For such a big place, the little creatures that inhabit it sure do cause a lot of chaos.

At this point on the flight I usually recline back on my chair, often at the exact time the man has awoken, gasped and said ‘Excuse me, do you mind?’, and I think about my own life back on the ground. When I think about school I think of the messy, loud, chaotic place that I spend most of my life thinking and worrying about. It is a lovely place to be but it is not a serene place of calm. If you read my SEF you would be forgiven for thinking that it is a Buddhist temple – a mecca for learning and positivity that exudes a zen-like calm.

This is not what my school is like.

Don’t get me wrong. My SEF isn’t fictional. It’s just written from a distance. It is written from the luxury of 15,000 feet above playground level. It documents the school from a distance rather than from the runway. If you spent time in my school and then read my SEF you would see the correlation between the document and the building. If, however, you read the SEF during home time, or whilst you were on duty during wet play, or while you were trying to get a class on a coach about to go to the zoo, you would probably beg to differ. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even have the luxury of time to read it, which is a good thing, if I caught you reading something when you should be helping children alight a coach I’d bring you in for a disciplinary.

The SEF is a school’s tourist information centre that seeks to give valuable bits of information to the visitor. They are the air-travel equivalent of the captain announcing over the radio that, as long as the wind speed continues, the plane should make good progress and they may even arrive ahead of schedule. The problem of course is that a SEF immediately puts the school, as written on paper, in suspended animation. It is no longer representative of a living breathing organisation. As soon as the words of the SEF are written, they are trapped by their own static existence on the page.

For too long though, the only people interested in reading the SEF have been external visitors to schools. School tourists are mainly Ofsted inspectors, HMI and the local authority. And, just as holiday destinations will cater for the needs of the people that most commonly descend upon them during holiday season, so do school SEFs try to meet the wishes of their readers.

For example, an Ofsted inspector understands what words like ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’ mean when they read them on a SEF. What’s ‘more an Ofsted inspector likes to read these words, we know they do. Ofsted inspectors are the equivalent of English tourists who upon going to Spain find the pub that serves Carling and shows episodes of ‘Only Fools and Horses’ on the telly. They find it comforting, they know where they stand and with any luck, everyone speaks the same language.

However, these words are rather limiting. If you’re not careful you can become enslaved by your SEF as a result of trying to crowbar in these ‘judgements’ at every turn. Heads become akin to frustrated sous chefs desperate to be let loose on an a la carte menu only to be told by the Head Chef that it’s a fixe prix menu or nothing. As soon as you type any of these words onto your SEF, you set in stone a judgement and you falsely elevate your school into the clouds – where everything is peaceful and life is not quite as we know it.

Well, I say no more.

I no longer want my SEF to be a view of my school from above. I want it to be a down and dirty vision of my school, as it is on the ground. I want my SEF to reflect what we actually do and what we want to do better. I am not concerned with using vocabulary that an external person can latch onto just so they can say ‘Yes I agree’ or ‘I wouldn’t use that word if I were you’. I want to go beyond the two sacred words that apparently mean everything’s ok (for now). I want to stretch the possibilities beyond outstanding and I want to tackle issues that are important to us rather than ones that are high ranking in the inspection framework. In short: I want my SEF to be more.

Real life is gritty and everyone has their own lives to lead and problems to overcome. Well so does my school. And so will my SEF. Judge me if you want, when you’re flying over my school and looking down from the clouds. But I’m changing flight paths. Because my school isn’t all neat and tidy. I’m refusing to read the safety instructions and I’ll be dammed if I’m helping you with your oxygen mask.

I’m going bigger. I’m getting messier. And I bet I’ll do better.     

 

Ofsted: Differentiation requires improvement

theprimaryhead1 Comment

At the moment, I feel a little bit like I’m between a rock and a hard place when it comes to commenting on Ofsted. Anyone who has been bored enough to read some of my recent blogs will possibly have picked up on the fact that I had a few issues with my recent lead inspector and the way in which she carried out the inspection. However, I do not want to come across as churlish, arrogant or unaccepting of the fact that my school isn’t anything else apart from amazeballs. So, whereas I am happy to critique the manner in which my school was inspected – as well as the particulars of some of the judgements made in the report – I do not want to diminish my professional voice for the sake of spiting my critics. I stand, resolutely, behind the sentiments in my recent Ofsted posts but there comes a time when you have to move on.

In fact, Ofsted is also trying to move on. @HarfordSean seems to be attempting an Ofsted face-lift of BBC proportions. As the beeb obsessive-compulsively wash and re-wash their hands clean of the sexist/racist/politically incorrect/unaccountable/bullying buffoonery of Jeremy Clarkson, so is Sean attempting to recalibrate Ofsted’s practices in the hope that rogue inspectors are a thing of the past and school leaders do not become slaves to Ofsted’s cliff edge inspection regimes.

Ofsted recently launched their own blog through which they will be updating us all on the various changes within the inspection framework. What’s more, you can comment and, if my experience of Mr Harford so far is anything to go by, I reckon they’ll listen. I want to be part of this debate and I don’t want my own negative experience to taint the validity of my opinions – let my voice be drowned out by the waves of better opinion, by all means, but I don’t want to be silenced by my own past vitriol. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

I have been thinking long and hard about what I would do if I were in charge of Ofsted. In conversation with Sean Harford at a recent meeting with other Twitter cronies, I expressed the opinion that I would rather see Ofsted become more supportive. Come in and judge us by all means, I graciously said, but if the school has weaknesses, why doesn’t the lead inspector come in, the day after the inspection, sit down with the Head and work on writing a plan that would sort it all out. That way, the school is being supported by someone who knows the context and has a (preliminary) relationship with the school already. If they know that their time is not restricted to the initial inspection period, it could encourage all lead inspectors to act responsibly and with respect.

It didn’t take Sean that long to reply. He promptly said that this wouldn’t work and for a pretty obvious reason: Ofsted cannot be seen to be prescribing or recommending particular approaches or practices. They are the diagnosis, not the remedy. I understand this. I think it’s a shame though, especially as there is now a commitment for more inspectors to be HMI, but, maybe my idea misses the point of Ofsted, or, maybe Ofsted has gone too far into the judgemental side of education to evolve that drastically. Either way, let’s just accept the fact that it ain’t ever going to happen.

Earlier in the aforementioned meeting, we learnt about the prospect of what ‘good’ schools could expect from September. They will get a visit from an HMI around every three years. This would be akin to a check-up: time for Ofsted to check the pulse of the school. A highly important point to remember is that the visiting HMI would not be coming in to judge the school from scratch. No, they would be assuming that the school was still good. So, whereas schools might not be too cock-a-hoop at the prospect of the visit, at least they will not feel as though they have to prove that they are good all over again. Of course, if the HMI decides that the school is not good (RI or outstanding – it works both ways, remember) they can trigger a full section 5 inspection. Hurrah! Well, interestingly, the HMI will continue to stay on for the inspection, so, similar to my idea, there will be someone who already has some real knowledge of the school to guide the subsequent inspection.

This is a big evolutionary step for Ofsted: Differentiated inspections. However, I think Ofsted could do better.

So, if my proposal of the lead inspector judging a school to be RI and then hanging around to help write the SDP is a couple of Minis short of the Italian Job, well, hang on a minute lads, I’ve got an idea.

Good schools get their own special Ofsted, so why shouldn’t RI schools get something different too?

You see, I have a problem with the way in which RI schools get inspected. RI schools are under too much pressure. Not only do they have their tailor made Ofsted improvement plan, but they are under pressure to get a multitude of other ideas and initiatives off the ground as well. Take the last two years: as well as, most likely, having to improve some serious issues around achievement, teaching, behaviour and leadership, RI schools have also had to implement some additional national changes: sports premium, British Values, 2014 National Curriculum, life after levels etc.

‘But so has every other school?’

Yes, but those schools have the luxury of time. Good or outstanding schools are not being chased up as regularly or rigorously by the local authority, HMI or Ofsted as their RI counterparts. As well as under seeing their own improvement measures, RI schools are expected to put in place any national change in policy or any rushed through government agenda at a pace that you will not find in good or outstanding schools. That is not to say that good or outstanding schools are resting on their laurels, but they do not have the same pressures as the RI school to get these things in place, working and evidenced ready for scrutiny.

So when Ofsted arrives, the RI school is not judged on what it was they needed to improve last time round. The inspection begins from scratch and everything is up for scrutiny. The previous report may get a look-in but so does everything else. This means there is less time for the inspection team to gain a full understanding of the school’s journey of improvement. Without taking the time to understand the context within which the school leaders are working, or the extent to which RI schools have put in improvement measures to tackle the overall quality and consistency of securing pupil achievement, teaching, behaviour and leadership, no Ofsted team can make a valid judgement on how far that school has moved forward.

So what I would propose is that for RI schools, rather than the midday phone-call and the SEF getting emailed the night before Day One, the lead inspector should visit the school. Maybe the day or week before. They should have a proper meeting with the Head: sit down with the old report, the data, the SEF and the school development plan and really attempt to gather as much information and context as they possibly can before they come in to judge. I think this process, in itself, would prove invaluable to the lead inspector as it would help shape the two days ahead. It would also make the school feel that they were getting a fair deal.

Day One would therefore be a tough scrutiny of progress since the last report. Day Two could then lend itself to either exploring weaknesses or things that weren’t adding up, or moving on to how the school was making progress within additional areas – including new government policy and initiatives. This differentiated approach would surely help RI schools move on, as well as diminish the power and possibility of a rogue inspector. If some of you are reading this and thinking that it all seems a bit like giving RI schools an easy ride, I have to say that I think just the opposite: your evidence will be under greater scrutiny. If you haven’t made progress, then there will truly be nowhere to hide.

So what do you say @HarfordSean? Is this a possibility? Or is it just the ranting of a Head who has been burnt and can’t move on?