NAHT Concerns about Ofsted In preparation for its meeting with the Department for Education, NAHT examined 116 member complaints relating to Ofsted. All of the complaints were received by NAHT headquarters and related to inspections conducted during 2013. There have of course been many more complaints received by our branch and regional officials but not included in this sample. Of the 116 complaints 55 related to concerns about the behaviour and judgement of inspectors 31 related to a member’s job being at risk as a result of an Ofsted Inspection 19 related Ofsted’s internal procedures 11 related to concerns about the inspection report Workforce concerns raised included: • The qualifications, knowledge and experience of Inspectors. Examples cited included: o inspectors with no education experience, o inspectors who have had previous contact with the school or its staff, inspectors with insufficient training in data analysis and who do not understand the data presented to them o Inspectors refusing to consider school-generated data [The Chair of Governors highlighted] the OFSTED dashboard data which showed that for progress in KS2 we were in the top 20% of schools. The Inspector dismissed this and said that again we didn’t understand and, in his opinion we were looking at attendance data. [… ] After the interview, the Chair of Governors was required to print off the data and present it to him. He had clearly not seen this before and was rather taken aback. •
Behaviour and conduct of Inspectors. Examples included: o inspectors smoking on site or in clear view of pupils, o rudeness, o failure to follow Ofsted’s guidance, o commenting on the style rather than quality of practice, o inspectors trying to hug and kiss head teachers, o inspectors wanting to take pupil files off site,
‘inspectors didn’t turn up when expected, they duplicated visits – both wanted to go to the School Council, both inspectors thought they were covering Literacy and Maths. Lead agreed to meet with senior Higher Level Teaching Assistants and didn’t turn up’
On occasions I was shown a palm of the Lead’s hand and told’No!
Procedural concerns included: •
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Reports from Inspector training that AIs are o Under pressure to give the outcome pre-determined by the RISPs risk assessment o Provided with guidance on how to rebut complaints from schools Parental Complaints o Non-disclosure of the content of the complaint to the school o acting on malicious complaints The complaints process including: o The notion that a school’s ‘card is marked’ o The futility of complaining o Concern that even when complaints about poor inspector behaviour are upheld, the judgements are never questioned in light of that behaviour. I was met by the inspector on the first morning with ‘I see you made a complaint about the last team’ – that was before even a good morning! No wonder complaints are few and far between.
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Data sharing with the DfE Errors in RAISEonline, with Ofsted refusing to acknowledge that they are errors
Reports • Quality and accuracy of reports. One member commented that 15 areas of inaccuracy were identified in the draft report. Another member highlighted that the progress of SEN pupils was changed from Good progress in all areas to Didn’t make good progress and finally to Made good progress in reading and maths within different drafts of the same report • Significant differences between verbal feedback and the report At the feedback at the end of the inspection we were told that teachers had high expectations. The report reads that ‘Teachers do not have high enough expectations of pupil’s learning’ • • • • Jan 2014
Amendments to the report post publication Lack of transparency about how, why and when a published report can be amended, and the steps taken to publicise any significant change. The identification of individual teachers by role in reports Inappropriate comments about previous leaders / leaders on sick leave
in reports with no right to reply
Jan 2014