Parents rally around their school despite Ofsted report

A school is put into special measures despite having the highest GCE scores in the district. Ofsted has its own agenda.

Here are selected comments in the Teaching Battleground blog which exposes what that agenda might be. There are a number of Ofsted assessments. (My numbering)

Comment 1

"What does the school need to do to improve further? Increase the proportion of outstanding teaching by… making sure that teachers do not dominate lessons by talking for too long or telling pupils things they could read or work out for themselves…"

Comment 2

"…Occasionally, teachers are too quick to explain things or to ‘tell’ pupils something that they could  have challenged pupils to explain or find out about for themselves."

Comment 3

"In the best lessons, teachers provide opportunities for students to work independently or collaboratively. This is not always the case and a few lessons are too dominated by the teacher, preventing students thinking for themselves and taking the initiative."

At this point the trend is obvious.

Here is my favourite.

Comment 4

" Pupils’ rapid gains in their learning are particularly evident during the parts of the lesson when they work independently or collaboratively on activities or challenges. For example, in an outdoor lesson Year 1 pupils were highly motivated by the challenge of making mud hedgehogs. Pupils worked together to use their problem solving skills, and a range of equipment to achieve a successful outcome. Occasionally, achievement is slowed down in lessons where these skills are not so consistently developed. "

Ofsted prefers mud hedgehogs to teaching. Their agenda is to promote progressive education - which means who needs teachers?It means more attention is to be paid to group work, values, attitudes, and behaviour - and this is why a school doing well academically could be placed in special measures.

For those interested in someone who challenged Ofsted successfully I recommend the Teaching Battleground blog which can be found at the link below.

https://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/what-ofsted-actually-want/

See the newspaper report which provides more background to the video. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2922619/Daughter-s-tears-lesbian-quiz-Fury-children-branded-intolerant-wrong-answers-Ofsted-questions-sexuality.html