Mumsnet versus Ofsted – a prelude to the post-bureaucratic age

Pete-s

Yet another bureaucratic monster designed and implemented by Liebour. Does the rest of the citizens of this country, outside of the small community of comment writers, have any real clue as to what this Labour mob have been upto in their name? I regretfully think a lot don't.

Tom

Why is "Baby Peter" never given the dignity of a surname?

Will J

How about this: the parents annually appoint (by ballot at a school AGM) a school inspection agency to inspect their children's school in the coming year and report back to them. Doing so is obligatory and the cost comes out of the school's budget.

Michael Booth

Ofsted has really outlived its usefulness (if indeed it ever had one). The inspection regime now will fail a school if its fences are not high enough or if it makes a single mistake in checking the backgrounds and qualifications of all employees. Paranoia over another Soham or Dunblane (which to be fair comes from central government who are well -adept at knee-jerk reactions and inculcating a climate of fear) has meant a raft of regulation descending on schools (not to mention all the social engineering that goes on). Inspectors descend and in two or three days make judgements that the school cannot challenge, even if they are wrong. Does it provide parents with enough information to make 'informed choices' ? Does it bollocks.

Alfred T Mahan

Underlying the Inspection concept is the idea that all schools will be judged according to uniform standards. This is rubbish - while Inspectors are human, there will be differences.

In another context (care) I have had the same set of documents praised by one Inspector as "excellent - outstanding" and failed as not up to a minimum standard by another. I imagine the same thing happens with schools.

Add to this the Inspectors' power to make or break a school - which is very rarely appealable - and it is no wonder the system fails and produces perverse results.

dilys

I lived through four Ofsted inspections (bearing in mind that a couple of teachers committed suicide). The first was easy but gave individual teachers no feedback. The second was farcical; one inspector was a Primary Head who had lost his job following a lousy Ofsted reort.
After that I didn't bother myself about them. Ofsted was always an avenue for failed teachers to keep moving up the food chain. I doubt that any school has been helped and a good many bright children have been left to stagnate while resources were poured into the average ability kids. You can't make silk purses from sow's ears. Education, education, education anyone?

ancien prof

Even a dozen years ago (when I was still teaching) Ofsted was more interested in the paperwork being correct than in the learning process. The whole thing was extremely stressful. I can't imagine anything has improved since I retired.

Chuck Unsworth

I'll add a comment or two here. I've been a governor at both Primary and Secondary schools for about fifteen years - sometime Chair, Vice Chair etc. In that time I have observed a stream of Ministers, far too many and far too unimpressive to recall, come and go. They have been distinguished only by their mediocrity. Each has brought their own particular fixations to their tasks. None has seen fit to keep their hands off the levers of power and none has had to answer for their arbitrary tinkering. Their Ministerial life-spans have always been just a few short months, before they move on to other departments on their spiral career paths. But the damage they may cause will stay with whole generations.

Schools Inspectors, similarly, do not have to live with the consequences of their actions and opinions. The emphasis of their inspection routines is always politically determined, in my view to the detriment of real education. So these two groupings have all of the power and none of the responsibility. We have heard that expression before, I suggest.

Teachers and pupils have been appallingly badly served by central (and, sometimes, local) government. A good education is a broad education, founded upon the basics of reading, writing and (old-fashioned, I know) arithmetic. Successive proscriptive and centrally determined curricula have clearly failed. The relentless centralisation and politicisation of education which we have witnessed over the past decade and more has taken away all imagination, incentive and individual responsibility.

Apart from the disaster of 'Education, education education', I have severe doubts about current moves to employ schools as a means of social engineering. It is dangerous and silly to place extended social responsibilities upon schools. Teachers are not Social Workers, Probation Officers, Police Officers, Doctors, Dieticians, Nurses etc.

It's my view that we should restore our trust in the professionalism and personal integrity of teachers, rather than relying on largely meaningless data. Data collection is a tool, it should not be the raison d'etre. Paperwork is one-way traffic.

Informed, tough and demanding Governing Bodies with boots on the ground are probably of far greater value than Inspectorates which manifest themselves every few years for just a few days, demanding reams of data which provide very little real understanding of individual schools and their charges. One can glean far more from simple conversations than from masses of paper. But the real advantage of regular face-to-face discussion is that mutual understanding and trust is rapidly built.

Cogito Ergosum

@ancien prof 6.37pm

You make a very good point about paperwork. My career was in a different industry, where "quality assurance" was the proposition that good paperwork is proof of a good product.

The QA people would never dream of actually inspecting the product. All they wanted to see was that meetings were properly held and minuted.

What a waste!

K Williams

But what does any of this have to do with Mumsnet? Can anyone enlighten me?