Saturday 28 November 2015

Parents want Ofsted to Inspect Schools more Frequently, Survey finds By Sarah Marsh

Sir Michael Wilshaw visits a nursery school

The majority of parents feel schools should be inspected by Ofsted more frequently, a survey has found.
A YouGov poll of 1,067 parents, conducted on behalf of the inspectorate, revealed that 70% believe assessments should take place every one or two years, regardless of a school’s inspection grade. 
From September 2015 it was decided schools judged as “good” would have shorter one-day inspections every three years, as opposed to longer visits every three to five years. The system remained the same for schools that “require improvement”, with inspections every two years, and those deemed “inadequate”, which are assessed within three to six months after the judgement.
More than half of parents (53%) said that the new three-year limit for “good” schools was not regular enough, with just 35% saying it was adequate. This was voiced more strongly by mothers (57%) compared with fathers (48%).
This view varied across England, with parents in London (58%) and West Midlands (60%) more likely to believe Ofsted should visit more than every three years. Parents in the east of England (45%) were less insistent on this.
Nicole Ponsford, a mother and co-founder of TechnoTeachers, a global ed-tech consultancy, said: “Many parents are happy with their school choices and the progress their children make, but what if you aren’t? What if both the leadership team and board of governors are not accessible. Who do parents turn to then?”
She added: “Ofsted is a way that parents can be given a voice in education, when the school isn’t welcoming.”
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said parents would feel differently if they were made aware of the workload and stress placed upon teachers and students by Ofsted. “In our experience when parents are told about the disruption to their child’s education brought about by Ofsted visits and ‘mocksted’ rehearsals, they take a different view about the regularity of inspections,” he said.
An anonymous teacher, who left the profession earlier this year after 27 years, said: “Ofsted could inspect every week if they were genuinely supportive, but they’re not. They don’t offer advice or point to the way to improve. When they find problems they criticise, condemn and set up schools for academy conversion. Ofsted are widely perceived as being punitive.”
Russell Hobby, general secretary of school leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: “Parents usually know more about how good their school is than an inspector does after a day’s visit. They should be wary of attaching too much weight to these judgements. More frequent inspections would distract schools from the core work of teaching.”
The study, done to provide evidence on how the inspectorate is viewed by parents, also found that general awareness of the inspectorate was high: 61% said they knew “a lot” or a “fair” amount about it. The majority (72%) of parents also tended to believe that the information they got from Ofsted was reliable.
Perhaps surprisingly, half of parents said they had read an Ofsted report in the last year, the majority (62%) using it to inform their view of the school their child attends as opposed to offering guidance on where to send students (33%). And nearly nine in 10 parents knew the rating their school received at its last inspection.
A mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “My views align with those reflected in the survey in that I think the reports are valuable to an extent, but I wouldn’t use them as a primary source by which to choose a school. There is a lot of jargon in reports and excuses made to shoehorn schools into a category.”
Tes MacPherson, of PTA social, an organisation that helps parents, carers and teachers in a school to work together more easily, said: “When parents are deciding on a school for their child, Ofsted reports are just one port of call. A really bad report might put parents off, however the difference between a good or outstanding school is not always apparent in the daily experience as a parent. Nowadays, parents also turn to online forums and social networks to look for anecdotal evidence and opinions of parents currently at the school.
“The quality of the school’s teaching can also change rapidly, especially if under new management, so reports that are more that two years old hold less significance. Parents at ‘good’ schools may well be anxious about waiting three years to find out whether that status has indeed been maintained or improved.”

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