01-11-2019
01:54
Our team sorts through all blog submissions to place them in the categories they fit the most - meaning it's never been simpler to gain advice and new knowledge for topics most important for you. This is why we have created this straight-forward guide to help you navigate our system.
And there you have it! Now your collection of blogs are catered to your chosen topics and are ready for you to explore. Plus, if you frequently return to the same categories you can bookmark your current URL and we will save your choices on return. Happy Reading!
Rob Merino, Head of Governor Services at One Education, looks at the new Ofsted framework from a governor’s angle.
As governors will be well aware, Ofsted published a new inspection framework which has formed the basis of inspections since September. The new framework brings with it a number of changes:
Martin Matthews, local Chair of Governors and National Leader of Governance has provided us with an overview of his experiences of the new Ofsted inspection regime:
I’m long enough in the tooth to remember when an Ofsted inspection prompted a “deep dive” into school cupboards to ensure all the tat had been thrown away.
Being one of the first schools locally to have a two-day section 8 inspection under the new framework I thought I would share how it worked and what happened for governors.
Our turn as governors was the afternoon of day two. We had a thirty-minute time slot but it turned out to be closer to an hour. Half our governing board could make the meeting, we had a range of all categories of governor ranging from 3 months to thirty years service. Everyone was invited.
Armed with my SOAP (school on a page) and a copy of the SEF it was undoubtedly the best natured and most humane inspection I have been through. There was no issue with referring to paperwork and the prompts we had written proved immensely useful
The broad questions we were asked are as follows;
What training have governors done and what training can they access?
What are your school priorities?
How do you as a GB ensure the priorities are moved forward?
How do you ensure staff wellbeing?
What do you hope Y6 have achieved by the time they leave?
How do you meet the equalities act?
How do you ensure safeguarding is met?
How do you ensure HT wellbeing?
I have to say this was significantly different to previous inspections. It was a far more narrative discussion rather than interrogation. The conversation around each question ranged into SEN, attendance, attainment, well-being of staff and senior leaders. The conversation went where it went and all governors contributed.
The kicker was always “can you give me an example?”
The feedback meeting is more important than ever as much of what is said does not make it into the final report. The new reports are much shorter and like our ‘conversation’ meeting it’s a mixture of many aspects of school blended together.
My advice to all governors is ditch the idea you need to memorise statistics and numbers. Above all know your school as a living breathing organism, understand how each area interacts with others and tell the inspectors all the good things you do.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
One Education has worked with schools for over a decade, providing specialist training and consultancy services to raise standards and pupil attainment. We offer support across the whole school, empowering school leaders, business managers and teachers to champion excellence at every level.
School Space is a social enterprise that has empowered schools for over 12 years through their profitable and hassle-free lettings services. So far, they’ve generated over £5 million in revenue for education, helping to connect over 200 schools with their local communities.
Operoo is a school operations and productivity platform. We help thousands of schools and trusts to eliminate slow, expensive and repetitive tasks. Operoo helps schools streamline and digitise processes, drastically reducing the associated costs: From student pre-admissions, permission forms, payments, and school trips; to medical information and emergency contacts, incident reporting, staff agreements, and more in over 100 languages.
Unify is an online sales and marketing tool that allows users to create tailored personalised documents in moments.
ImpactEd's mission is to improve pupil outcomes by helping schools understand what is and isn’t working in their specific context. We are a non-profit organisation, and through hands-on partnership and our digital platform, we support schools to understand the impact of programmes they run and make monitoring and evaluation easy.
There’s nothing special about the energy we sell. In fact, it’s exactly the same energy as all our competitors provide. But there is something special about the way we do it. Where others complicate the process, we simplify it. Where others confuse customers with hidden terms, we’re an open book. And where others do all they can to make as much money from their customers as possible, we do all we can to make as little. Everything we do, we do it differently. Our customers are a privilege. One we’ll never take advantage of.
Securus provide market-leading monitoring solutions to safeguard students on ALL devices both online and offline. We also offer a full monitoring service, where we carry out the monitoring on behalf of the school, freeing up valuable staff resources. From the smallest school to large MAT groups, Securus offers safeguarding protection for all!
Are you looking for solutions? Let us help fund them! Nexus Education is a community of over 11,000 schools that come together to share best practise, ideas and CPD via online channels and free to attend events. Nexus also offers funding to all school groups in the UK via nexus-education.com
Interesting article.
However, I believe that your first paragraph “Outstanding schools are no longer exempt from inspections” is incorrect, assuming you mean routine inspections.
Whilst it is true that at some point Ofsted inspections for outstanding schools is due to be reinstated, this is not a) a consequence of the new framework, or b) it has happened.
Currently, paragraph 16 of the School Inspection Handbook says:
“16. Maintained primary and secondary schools and academies that were judged to be outstanding in their overall effectiveness at their most recent section 5 inspection are exempt from routine inspections under section 5. ”
It would require an Act of Parliament for “Outstanding schools are no longer exempt from inspections” to happen, as this exemption is part of the law.
Outstanding schools were always able to be inspected by Ofsted if they had concerns regarding performance, and this continues for now.