The Inspection Process

Although the school had received a Satisfactory grade overall at the previous Inspection, it had always been well regarded in the local community and standards were generally positive, particularly considering the nature of the intake. The school were therefore upbeat about the prospect of an inspection and were expecting a judgement of Good overall, an opinion backed up by the Local Authority.

We knew that we would be on the borderline between satisfactory and good for teaching and learning, and for results, but we were very confident that when they saw the improvements we’d made in things like behaviour and assessment, we would have enough to be Good. In fact, we wanted them to come because we were so confident, so when we got the phone call, there was no panic.

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As always before an inspection, frantic last-minute preparations took place to check pupil books, displays, prepare documentation and so on. However, in the business of the preparations, the incident took place that would cause the school major problems when inspectors arrived. There was an after-school activity planned, which the teacher cancelled so that she could prepare her classroom. Children were informed and the administrative staff were asked to let parents know. Through an oversight, the message was not passed on to parents. Although this was not an issue for most of the children involved, two children left school on their own and took advantage of their unexpected freedom rather than going home. When parents called to school to collect them a couple of hours later, they were then told that the activity had not taken place and no-one knew where the children were. Despite being found safe and sound after a frantic search, the parents were distressed and angry.

Everything was going smoothly, we had a good meeting with inspectors and all the staff, they were impressed with the SEF (Self- Evaluation Form) and I had planned the first day with them. When I was going through our assessments with the Lead Inspector, the secretary knocked on the door and told me that the parents were in reception demanding to see the Inspector. I went down and tried to persuade them to see me later but they insisted – in the end I knew

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that if I tried to stop them it would just make it worse, so I told the Lead, and he went off to meet them.

From that point, the tone of the Inspection changed:

He came straight back to me and told me he would have to ring Ofsted to take some advice, but that it looked like a serious safeguarding issue. I tried to argue that it was human error, and not a fault with our systems or policies, but I knew that we were in trouble.

From Diane’s perspective, by lunchtime on the first day the decision had been taken, and the rest of the Inspection became almost irrelevant.

By the end of the first day, I was being made to feel grateful that we were only going to have a Notice to Improve, rather than special measures. I’m convinced that everything else would have been given Good if it wasn’t for the safeguarding, but we had mostly 3s, with the odd 2 thrown in.

The feeling at the end of the Inspection was one of anti-climax, that there was nothing that could have been done to change the outcome. At the feedback, staff felt aggrieved and angry at the outcome, and the substance of the report was almost ignored:

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There was a feeling of ‘How dare they say we don’t keep our children safe’ and that all the work was for nothing.

The final report confirmed the Notice to Improve, concluding that the school was performing ‘significantly less well than could reasonably be expected’. It drew attention to safeguarding issues in particular detail, citing the gaps in the school’s single central record, relating to staff recruitment and vetting, and highlighted the ‘inadequate’ procedures for informing parents when activities are changed at short notice.

5.4 Post-Inspection

Despite the sense of anger and disappointment, Diane did not feel the need to fundamentally question what she or the school was doing:

I felt that it was wrong. All the curriculum side and teaching side was fine and I knew that area. I didn’t feel that I had to change everything. I can sleep at night because I know that we were doing our job. So I don’t feel that we should have changed. I can’t see any reason, genuine reason. Perhaps we have been more cautious in terms of thinking about things which have happened since - How do we cope if this goes pear shaped? How do we ensure that we are actually covering this one? I think we’ve become much more cautious on that front, but it doesn’t stop us doing it. And I know that other schools

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don’t even give it a second thought. We don’t do that. We have a leisure afternoon and we make all the parents come in and we make them bring ID and I put an extra member of staff in there whose job is purely to observe and make sure.

Her feeling that the judgement was flawed seemed to be supported by the reaction of the Local Authority:

They haven’t done a review. We have had our own. Our adviser has been in and given us support which is fine and I didn’t have a problem with that, because it’s their job to make sure things get better and I am fine with that. He and I do have done a lot of joint observations, which we would never have done before, but again that’s something the authority wanted to do.

She asserts powerfully that they did not change tack following the inspection, that the work they were doing to develop teaching and learning continued exactly as it would have done if the inspection had not happened, and that the only impact was a review of safeguarding procedures.

We know we’re on the right track and we know our children, so it would be silly to change.

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