News
Off with OFSTED
Are the lives of children being placed in jeopardy by an unwieldy, shallow and out-of-touch system of government inspections known as OFSTED?
The OFSTED inspectors, who are bogged down with government recommendations, state regulations, ‘nannying’ protectionism and ridiculous legislation that is not thought out, are making a mockery of education inspection in this country. This archaic and outdated system is responsible for assessing all the schools in the land, even successful private schools that stand or fall by the quality of the education that parents are buying, even when their ethos is completely different from that of the state.
OFSTED is frighteningly bureaucratic! It interferes in education that may already be successful, quoting what the government thinks, rather than truly evaluating what they find. OFSTED inspectors are expected to judge a school ‘cold’ without ever having visited it before, except for a contact visit the day before an inspection! It is not the hardworking inspectors who are at fault. They are often experienced and able teachers, who are pleasant and nice to deal with. It is the system itself that is the problem here.
OFSTED makes recommendations, observations, quotes laws, and dwells on the Health and Safety elements that have made the lives of children in our society lack adventure. Children may not take part in ‘dangerous’ activities unless they are wrapped up in cotton wool, so tightly that even the national game of conkers forbidden in most schools.
The Acorn School’s recent OFSTED inspection did little to encourage the excellent education we provide here. It was more concerned with trivia such as doors, locks, gates, fences, lavatories, etc., than with the ‘cut and thrust’ education offered, to every child, in the classroom.
The school was awarded a ‘good overall’, with a number of ‘outstandings’! One of the reasons for failing to receive ‘outstanding’ overall was that high metal railings, high enough that a child could not be lifted over them by a devious passer-by, do not surround the school. At 4′ tall, the railings that adorn the school’s front playground, and which were installed in 1882, are considered too low. The quality of the education that takes place within the ‘fortress’ seemed to be of secondary importance to school security!
The inspectors pointed out that we had one lavatory too few and that our doors did not have locks on them and key pads for the children to use to gain entry to their classrooms. After nearly one hundred and twenty years of education in the current school building, suddenly our very middle class town of Nailsworth needs to lock the children into their own school, and surround the playground with high steel railings, in case a child is stolen!
An outstanding school is, apparently, one that is safe, follows the Health and Safety guidelines to the letter, has building security as paramount, above and beyond the actual educational ethos of a school.
This formulation of ‘risk assessment’ is a farce! In a country where there is such an outrageous risk to children from illegal drugs, alcohol and nicotine, all of which are freely available, with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the western world, why does the government not carry out and manage with real consequence, risk assessments in this area? Great Britain holds the record for an outrageous teenage culture, that is despised the world over!
We have now installed locks to every door, having been threatened with an official letter by OFSTED, raised the railings and installed another lavatory. We have satisfied OFSTED with the mandatory letter confirming what we have done. Should I now hope that they might visit again and change the overall rating to ‘outstanding’, or will we have to wait until the next inspection?
I must confess, that after over forty-five years in education, and twenty as a headmaster, I despair with the obsession with what is and what is not, safe!
I believe that education at The Acorn School offers the highest educational standards in the land. The school is full of polite, well-mannered and extremely presentable children and teenagers; is decoratively beautiful, fully equipped; and offers a balanced education that fits young adults for direct university education with no state examinations. The Acorn School is the only school in the land that has achieved that honour. (OFSTED was impressed with our record but seemed to be unaware that such university entry was even possible). This school is full of confident young people who are fit, enthusiastic about school, and who care for one another. The by-product of those values is that it achieves what few other schools achieve in respect of a balanced education, which fits its senior students for life!
This country has a very low quality of state education, with brilliant teachers trapped in an archaic system that does not work. The bureaucracy is appalling, and is destroying children’s right to an education that realises every student’s potential, and works towards developing that potential through an education system that is sensible and child-centred. Does this have to continue, or can OFSTED put an ‘outstanding’ stamp on a school without such ‘prison-like’ measures being enforced!
Britain has such a poor and un-stimulating system of education that children are losing out, failing to reach their true potential, and are struggling to achieve entrance to a university system that is poor, over-subscribed, far too expensive, and with a bachelor’s degree being awarded with little challenge!
OFSTED is a manifestation of the shambles that education has become in this country. It is little wonder that the teaching unions are opposed to this ridiculous inspection system continuing into the future. (NUT Conference, 4th April 2010).
The entire system needs a complete overhaul. OFSTED needs scrapping, and all assessments of children should be left to the head teacher of each individual school, who, together with the skills that lie within their teaching staff can appropriately assess each child. That’s what teachers want, and that is what children need!
It cost a quarter of a full time teacher’s annual salary at Acorn, to pay the two inspectors for the two days they spent in my school! That could have funded a secondary school-age student for a year’s education at The Acorn School!