Ofsted, an acronym that will strike fear into even the most hardened of staff. We knew the call was coming, like so many other schools, it had been coming for over two years and casting our eyes towards the impending visit was the focus of many, many SLT discussions. We gathered as much information as we could about what the visit would look like and what would happen over the two days. We prepared and then prepared some more. Then one of our schools within our small trust received the call within the first few weeks of the Autumn term. We listened and reflected upon their experience and threw in a touch more preparation for good measure. The visit crept ever closer. A month or so later and another school in our trust received the call. Closer still it came. Then, at the beginning of November, it was our turn. This is our experience.

I count myself very lucky to be the deputy headteacher of a large, two form entry primary school in the North-West of England. Our school is a diverse community school with provision from 3-11. We serve a disadvantaged area and have 50% pupil premium. Our EAL numbers are similar, with over 30 languages spoken by our school population. I have been at the school for 4 years and was successfully promoted to DHT from AHT in February 2021. It had been a while since I experienced an Ofsted inspection and I had certainly never taken in part in one as a member of SLT. Unchartered territory indeed.

When the initial call came, our HT was not on site. Completely normal, as he works across two schools but afterwards, I was told the colour completely drained out of my face when the call was put through! Nerves kicked in but so did all the preparation we had done. I knew what this call would entail as well as the following one. I wrote down everything we needed to know and arranged the time for the longer call. An hour or so later the call from the inspector came and we had composed ourselves as an SLT to begin the process of painting the picture of our school. The phone call, which we were worried about, turned out to not be the experience we expected. The Ofsted inspector gave us snippets of information about himself and we were quick to identify that he had garnered a lot of information about us already from the website. We were very happy that the recent hard work we had put into the school website had paid off! Heallowed us to select the subjects we wanted deep dives into and allowed the conversation to move in the way we wanted it to. We were able to begin showcasing all the things that make our school the amazing place that it is but also acknowledge that we knew exactly where we were heading and what we continued to work on.

The rest of that grey Monday passed uneventfully as we rallied round our staff, tidied up, perfected the Ofsted folderand of course got the fancy biscuits out! The school displays were refined by our committed staff, planning was polished off and at 8pm we exited the school building nerves janglingbut the shared determination to make the most of our moment ran through our veins. The morning of the first day staff were in school early but the importance of supporting everyone was high on my agenda. Conversations to check in, guide and reassure took place and at 8am we were ready.

The experience over the two days was a positive one. There were, of course, moments where the nerves surfaced. Our history lead, being new to the role, was nervous about the deep dive into their subject. Our curriculum lead AHT successfully supported them through it and they came out of the afternoon positive and fired up for where they would take their subject next. Our Maths lead was much the same, new to role and nervous about the deep dive. However, once again, it was a positive and successful experience which showcased all their hard work with our Maths curriculum.

Our notoriously hard to engage parents reflected us positively (well, mostly positively!) on the parent view survey and we were overjoyed to hear that all staff had reported back that they were proud to be members of our school community. Our children shone throughout the two days, with honesty, enthusiasm, and positivity for our school. They acknowledged that bullying does happen as our school but also that staff deal with it well. They talked about their love of reading and happily shared books with the inspector. In every sense of the word, they were wonderful.

The inspection was a hard two days, but it was also hugely positive. The check ins with the HT reassured us we were on a strong path but the nagging doubt never really left us until we received the final feedback. Leaders at all levels were identified as outward facing with a focus on learning from evidence and research. Our hard work to celebrate the diversity and individuality of our school was recognised and our staff training and development offer was praised. It is important to note that the inspector gave us time to showcase the areas we wanted to and it was clear he had taken time to read the documents we had left out for him to look through. It very much felt like a very fair process- he listened to everything we had to say.

The impact upon our SLT cannot be underestimated. To have our hard work on, what had been key areas for us,acknowledged was hugely gratifying and a sense of success was most definitely felt. We were very honest with the inspector and made it clear from the very beginning what our strengths and weaknesses were. We acknowledged that we knew our curriculum was not embedded completely and when this was our area for improvement, it was no shock. In fact, we were keen to take his feedback and run with it. When the final report came through and the success shared with the school community it was clear that the nerves had been worth it.

Our Ofsted our experience was not the fearsome event that others have endured. Understandably, this does raise concerns over the consistency of inspections, but I also do not want to play down the challenge of the two days. They were hard and upon reflection our collective SLT synopsis is that we are glad we won’t have another visit on our hands anytime soon! They were long, very busy days with a certain level of worry regarding the outcome hanging over our heads. Our school was well prepared for the inspection but so was our mindset. We were open to the experience, open to feedback and open to the inspector coming into our school to judge us. This helped the experience to be a success. The culture of our school is one of openness and community. We work together to drive our school forward, for the better, for every staff member inour school and ultimately the children we serve.

 

 

Debbie Christiansen

@MissC_DHT