Headfirst

@adamboxer1 It highlights the huge inconsistency between inspection teams. Some flexibly apply the ‘typically’ exemption when it comes to national averages on achievement. Some also consider sixth form outcomes when looking at KS4 achievement - and consider things in the round. Others don’t.

This is not a sentence I can get my head around

Ofsted don’t care about teachers and school staff

Data like this risk telling a worryingly simple story. Schools serving the highest proportions of disadvantaged pupils face deeper structural challenges every day. Reducing the work of school leaders to comparative Ofsted outcomes ignores the extraordinary effort, leadership and resilience required to support the communities. Accountability must recognise context, not erase it.

The central challenge is that these approaches can sometimes clash with local expectations. Yet, at its core, improving coastal schools ultimately means holding the line on standards while rebuilding belief that education is worth the effort.

This doesn’t mean we dismiss the additional complexity of the challenge nor does it mean that there are some aspects of the work that are different to the transformation work in other parts of England. Evidence based approaches shouldn’t be secondary to engagement.

🧵 A hard truth about coastal education: the strategies that transformed London schools relied on a widespread belief that education leads to opportunity. In parts of coastal England that belief has eroded because local economies haven’t delivered mobility.

So yes, reject the soft bigotry of low expectations. But we should also reject something else: the idea that complex schools serving disadvantaged communities can be understood through simple narratives. They deserve better analysis than that.

If expectations are going to be high for schools, they should also be high for the analysis used to judge them. Understanding a school properly requires depth: - curriculum - attendance - staff stability - inclusion - community context

“The quiet curse of low expectations.” True. But reducing complex schools serving disadvantaged communities to a cursory glance at headline data and a two-day visit isn’t high expectations. It’s shallow analysis dressed up as rigour.

Another interesting (to me, at least) question about the achievement grade ..... how much do ks5 outcomes play a part given that there is a discrete ks5 judgement area?

9. If the goal was genuine system improvement a better model would include: 1. Multi-year peer review rather than snapshot inspection; 2. Context-adjusted outcome measures; 3.Separate inspection from intervention decisions &; 4. A national school improvement service.

8. The accountability system amplifies recruitment problems. Negative inspection outcomes create: reputational damage, staff departures, recruitment collapse. Schools then struggle to improve because they cannot hire strong teachers. It creates a self-reinforcing loop.

🧵Ofsted was created to drive improvement through accountability. However the current model often produces: Accountability → fear → compliance behaviour → reduced innovation → slower improvement.