BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 01:59 AM

my mrs has been through it at least twice in diferent schools since i can remember..

not much fun in our house while it happens..

latest pay 'initiative' she had to jump through form filling
and intervieing flaming hoops for
has somehow seemed to recognise her value
whilst downgrading pay points

and leaving her several hundred pounds per annum worse off..!!!????



yeah.. 'they' certainly know how to motivate teachers dont they..

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 02:37 AM

"I've heard you say Backwoodsman before, give every teacher a cane and tell them to get on with it. But that won't work for a variety of reasons. There has been a sea change in peoples attitudes as to how children are disciplined and bottom line, the kids' parents pay your wages - without their support, the kind of iron fist regimes we lived with as kids can't be maintained."

Yep, you're right Al, and that's where it all went wrong. Too many interfering parents trying to tell professional educators how to do their job, too many possessive parents, obsessive about their 'perfect little angels', defending their kids' bad behaviour against teachers and wrecking teachers' careers because the teacher dared to challenge that perfect little angel's behaviour, too many barrack-room lawyers in the classroom spouting the "I know my rights, you can't punish me" drivel, too many kids waving their fists in teachers' faces and getting away with it - I could go on and on.

It's not Ofsted that's killing education, it's the liberalism and political-correctness of the past 30 years wot dun it in Guv.

But, as always, that's JMHO!
Cheers M'dears!
S:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 03:23 AM

I dunno - it was pretty inferior stuff, they got away with as education for the vast majority of people when they had all this power. No wonder people questioned what all this obeisance to authority was leading to. The teachers themselves weren't asking the questions and provididng the leadership.

In a lot of grammar schools like the one I went to - they were only interested in the really brightest kids,(and for brightest read University material.)

I worked and did teaching practices in the sec. mods and they let down a load of children and parents. The first sec mod, I worked in spent £25 in my first year on remedial reading materials. This was in a school for more than 500 boys with a third of them with a reading age of less than eight. Interesting place, three of the old boys had actually been hanged!

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 03:24 AM

Not by the staff, I must add!

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:02 AM

'You only need to worry if you are CRAP at your job!'

..or if you're good at your job but are being judged by a crap Ofsted inspector.



DC

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:23 AM

LOL!

We could debate for ever, but the plain, simple, unadorned fact remains that a breed of parents has evolved who have taught their kids that acknowledgement, let alone acceptance, of authority is unnecessary, and the result is a breed of kids who refuse to accept discipline and refuse to respect and obey anyone who has the temerity to tell them what to do. And as this breed of kids breed themselves, the problem is compounded.

Having said that - most young people, IME and IMHO, are good, and have the virtues of self-discipline and respect for others.

And (getting back to Ofsted, where this all started) most teachers are good, they just still haven't got their heads around a rule that the rest of us work under - that your performance is closely measured (in my case FOUR audits PER YEAR, and that's every year, not every four years, the shortest taking three days, the longest, a real fine-tooth-comb job, takes three weeks) and, if you're crap at the job, you're out on your neck, tough shit. That's how it is, and we just roll with it - how often do you see threads on Mudcat started by accountants (who work for the hardest taskmaster of all - The Number On The Bottom Line), moaning that the audit's about to start and they're close to a nervous breakdown and it's so unfair?

It's the Real World - sorry, but it is.

OOH now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Cats
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 04:47 AM

Backwoodsman, we do have Perfromance Management which monitors our progress through very strict targets, measures our students performance against national levels and how much value added we are giving our students, we are obsereved by managers three times a year and if we don't come up to the criteria we don't get our pay rise and we are put on capability, so, please, don't think we aren't well regulated and inspected, we are, but having Ofsted descend on you and make or break your career in 25 minutes or your school in 48 hours is very different.
Good luck to anyone who is being inspected / Ofsteded this week ~ you might not know yet that they are coming on Tuesday......

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 05:24 AM

Lets suppose you right BWM, in your humble opinions and experience, what do we do next.

Shoot the kids, shoot the parents....they are the commodity we are dealing with. kids and parents.

What you are proposing is a bit like saying, alright I'm an accountant - but I'm really pissed off with counting this money stuff. From this day forward, I shall count bananas.

There needs to be real debate in the country about education, and not just from those mouthy middle class gits who dominate every debate.

I'm sure the engineers report as to why The Titanic was going down was bloody interesting to the Captain. But it was about as much use to him as the OFSTED reports are to teachers and schools generally.

Subject: RE: BS: Anyone being Ofsted-ed?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 09:14 AM

Over-reaction to perfectly valid views Al. Wish I had the answer but, like the 'Experts', I don't. I just believe that education was better when it was in the hands of the trained professionals, instead of being forced to butt-kiss smart-alec parents and their spawn-of-the-devil offspring.

Cats, I was simply pointing out that teachers aren't the only ones who face audit and performance measurement, and the censure that oten accompanies it. Many people in other, equally demanding and stressful occupations are subject both to FREQUENT and IN-DEPTH EXTERNAL scrutiny, as well as continuous assessment by management. But they don't constantly moan and wail about it on fora like this (check out the number of threads about Ofsted inspections). It's life. You need to get over it and move on.

But, as I said originally, there's no point batting back and forth because I'm not in your job, you're not in mine. Outta here now.