The Perfect (Ofsted) Inspection

Jackie Beere, Ian Gilbert

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781781350003
• eBook ISBN: 9781781350225
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Jackie Beere, Head teacher at Campion School, Northants until 2006, is now a consultant, trainer and School Improvement Partner. She spent three years as an Advanced Skills Teacher leading and implementing innovative Teaching and Learning initiatives including KS3 and 4 Learning to Learn and Thinking Skills programmes. She was awarded the OBE in November 2002 for services to education, having trained many teachers and school leaders in the latest theory and practice of learning to learn and emotional intelligence. She introduced Learning to Learn through Opening Minds, a competency-based curriculum at her school in 2006, after a two year pilot project proved very successful. Founder and Managing Director of aptly named Independent Thinking Ltd, Ian Gilbert is the author of the bestselling Essential Motivation in the Classroom. He set up Independent Thinking Ltd to "enrich the lives of young people by changing the way they think". He has worked with thousands of young people, teachers, parents and governors both in the UK and abroad.

Chapter 1

Embedding your vision

Becoming an ‘outstanding’ school is not quick or easy. In fact, it is the result of relentless hard work and determination over time. The 2012 framework and evaluation schedule are not trying to make it harder but are focusing more on what really matters – how well individual pupils benefit from their school. This depends on the senior leadership team (SLT) putting in place the long-term strategies which encourage outstanding lessons and, hence, outstanding outcomes. This chapter deals with these strategies whilst Chapter 2 focuses on the elements of outstanding lessons.

‘Outstanding’ schools have employed the following long-term strategies:

Growing the vision and culture with everyone.

Embedding the habits that will make the difference.

Embedding the seven habits of highly effective teachers – and pupils.

Getting middle leaders to buy in.

Ensuring effective performance management and continuous professional development.

Engaging with the whole school community.

Rigorous self-evaluation – know thyself!

Using the self-evaluation form to produce a live school development plan.

Ensuring that the governors truly share in, and hold leaders accountable for delivering, the vision.

Strategy 1. Growing the vision and culture with everyone

What is your school famous for? What is your head’s vision for the school? What are the key priorities for improvement? Which are the underperforming groups and what is being done about them?

Everyone in your school needs to know the answers to these questions – the students, parents, admin staff, teachers, student teachers, governors and so on. No matter that the vision is expressed in a slogan on the school badge, no matter how many times you have repeated it, the vision isn’t embedded until it runs through the school like the lettering in a stick of rock. This means wherever you look you see the vision – writ large everywhere. It is on the displays, in the pupils’ behaviour, in the staffroom and voiced by the governors. The reception desk, the corridors, the furniture and, above all, the atmosphere in every classroom needs to reek of your school vision, so that when the Ofsted team enters the school, they get a whiff!

Every school has similar aspirations in their vision – so what is special about yours? It is important that it reflects your particular community and its distinct needs and desires and is set in the context of our complex, connected world. It sounds simple but this vision will be what drives you forward in all your strategic decisions, training events, development planning and staffing priorities – and it should do. If your school lives and breathes the vision, this will permeate general staffroom conversation and underpin and act as a focus for staff-driven initiatives.

‘I can’t wait for the SLT to come to my lesson so I can show off my latest risk-taking, creative plenary and show how the students turn hideous mistakes into exciting learning experiences.’

Staffroom conversations say so much about a school. But in schools I’ve visited that were deemed ‘outstanding’ there was a pervasive sense of shared culture and professional reflective practice. There is a sense of community, a love of the job, wanting people to see your lessons, feeling valued and able to take risks and truly believing you can – and are – having a powerful impact on outcomes. This is the ethos that has to be encouraged by the head teacher and the SLT. Growing that vision and culture together is a long-term project and therefore needs time to seed, be nurtured and take root across the whole school community. The leadership team will need to be relentless in weeding out the distractions, deviations, detractors and doubters during this delicate growth period. They need to keep the faith until the benefits begin to be felt in terms of positive outcomes and well-being that will result from everyone really pulling in the same direction and sharing the same values.

Governors

Your governing body must share the vision and hold the leadership to account for delivering it. This is a huge and vital task and is now recognised in the new framework as crucial to proving you are an outstanding school. It is in your interest to train your governors to be able to effectively evaluate the work of the school so that they can demonstrate to any inspection team their understanding of the strengths and challenges the school experiences. Sharing your school vision and self-evaluation process with governors is part of ‘outstanding leadership’.

‘Inspectors will also evaluate how effectively governors, or those with a similar responsibility, challenge and hold senior leaders to account for all aspects of the school’s performance.’

Ofsted, The framework for school inspection (2012b): 20

(See also The Perfect School Governor by Tim Bartlett for a concise, readable, reference book written for all school and academy governors.)

Summary

Check out your vision for the school – is it still relevant to local needs?

Is it ambitious and aspirational (and concise)?

Do the staff own it, know it and believe in it?

Do the students?

Does your most cynical member of staff value it?

Walk down the corridor – can you see it in practice everywhere?

Does the SLT walk the talk too?

Does it drive everything you do?

Do your governors know and believe in your vision for the school and hold you to account for delivering it?

Is the vision habitual?

‘Inspectors should consider: how well leaders, managers and governors pursue excellence, modelling professional standards in all their work, for example through: … the extent to which pupils, parents and staff are committed to the vision and ambition of leaders, managers and governors.’

Ofsted, School inspection handbook (2012a): 42

‘You know you’ve cracked it when a visitor remarks to a student, “Everyone here is very polite in corridors” and the student says, “Oh do you think so, I haven’t really noticed. It’s just the way we are here.”’

Strategy 2. Embedding the habits that will make the difference

When the vision has grow...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Embedding your vision
• Chapter 2: Learning in lessons
• Chapter 3: Preparing for the inspection process
• Chapter 4: On the day
• 2012 Ofsted framework summary
• Quick checklist for 2012 focus to become ‘outstanding’
• Final checklist for inspection
• And afterwards
• References and further reading
• Copyright
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