Grenoside School

[Rainking]

I do believe Panasonic has nailed it.

[ZIPPYZ]

I know several kids that go to this school, kids and parents love it have nothing bad to say about it. Don't know about them classing it as special measures to force it into an academy though, Oughtibridge Primary which is in a similar area went from good to outstanding in the last inspection. Why do it to grenoside but not Oughtibridge?

[jelly belly]

wew were in special measures last yera st thomas more,we were shocked but it all worked out in the end.we out of it now and its been great it feels like a new beginning...dont panic

 

---------- Post added 12-09-2013 at 18:05 ----------

 

we were in special measures last year st thomas more,we were shocked but it all worked out in the end.we out of it now and its been great it feels like a new beginning...dont panic

[hauxwell]

If anyone knows of any accepted ways for parents to voice their opinions post report I'd happily tell them what I think. Cant see on the orders site though

 

You could get people to write to their member of parliament.

[cgksheff]

.........

 

It's an unfair summary of a school that consistently performs above the national average.

 

.......

 

Why is it unfair?

 

Are the points raised in the report outright lies?

 

---------- Post added 12-09-2013 at 19:42 ----------

 

"3. We will investigate all complaints fairly and effectively and deal with the issues arising from these as quickly as possible. Where our work has not met the high standards we set, we will accept and acknowledge this and take steps to remedy the situation as quickly as possible. This includes acting swiftly to correct any factual errors in our inspection reports. However, we will not change our inspection judgements simply because they are disappointing to the provider or users of a service, or because improvements in provision have happened since the inspection or are promised in the future. "

 

"18. Complaints should be submitted to Ofsted within 10 working days of the incident of concern – in the case of concerns about inspections, this should be no more than 10 working days following the publication of the report. Complaints sent after this period will not normally be considered, as they will be deemed ‘out of time’. This is to ensure that any concerns can be investigated as soon as possible and acted upon promptly."

 

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/complaints-procedure-raising-concerns-and-making-complaints-about-ofsted

 

Report was published on 12th September.

Edited September 12, 2013 by cgksheff

[Grenoside123]

Well as many have speculated the school is to be turned into an acadamy. Just returned from the meeting. Apparently it is a forced measure when a school is put into special measures. That explains a lot, very annoyed by the whole thing.

[FreudianSlap]

Are the points raised in the report outright lies?

 

Possibly. I'm not privvy to inside information about this particular school, but I have read seen reports where OFSTED have outright lied before.

[cgksheff]

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/25/ofsted-conerns-academies-undermine-improvement

 

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/may/07/schools-forced-academies

[Malkin]

Having worked in this field for many years now. I must agree that the severity of the judgement is on the face of it surprising.

 

However after having read hundreds of these reports, you begin to learn where to read between the lines and to understand how inspectors apply the framework they are given.

 

Firstly it is important to read the Ofsted inspection report.

 

Secondly it is important to understand elements of the framework, an easy place to find this is in the school inspection handbook which is found here:

 

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/school-inspection-handbook

 

In this document pay particular attention to the grade descriptors for achievement and for leadership on pages 36 and 50 respectively.

 

Thirdly, it is important to familiarize yourself with the data that Ofsted will have access to prior to the arrival at the school. This will take the form of a number of things...

 

- RAISEonline which is not public access as pupils could be identified from it.

 

- The Ofsted data dashboard which is here: http://dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/dash.php?urn=107051

 

- The DfE performance tables.

 

- Parent View http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/parent-view-results/survey/result/5081/all

 

 

From looking at all that data Ofsted would have arrived at the school with certain questions and looking for certain things, and I can tell you what some of them would have been...

 

From the Ofsted Data Dashboard - closing the gap tab, you can see that the achievement gap between all pupils and what are classed as "disadvantaged" is large, much much larger than national.

 

To quantify that, the gap in terms of progress nationally is 3% for English and 7% for maths, at grenoside, on the data that Ofsted have access to the gap is well over 20% in both subjects.

 

This in itself is not a guarantee to give Grenoside an inadequate rating, but it is a concern, and one that Ofsted would be looking for the school to have addressed already and to have evidence or explanations for such a big disparity. You can see in the inspection framework that they say things like...

 

Leadership is deemed to be inadequate if "The progress in English or in mathematics of pupils for whom the pupil premium provides support is falling further behind the progress of the other pupils with similar prior attainment in the school."

 

It says something similar under the achievement framework. Anyway my main point here is that the data available suggests that Grenoside was failing some of it's pupils - the ones from most disadvantaged backgrounds.

 

On arrival they must not have seen evidence that this was improving. From reading the report they evidently had concerns about the quality of education for other types of pupils, such as those with Special Educational Needs.

 

Throughout the report it is saying that leadership appeared to guard much of the information too closely, and not share it effectively with teachers so they could direct there efforts appropriately for good learning to occur for ALL students.

 

The evidence the school must have presented to show how current students were progressing must not have been strong or clearly presented.

 

However all that said, I am surprised at the inadequate judgement, I would have thought they would have gone for requires improvement. However once Ofsted decide that one element of the framework is inadequate... in this case Leadership and Maangement, it is a limiting factor and the school is classed as inadequate.

 

I think an important thing to remember is that a school being judged as inadequate is not necessarily a terrible thing. It will make no difference to your children's lives at the school, it won't mean that the school is forced into being an academy.

 

It does mean however that the school will be re-inspected sooner rather than later and will have a chance to show the improvements that have been made. Hopefully those improvements will benefit all the children at the school and the school can move forward.

 

Good luck.

 

I would be astonished if Grenoside stays as inadequate for very long.

[cgksheff]

.............

I think an important thing to remember is that a school being judged as inadequate is not necessarily a terrible thing. It will make no difference to your children's lives at the school, it won't mean that the school is forced into being an academy.

 

.......

 

That is what I thought, but a verbatim report from tonight's meeting suggests otherwise.

 

You may also like to have a look at the Guardian articles, which whilst they may have a biased agenda show that forcing academy status on similar schools is not unheard of.