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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

ofsted schools dashboard

86 replies

MerryMingeWhingesAgain · 28/02/2013 07:50

Sorry I can't link from
phone, has anyone else looked at their school on this? It gives a brief summary/overview of how well the children in the school are doing.

My school looks truly appalling.

OP posts:

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MegBusset · 28/02/2013 07:53

My kids' school looks crap too! Yet it's got a Good Ofsted rating and is a really lovely school!

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germyrabbit · 28/02/2013 07:55

wonder how much that cost to produce?

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MerryMingeWhingesAgain · 28/02/2013 08:24

Mine is bottom 20% for pretty much everything, compared to all schools and compared to similar schools.

Its not long out of special measures. Am worried it will go back and be forced to convert I suppose.

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PolkadotCircus · 28/02/2013 10:04

Yup ours looks crap too,in KS2 bottom for everything.Maybe I read it wrong< hopeful>Has recently gone from Outstanding to Satisfactory,could we be looking at special measures then?

Thanks for that Merry

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RibenaFiend · 28/02/2013 10:06

Here you go: Link to Ofsted Dashboard

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PolkadotCircus · 28/02/2013 10:17

Errr how accurate a picture is it as the secondary school my 3 were supposed to be going to looks shit too?

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Haberdashery · 28/02/2013 10:32

DD's school (recently rated Good by Ofsted under the supposedly more stringent new guidelines) looks bloody terrible on that dashboard. I don't think it works very well!

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PolkadotCircus · 28/02/2013 10:38

Define terrible!

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learnandsay · 28/02/2013 10:40

It would be nice to know what similar schools means. Some results were 92% on the dashboard but still the school was ranked at the bottom or near the bottom of similar schools. I had seen some higher percentages in the league tables though. But ours is also a big school.

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MerryMingeWhingesAgain · 28/02/2013 10:50

I wouldn't put too much faith in it if I felt the school was fab TBH. But I don't, and this has reinforced it.

It doesn't have the added-value stuff that some of the other sources of data have, my school has IRO 50 percent free school meals for example, but I know other local schools with a similar mixed intake are doing much better. I suppose our mixed intake is not a mix of very deprived and quite affluent though, it's a mix of very low income and low income, IYKWIM.

But I know the school and it does seem poor, very patchy for both attainment and progress. Attendance pretty good and pastoral care is good but staff are miserable and the HT is, um, not nice.

Got one child in the school and another due to join in september and having a wobble.

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Haberdashery · 28/02/2013 11:01

Define terrible!

Bottom quintile or 4th quintile for most things! I would like to know how they are defining 'similar schools', too.

I think this school is a really good school, btw.

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learnandsay · 28/02/2013 11:04

I know there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but this dashboard really is just a bunch of statistics presented in a way that can possibly be alarming, especially when they compare schools starkly and with no explanation of whether they are really comparing apples and oranges.

But the question really is "statistically speaking" is the report fair and accurate enough to, (as Sir Michael keeps telling us,) base good decisions on?

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Haberdashery · 28/02/2013 11:10

I don't think it is particularly fair and accurate, you know. Looking at some of the statistics (particularly the ones related to things like whether disadvantaged children are achieving as well as their peers), I have noticed that some of the schools near me which score more highly overall are doing an extremely poor job with their less advantaged cohort.

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learnandsay · 28/02/2013 11:43

Sir Michael is criticising governors for not knowing their schools well enough but that's not what the dashboard is doing, is it? It's comparing schools. So, apparently what Sir Michael is criticising is the governors lack of knowledge about what all schools are doing and how they are doing it. Well, how the hell are school governors supposed to know that? The department of education doesn't even know that. If it did then all schools would be brilliant.

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BeehavingBaby · 28/02/2013 11:51

My DDs school also looks awful on there but has a brilliant ofsted and is a lovely lovely school, shouldn't have looked, feel I should be sending them somewhere pushier now!

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PolkadotCircus · 28/02/2013 11:58

Hmmm but the bottom 5th for everything in KS2 in our case isn't good however it's dressed up is it

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Haberdashery · 28/02/2013 12:11

Genuinely, if your gut feeling about the school is good then I don't think those figures matter much.

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PolkadotCircus · 28/02/2013 12:22

Sadly that isn't the case,happy kids but shit progress and results. Guess I was hoping it wasn't as bad as I thought,benefit of the doubt and all that.

What really gets my goat is we just had a spin filled letter from the govs proclaiming how wonderful it was that they went up 2 points or whatever in the Sats(which are included in this data).Kind of missed out the bit that meant they're still in the lowest 5th for everything across the board out of all schools in the UK.

They must have known this was coming out.

Fine things aren't great but own it folks!

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Bunnyjo · 28/02/2013 12:25

For once, L&S, I completely agree with you.

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learnandsay · 28/02/2013 12:25

Why are the governors getting all this stick? Surely teaching policy is down to the head/heads of dept?

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learnandsay · 28/02/2013 12:30

Call me cynical, but I reckon it's because it's a free hit, isn't it? Governors can't answer back.

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Hercule · 28/02/2013 12:45

I'm a governor of a school in special measures and Ofsted are applying unbelievable pressure to the Governing Body. The requirements in terms of an in-depth understanding of the school's performance data and progress towards improvement are astonishing. To be highest I doubt I have the capacity to continue in the role, given that it is voluntary, very part-time, unpaid. Not sure quite why anyone would want to tbh. And no training or support is being offered to governors, just a promise that we'll be 'attacked' if our performance is not up to scratch.

A cursory glance at that dashboard doesn't indicate it contains new information and is not detailed or broad enough to assist in supporting a school to improve.

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Hercule · 28/02/2013 12:48

'To be honest' not 'highest ' obviously

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tiggytape · 28/02/2013 13:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

learnandsay · 28/02/2013 14:08

OK, there's a school in this thread which is

"still in the lowest 5th for everything across the board out of all schools in the UK."

In practical terms, then, what are the governors going/supposed to do about it? (And before this dashboard was published how were they supposed to know about it?) League tables and SATs results have been out for a while now. And before that there were always exam results. But if the children are challenging to teach what are governors (effectively) supposed to do about it?

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear no matter how much you berate the governors.