OFSTED, How often do they inspect and how bad / good is "SATISFACTORY"?? Devon!

[TreeHuggerMum1]

Hi.

Recently moved to a new area with my 2 and half year old son.

I have a sweet looking primary about 10 seconds walk away and have started looking at it in more depth as LO turns 3 in Nov.
The school is reported as satisfactory and according to OFSTED the last report was in 2003. This to me seems absolutely ages ago and wondered if there were set rules for inspection dates.
How good or bad is a satisfactory report?? I use a childminder whose OFSTED report is exemplary / outstanding and thats what I hoped for but this school business is all quite new to me. HELP!
Also the school is Kingskerswell Primary in Devon so if anyone has any personal experience - all info welcome.
Thanks.

[leosdad]

There are four grades given out by inspectors 1,2,3,4 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory and 4 unsatisfactory. Our school got satisfactory and the head teacher wrote a letter of self congratulation to parents as if they had done extremely well - then you see similar schools nearby getting 1's and 2's.

Have a look on ofsted site to read reports about schools in your area and also the detailed report of your nearby school.

[Grav1]

I think the inspections take place once every 6 years so it is possible that the school is due another inspection shortly. It will have been told in the last inspection what steps it needs to take in order to improve certain areas. Leosdad's idea of looking at the report on the Ofsted site is a good one.

[OrmIrian]

Yep. Look at the on-line report. But more importantly talk to local parents. Ofsted isn't the only (or even the best) judge of how good a school is.

[Fennel]

I don't know your school but my children go to a "satisfactory" ofsted village school in Devon, we moved here 2 years ago, after having been in two schools with better ofsteds. It seems absolutely fine. It was a little first school moving into being a primary and it's changing quite fast in lots of ways.

But it does have a new head and had to pay attention to the areas it was poor in. really though we haven't seen that much difference between it and the high-achieving "outstanding" beacon school we were first in, or the "good" school we were in next.

[OrmIrian]

Also bear in mind that what you want might not be what the inspectors want. Our school was in special measures after an Ofsted inspection for various reasons, mainly due to poor teaching, reporting, academic results and financial issues. I had never had an issue with any of those things and when it comes to academic results the only ones a parent really cares about are those of their own DCs, and mine were doing OK. They praised the friendliness and community feeling of the school - and that was what mattered to me most, my DCs were happy and secure there.

[ingles2]

the school my ds's are in now, has a good ofsted... it isn't. It's Sats are poor, its attendance is poor, some of the teaching staff are very poor.
The new school they are starting in Sept has a satisfactory
ofsted... it's results are a million times better and is a much younger forward thinking school.
Do not place too much importance on the ofsted report.
Have a look at the school, its SATs results and go with your instinct for what will be best for your dc's.
HTH's

[TreeHuggerMum1]

Thanks to all of you.
I feel less concerned about the satsifactory mark now. I also just got off the phone to the school and they have said they believe they'll be having another inspection this year and are hoping for a higher result, but I will not put so much thought into the result and will try and ask other local parents how they feel about the school and how happy their kids are.
Thanks.

[ingles2]

Great,... that really is the best way to find out about a school TreeHugger..
Good Luck x

[MsPontipine]

School can get an excellent Ofsted but be crap - I suppose it's a bit like some people that are really good at job interviews - doesn't mean they're the best people for the job.

[RosaLuxembourg]

I wouldn't put much stock in a 2003 report anyway as it is so out of date - what is more important is to look at the areas the Ofsted inspectors told the school to work on and ask the school how it has addressed those issues. But a visit to the school is far more important as a means of assessing if your children will be happy there. What is the atmosphere like? Do the children seem busy and happy? What are the displays on the walls like? Get the headteacher to take you around the school and see how s/he interacts with the pupils. That will tell you a lot.

[Clary]

Satisfactory does not mean crap.

There could be all kinds of reasons for the grading. For example, our lovely lovely school got satisfactory a few years ago; the new (fab) head had been in post 3 weeks and was well aware there were issues needing to be addressed which had allowed the school to coast on its previous good reputation. An awful lot of work has been done since.
In any case by yr reckoning mmj we are in a disaster area as all the schools local to us got satisfactory when ofsteded last. We live in a very middle class area full of polite and hard working children (not all, obv!) and the schools consistently feature in the top of the league tables. Actually there are some I am less keen on but would not describe any as crap.

2003 is ages ago and I would not set much store by the report of yr local school tbh. All kinds of things could have changed ? new head, new deputy, less able teachers moved on etc. The school should have a programme in place to address issues raised by Ofsted. What sort of grading was given to things like care of children/teaching and learning etc?

Go and have a look and chat to head and children to get a better idea.

(Equally a 2003 good ofsted means little in a way ? a school could well have slipped and staff changed for the worse, y?know.)

[Fennel]

I think little village schools can struggle in ofsteds because they don't have the whole range of activities and facilities that bigger schools have.
Parents really like our little "satisfactory" school for being very friendly and "child-centred". Quite a few of them are upset by the new head implementing all the ofsted-advised changes because they liked the school not being very focused on SATS and OFSTEDs.

[TreeHuggerMum1]

Thanks again.
I liked the points about the report being 5 years old, tbh I hadn't really though that way about it now possibly being outdated. Also liked the point about village schools being more about community and less about points and reports.

[Smithagain]

Ours is "satisfactory with some good points" according to Ofsted.

According to most parents it's friendly, child-focused and reasonably academic without being excessively pushy. By no means "crap"

[nlondondad]

The fact that it is so long since the last report tells me two things:-

1. Yes, the school are right. There WILL be an ofsted soon.

1. To be left so long without an ofsted means that they really were satisfactory. There were no real concerns.

Satisfactory means what it says. Perfectly ok, could of course do better, as couldnt we all; no school perfect!

[twinsetandpearls]

I would say the fact that the school has not been visited again for five years shows it is satisfactory. Where i teach was rated satisfactory but it only just scraped that and we are expecting another visit next year. We were inspected a year ago. Check the report. Things like poor attendance mean the school could not get above a 3 however well it does elsewhere

[justdidntthink]

Our last OFSTED was in 2004 and we are expecting 'THE CALL' any day now! There are lots of reasons why the school might get 'satisfactory' and many of them are beyon the control of the school. EG, we have a child whose attendance is so poor that her mother is on a suspended prison sentence over it, because we will not meet the attendance target, we cannot get a 1 in the forthcoming inspection! I have worked in a school where the results and the OFSTED were always 'outstanding', but it was such an unhappy place to be, both as a member of stff and a pupil. There were kids who at age 11 were wetting the bed because of the pressure the school put on them to perorm in SATs, a number of staff were on the verge of breakdowns because of pressures from the head. The school wher I am now may 'only' be satisfactory, but the staff and the kids are all happy and enjoy being there. There isa lot to be said for being happy!

[RustyBear]

The school I work at got a 'satisfactory', which was almost entirely because the Y6 Sats the previous year had not met the targets. Despite the fact that the inspector actually accepted the reasons for the shortfall and that the school had addressed the problem, they gave us Satisfactory for management, which apparently meant that the overall score couldn't be higher than that - despite the fact that we got 'outstanding' on several areas, including SEN provision & pastoral care.
The inspection was in February and the Year 6 who took the SATs in May got some of the best results we'd ever had.

[findtheriver]

Justdidntthink, clary and rustybear - excellent posts. You need to look way beyond the 'satisfactory' label. There can be all sort of reasons, some totally out of the school's control (like the attendance thing mentioned) which put a ceiling on the overall grade the school can get. Things like attendance (of a small minority of kids), budget (lots of schools these days struggle not to have a deficit budget) are not going to affect the education of the pupils but CAN massively affect the ofsted outcome.
Also, if a school has a good reputation and has maintained high standards, then satisfactory can just mean that these standards have been maintained. It can be harder to get a 'good' or 'excellent' when you're starting from a position of strength.

[puffling]

If you read the whole report, there'll be gradings for different factors, so you can look at their partic. strengths etc.