At its best, social media can influence education policy – and spearhead reform. It is teacher bloggers who have led the campaign to reform Ofsted’s inspection regime.
Over the last year, we have seen massive, protracted and unrelenting pressure from teachers online to change how inspections work.
And it’s working.
Ofsted have agreed to stop grading lesson observations in all inspections from September. Their handbook now explicitly states that inspectors do not expect to see any records of graded lesson observations from schools.
Here is a collection of hundreds of blogs from over 40 teachers, school leaders and researchers in the education blogosphere who are putting pressure on OFSTED to accelerate reform.
Old Andrew
- OFSTED Must Die
- What OFSTED Say They Want
- What OFSTED Actually Want
- Does Sir Michael Wilshaw Know What OFSTED Good Practice Looks Like?
- OFSTED Best Practice Videos
- Did OFSTED just remove those good practice videos?
- OFSTED Under Fire
- The Strange Case of OFSTED and School Governors(written by a guest)
- Do OFSTED pay attention to their chief inspector or their handbook?
- Can Sir Michael Wilshaw order OFSTED to change?
- Just when you think OFSTED have got their act together, the flip cameras are back.
- The OFSTED Teaching Style
- The Government Should Listen to Teachers. And By “Teachers”, I Mean “Me”
- More OFSTED Good Practice that isn’t
- A Brief Comment on OFSTED and Teacher Talk
- New OFSTED Handbook
- The Open-Ended Hypocrisy of OFSTED
- What I’d do about OFSTED
- When will OFSTED change?
- I’ll Accept No Excuses for OFSTED
- New Academic Year. New Inspection Handbook. Same Old OFSTED
- More OFSTED Nonsense
- Why I don’t think OFSTED can be reformed
- Has OFSTED Changed Since Last Month?
- Some Progress with OFSTED (and how little difference it makes)
- They’re Back – OFSTED Subject Specific Guidance Notes
- A Christmas Miracle – OFSTED Get It Right For Once
- Why That OFSTED News Is So Important
- Have OFSTED Changed Yet?
- Missing OFSTED Reports
- How have OFSTED behaved in the last 2 weeks?
- Bizarre Developments and Unfair Judgements on the OFSTED Website
- Ten Questions OFSTED Need to Answer
- More OFSTED Reports Edited After Publication
- Two More Edited OFSTED Reports
- Arnold Hill Academy Responds to the OFSTED Shambles
- Can OFSTED stop publishing ridiculous reports, even if they try?
- Last Week’s OFSTED Story in the Times
- OFSTED Quotations About Independence
- That Gove/Wilshaw Spat
- OFSTED go mad In Coventry
- An OFSTED Round Up
- OFSTED Culture
- Are OFSTED Judgements Reliable?
- Radio 4 Interview
- An example of OFSTED’s inconsistency
- My meeting with Sean Harford, OFSTED’s National Director for Schools Policy
- First Impressions of the New OFSTED handbook
David Didau
- The shocking mediation of OFSTED criteria by ‘rogue inspectors’
- Has lesson observation become the new Brain Gym?
- Get ahead of the curve: stop grading lessons
- Don’t trust your gut: a little bit more on the problem with grading lessons
- The Cult of Outstanding: the problem with ‘outstanding lessons’
- What inspirational teaching looks like according to OFSTED
- What I learned from my visit to OFSTED
- Are we any clearer? OFSTED explain what they do and don’t do
- OFSTED’s evaluation form: the next skirmish
- Watching the watchmen: Is OFSTED fit for purpose?
- The mystery of Oldfield’s School’s missing OFSTED report
- OFSTED inspectors continue to do whatever they like
- A horror story: does OFSTED get it wrong again?
- Should Ofsted judge ‘quality of teaching’?
- Ofsted: the end of the (lesson grading) affair
- Playing the game: Ofsted vs Civitas
- My impatience with some Ofsted inspectors
- Ofsted’s new Inspection Handbook – a cause for celebration
Tom Bennett
- Reform the deathstar of Ofsted, or it’s time to blow it up
- Deliver us: why the Ofsted guidance on behaviour still undermines teaching an learning
- An inspector calls: A conversation about the Ofsted guidance on behaviour
- Watching the Watchmen: The Policy Exchange versus Ofsted
- Meet the Fockers: Ofsted talks to the bloggers
- The Beaufort Wind Scale and why we need an observation revolution
- The Beaufort Wind Scale 2: what makes a good observation, and why it isn’t a grade
- The Ofsted paradox: why everyone now expects the Spanish Inquisition
Cazzypot
- OFTSED: Smoke and mirrors and malevolent magic
- OFSTED: the medicine that kills
- The OFSTED Christmas message: more fear than cheer
- OFSTED: same old tune, different words
- OFSTED: carrying on regardless
- School leaders, take not (in light of the updated handbook for Ofsted inspectors)
- A Plea to Ofsted
Harry Fletcher Wood
- Ofsted at GFS
- The Ofsted Report: Why don’t you wear a helmet?
- The Ofsted Report: What’s it like being inspected as a teacher and as a middle leader?
- The Ofsted Report: How well does the GFS Ofsted Report reflect reality in the school?
- The Ofsted Report: Five Questions our inspection left me with
- What have I learned from writing about Ofsted? Seven Reflections
Stuart Lock
- Prior to inspection
- Our Ofsted inspection: the first day
- Our Ofsted inspection: day two and judgements
- Our Ofsted inspection: reaction & next steps
- The Civitas Report on Ofsted: Playing The Game
- The Policy Exchange Report on Ofsted
- Could Ofsted be changing its expectations of teaching?
Jack Marwood
- Ofsted: Rubbish in, rubbish out
- Ofsted: Scandalously bad judgement
- New Ofsted orthodoxies: triple marking
- New Ofsted orthodoxies: poleaxed by the pupil premium 1
- New Ofsted orthodoxies: poleaxed by the pupil premium 2
- OFSTED: we didn’t grade the lessons we graded
- Fundamentally flawed assumptions: ‘Ofsted quality of teaching grades are a reflection of the teaching in a given school’
Pragmatic Reform
- Who will watch the OFSTED watchmen?
- Who’s afraid of lesson observations?
- What if all observations were only formative?
- End graded observations: this year’s brain gym, and the gorilla in the classroom
- We, the teachers, must hold Ofsted’s feet to the fire
- Stop OFSTED grading teaching
- Bloggers are changing OFSTED
Solo contra tutti
- Social Construction of OFSTED reports: The Conceptual Fallacy
- Social Construction of OFSTED reports: Pedagogic Illiteracy
- Social Construction of OFSTED reports: data and practice
- Social Construction of OFSTED reports: imprisoned by language
- Has Ofsted opened pandora’s box?
- Ofsted inspections: for whom the bell tolls
Alex Quigley
- Do schools have Ofsted Stockholm Syndrome?
- The OFSTED Uncertainty Principle and Holding Steady
- Progress made, but Ofsted are still requiring improvement
- On grading lesson observations
Daisy Christodoulou
Robert Peal
- Does Michael Wilshaw believe what he says
- Some thoughts on the ‘Ofsted style’
- Scrap the ‘Quality of Teaching’ Grade
Tom Sherrington
- Accountability we can trust
- Meeting Ofsted: the game has changed
- Keeping up with Ofsted’s goalposts: what SLTs should do
Rob Coe
- Classroom observations: it’s harder than you think
- Critics should not have to prove Ofsted’s judgements are wrong; it should be up to Ofsted to prove they are right
- Ofsted approach is not backed by research
Miss Cox
- The tail wagging the dog: Ofsted, accountability and how we run our schools
- What could Ofsted do differently?
- What now? Evaluating teaching without lesson grades
- Will book scrutiny become the new lesson observation?
Ross Morrison McGill
The Guardian’s Secret Teacher
- Dear OFSTED inspector, I am giving you notice to improve
- OFSTED inspectors, you need a reality check
- The Ofsted framework produces too many casualties
Sam Freedman
Andy Lewis
Shena Lewington
Kit Andrew
Jonathan Simons
Jo Facer
Loic Menzies
Stephen Tierney
Angry ex-teacher
Dave Harris
Micon Metcalfe
The Primary Head
Steve Philp
L. Mason
Heather Lett
Data Fiend
Martin Robinson
Michael Tidd
Ritchie Gale
Joanna Williams
Mark Melaney
Gethyn Jones
Michael Fordham
Harry Webb
William Lau
Heather F
Unseen Flirtations
Clare Collins
Now, above all, is the time to keep up the pressure. The education blogosphere is organising. We, the teachers, are reclaiming our profession. The momentum is rising. The next campaign target is to stop Ofsted grading teaching altogether.
If we sustain it, radical reform of the inspection regime is within reach.
http://mylifeasacynicalteacher.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/my-experiences-of-ofsted/
Couldn’t agree more. I think that teachers today have more power over educational change then they ever have, and it can only increase from here! https://mroberts1990.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/teacher-voice/
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I actually believe that the issue is deeper than the way Ofsted carries out inspections. It is more to do what we as a society believe inspections are for. The problem is that, if you take the analogy of inspectors as being like doctors carrying out investigative tests on our State institutions, then what treatment or support are offered when suspected disease is discovered (and broadcast to the world)? I wrote on this a couple of weeks ago: http://theyweewords.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/ofpiss-role-of-inspectors-in-public.html
At the researchED event in August 2014 I made some observations at the end of Andrew Old’s interview of HMIs Michael Cladingbowl and Sean Harford regarding the corrupt system of Ofsted inspectors ALSO being independent advisors bought in by schools. I also commented about the impossibility of being able to hold Ofsted to account through the Ofsted complaints system. The interview and my comments were filmed. My comments raised significant applause in the crowded room and yet this piece of the event was ‘cut’. Why was this?
And what a shame.
Subsequent to this event, I have continued to pursue a complaint against Ofsted to no avail and have personal evidence to demonstrate the impossibility of being able to hold Ofsted to account.
I note that the NAHT has also made comments about it becoming increasingly difficult to hold Ofsted to account.
The teaching profession as a whole recognises the importance of accountability but it is clear that the current Ofsted system is negative, counter-productive and has no fit mechanism to challenge judgements made by Ofsted.
Reblogged this on Phonic Books.
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