Today I have received seriously good news.... My school has been living with the threat of an Ofsted inspection for about 12 months. We've gone through the whole range of pre-Ofsted torture - training on 'quick fix' outstanding lessons; mock inspections; hysterical SMT, the lot.
During period 4 today an e-mail labled Ofsted landed in my in-box from the Head. I opened it with that sinking feeling and discovered that an educational miracle has occured! Ofsted have contacted the school to explain that they have gone through our results and feel that we are making excellent progress. As a result they will not be visiting us until summer term 2013.
I ran into my colleague's classroom and started to do the 'teacher's hysterical celebration dance'. Not particularly cool, but it amused her Year 9s. I then ran down to see if my Head of Faculty had read the e-mail. Cue more wild celebrations in the Art rooms!
Obviously - being education - there's always a bit of a cloud to spoil the suniest days. In this case, the new no-notice inspections are due to start in September. I'm just drawing some comfort from the fact that the inspectors will have done two terms' work in the new framework before we get 'done'.
Teaching can be a very strange job...!
I can understand your jubilation! Excellent news. My daughter and her husband both teach and as they live right next door to us, whenever one or other has the dreaded Ofsted in their school the stress permeates through both houses!
ReplyDeleteYippeety yippee! Happy dancing all round - well done for your hard work! My school expecting the " special visitors" anyway, such a stress! x
ReplyDeleteThat must have relieved the stress. I remember the reports being given out on the very last day of term one year when my two were still at primary school because Ofsted had turned up with just a week left of the school year and all the teachers went in to panic mode.
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