Ofsted: the longest week ever!

[TPeers]

You get prior notice of an Ofsted inspection?

I thought the idea was to see how a school was normally run, not where it had been "sanitised" to look good for the inspectors.

Surely a if a school is to be marked as good, then it should be good all the time.

To say that you worked 2 weeks in one week to bring things up to standard is a fraud.

I'll look a bit more closely at my daughter's school in future, I want a good education for her all the time.

Sorry, I do have a lot of respect for teachers generally but this has really shocked me.

I'm not a teacher but I have friends that are - one of whom is married to an ofsted inspector!

Children are in school for around 6 hours a day, of which about 4hrs is 'learning time' the rest being the various breaks between lessons, assembles, lunch etc...

Those 4 hours of lessons take at least twice that amount of time in terms of preparation, paperwork and follow-up. In an 'ofsted week' where everything has to be typed rather than hand written and teachers are under additional stress to make the school look good these tasks can take twice as long as normal so turning a job which requires around 60hrs a week into one which needs over 100hrs!

Now consider the pay they recieve for this.................

Terry

[bluemoon]

Thanks, Waffler! There are days, like yesterday, when I almost miss teaching, then I read something like this and not only remember why I got out, but am so grateful that I did. Congratulations on surviving the dreaded inspectors.

[Stacey Steve]

Sounds as if the criteria for the inspection is wrong then. I always thought that any job that requires checking should be definable, could be metered and was acheiveable.

Looks as if your union should refuse to play along untill you can do define what needs to be done each week, how long you really need to do this and if it isn't acheiveable within the contracted hours as seems to be the case above, then it don't get done.

Is there any effect upon pay from getting good grades from Ofsted? I have heard that teachers pay if pushed up by some sort of grading but unsure how as it were.

As I say, I'm not attacking teachers here, far from it (other to say you must be mad) just a parent trying to inderstand and making my comments.

[Waffler]

Hmm! I remember something about performance related pay from a few years back; not sure it ever got put in place though.
'Contracted hours' makes me laugh - literally. I recently read (then read out to everyone I met) that apparently teachers hours are X amount a year; when you break that down into an hourly rate for each school day, it allowed about an hour, to an hour and a quarter shared between the beginning of the day before the children come in, and the end of the day once they've gone, 'plus a nominal number of hours in order to do the job properly' (not quite how it was worded, but you get the gyst.) When you take into consideration setting up a classroom for the day and tidying away at the end of the day, this leaves a miniscule amount of time to plan, mark, make resources etc.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if we 'worked to rule', but the fact is that without clear guidelines on what is expected of us it just wouldn't work. And I don't think I've ever been in a school where I've had the contract anywhere near the beginning of my employment with the school.

[OverWyreGrower]

Ah, "contracted hours".... on a lot of job contracts (not just in schools) there is no such thing! I work in a University, and the lower grades (e.g. clerical or admin type staff) there are set hours for the week; however in higher grades (e.g. senior lecturers, Deans, professional management) there are no set or contracted hours. You just do the job, and it takes as long as it takes!!

Mr OWG's job has no contracted hours. He just has to get stuff done, which can often involve 60 or 70 hour weeks, with no overtime payment, shift allowance payments, or compensatory time off in lieu etc either.

Large companies often get staff to sign away their European Working Time Directive as well, so they can get you to work when they need you.

They'll never give teachers "contracted hours" as such, because they know that there is not enough time in a day to get everything done.

[BarleySugar]

It all hinges on the 'reasonable', that is the wording of most areas of the contract, and who decides if it is reasonable? We have a teacher who has been off work (very poorly) since the autumn, and the other members of her department are still being expected to plan all the cover lessons, mark all the work produced, do reports etc. SMT have said they have tried to get a suitably qualified cover teacher but can't so they have to rely on the cover supervisors following the instructions. Problem is that year 10s and 11s are doing the GCSEs, so the other staff are trying their best to keep it going for them, but is it reasonable?