Ep 88: The New Proposed OFSTED Reform: Will It Finally 'Raise Standards In Education'?

0:00 Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Teach Seek, Repeat. My name is Dylan. My name is Hayden and it is Cold Ash. It is seriously cold, isn't it? Dylan, get the beeper out. Are we keeping that in then? Yeah, I'm not responded. Be that. Yeah, OK, we're keeping it. I'm not restarting. We're keeping it. OK. It's gold. Don't restart after 10 seconds, do we? There's too much effort. Yeah, fill my. Hands don't touch me. Fill my hands, please don't touch. Please, just freezing. Two things. Don't touch me anyway, if you had lovely hands, which you don't. Horrible, horrible hands. They just did. You need to insult me. Yeah, I did. Because your hands are either really clammy and sticky and horrible or freezing cold. Is there any point where your hands are just a normal temperature?

0:40 Right now they are so clammy and freezing cold. What do you mean? I don't know. They're just really clammy. The part and the part of my hand, OK, is wet, OK, And the back of my hand is like an ice cube. You are such a specimen and I tell you what I'm saying. If those aren't aren't watching. I'm sat here in a jumper and I'm freezing cold. My hands are freezing. Dylan's sat in a T-shirt. Because it's not that cold. It is. We're in a house. Very rarely in a house is it cold. Now I. Don't know about that. This guy's house pretty freezing all the time. I'm just always, I'm just a cold person. I just, I think we're very different with that. You're, I mean, to be fair you yesterday when it was about -50° outside, you turned up at my house. I was in three layers and you were in a T-shirt outside and even use it.

1:22 This is probably a little bit a little bit silly. Outdoors, absolutely not. But you know, I put it down to two things. One, my warm northern blood. The further north you're born, the warm me or blood is just true. The warm me of blood is. And the second thing is I'm already always wearing a layer because the hair on my skin, that's like a sweater in itself, but I've basically got an inverse sweater on. I've got a sweater against my skin and AT shirt on. And don't forget the tattoos. Obviously they help. They give another ladder. They. Do the Interstate, they're dark, so they. Yeah. Trap the heat. Yeah, that's right. Keeps me warm. Yeah, only in this 10. That's why you're in a black T-shirt. And black. I get it now. You're really clever scientist. Thank you. Anyway. How are you? How's your little boy? Because he's been poorly. He has been very poorly. Yeah. Anyone listening who's got children? I think recently I spoke about how, oh, the first time they get ill is not nice, isn't it?

2:06 Which was a few weeks ago, Rory. And like, a little sniffly cough and like, a bit of a snot, snotty nose. And I was like, oh, it's not nice, is it? Shouldn't have already said that because then we've been 2 two weeks, like this weekend, Rory got RSV for anyone who doesn't have kids, which I noticed by the way, you even know what RSV is because you have young children or you have no idea what RSV is. People are saying what's that? And it's just a really bad virus basically. And with young children specifically, it's quite, can be quite dangerous where you know that oxygen can drop and it can cause things like pneumonia and broncholitis. And essentially, Rory, we had to take him to hospital and we took him to A&E for the for children. And then he ended up having to stay the night. He was on oxygen just to get his oxygen levels up. And it's always scary because even though he seems OK in himself, you see the numbers are low and you're like, I know this could go one of too late.

2:52 He could just deteriorate a bit, get pneumonia, you know, really struggle. But luckily he stayed the night and he recovered really well. And he just like we slowly weaned him off the oxygen and then he was sent home on the Monday. But they were saying basically they think it was broncholitis. In the end, he ended up with he's at home still, you know, with an asthma pump now getting. Getting a steroid, oh, little boy, but it's. Horrible. It's not nice. And yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, as a parent now I realise what other parents mean when they say you kind of just get through it without thinking. Like, yeah, beforehand I'd be like, oh God, how do you cope? How, how can you cope seeing your little baby? You just have to, it's not nice, but you just have to. Yeah. They needed to put a cannula in his foot and they were trying to put a cannula into his hand.

3:36 They did it like two or three times but couldn't find the vein. So someone's just stabbing his hand. I'm holding him. He's having a breakdown of being stabbed, screaming, getting stabbed by strangers on it. Literally the next Troy's foot, he had something on his big toe that was monitoring his oxygen levels and his blood and his and his heartbreak. Sorry, he had something on his nose. He had strapped in the oxygen tube, right? We had like tubes coming out of his nose and that was where the oxygen was going in and he hated it. He just wanted everything to be off. And he doesn't know, does he? No, he doesn't know. And all he sees are two people coming in. It was Rory's like, he's not. He doesn't. He doesn't smile immediately when someone comes in. He's got a bit of a like face, like taking everything in, but he warms to people. But it got to the point where if someone came to the curtain, it felt like he was almost scared because because he just knew. Well, that person's wearing what all the other nurses wore, and last time someone came in with a needle and they were trying to get my hands and I really hated it. But yeah, the overall news is he's back home, he's fine. We're not going out anywhere yet because it's freezing and we just do groups and stuff and we still obviously got RSV potentially.

4:36 Yeah, that's contagious. So the idea of passing that on to the people like, you know, but yeah, he's all good. And do you know what two things? We're very lucky. There are other children who are literally in the ward opposite who they were. They were talking about how they've been in hospital for like 2 weeks. They, they won't be in hospital, they won't get out of hospital for another few weeks just because they need to find out what's going on with their child. That child was just sad, you know, in pain constantly. It just puts things, things into perspective. And the other thing is being a teacher and someone who for the last year and a half has really fought on this podcast and in general with my peers to say, look, we're doing too much, that it's not acceptable, it's a job at the end of the day, blah, blah, blah. OK, you can say it's important for the kids. We all agree with that. But come on, there's got to be a line.

5:16 Then I went in and I was like, oh cool. I I met that nurse who did a 14 hour shift and she started off with the most lovely smile. Really good with Rory, making him happy. She loved him, he loved her. Like over the top nights doing everything she could for us. Still the same attitude 14 hours later when we were getting discharged and she was writing up our notes. Amazing people working in the hospital who just in the background, you don't know in your everyday life, that's happening. Yeah, right now that's happening, yeah. In any hospital near you, wherever you're working, wherever you're listening to this podcast, there's a hospital near you where there's a team of like 30 people in one part of the hospital, which is just the children's ward who are working their socks off because they love helping the children and being completely selfless and doing this job because they love doing it and then not getting the praise and recognition they deserve.

6:00 And there's a lot of them who don't care and they're just doing it anyway, and they're just the best people. And you know what the government comes to conclusion of? Ohh, let's not pay them then. Yeah, yeah, let's give them a clap. They'll do it anyway, yeah. And it's just when you. That's what. That's when we get annoyed. Yeah, and when you think about the people in the government and the kind of stuff they just, they slimy, they don't turn up for the debates, they don't go in and properly talk about stuff. They just. Think everything's expendable? I think it's. Yeah, I'm getting a cheap dinner on the Westminster Cafe because it's subsidised by the taxpayer. And I'm just like, you have no idea. You are honestly disgusting. And there are some good politicians, I know that. But the whole thing just stinks to me. Yeah, then you know that's going on. For that knowing that they that the people that work in the NHS don't have the same even the same system in place where they could maybe take reap those same rewards. But the point was, you know what, we'll come out a bit with a healthy child and yeah, all happy and no, I'm glad. He's just amazing.

6:49 I'm glad. I'm glad he's feeling better. Well, that's extremely depressing. Should we end the episode there? No, no, no, no. It's good news. I'm glad, you know, children get ill. We said. I was saying to Lauren, my partner, we were like, do you know what? He just needed a bit of help. Yeah, he just needed a bit of help for a bit. And you know what? We're lucky enough to be in a system, although it's breaking. My child could get that help. Yeah. And that was really. Important we live extremely close to hospital where we are, so you could literally just drive down the road we did and get them seen. So that's. Good. How about your week then? Was it a bit less? I don't know, depressing? Yeah. Do you know what I've had? I don't really want to talk about my week of school because it was a very normal week. Sometimes the weeks of school are just totally bog standard. It was just really, really standard. But I but I have enjoyed. We played snooker last night and we've mentioned this a lot recently. You'll start to realise that we get obsessed with things and we'll do one thing for a while.

7:32 We played a bit of snooker last night. It was really enjoyable. And I know you know, even you last night mentioned it's nice to just have a bit of downtime and it really is. So last night my partner who's also called Lauren, obviously if you've listened as well, you know that she said, oh man, I just need some time. She's like, can I just go? I'm going to snooker. Bye. Yeah, she's like, I just go. Sorry, Lauren, no, you can't. Because she's also a teacher, right? Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I probably should have put that in context, but she was. I just need some, I need some time, especially with a kid as well because obviously she's looking after our our little one a lot of the time. Because she works part time. She yeah, she works part not because. You're an absent father. No, I'm an absent father. I'm doing the I'm sorry, love. I'm busy doing the podcast. All right? I've got 7 episodes to record this week.

8:15 What do 12 takes because I said something wrong. I'm Dylan freaked out. Well, you swore after 10 seconds today. And if we did it edit, edit it out, that would make no sense. But we didn't because we're we're just mad now. Anyway, she was like, can I just go to the shops for a bit? Because I just need some time. I was like, what? It's 7:00 PM, Like everything's closed. She was like, no, just Sainsbury's. OK, You do you. And then when she got back half eight, I was like, Dylan, I want to go play some snooker, but I don't know, you know, let's talk about that for a second. Like switching off in term time. I mean, how important is it? What do you do? I know we do the same. Sort of, yeah. No, no is important. Was your Lauren just quickly? Did she? But did she feel refreshed? Yeah, she did. Yeah, she did. Honestly, just from spending an hour, an hour and a half maybe in Sainsbury's, just without. The whole point was without river. Yeah.

9:00 So it's just baby free time. I can just actually look at the clothes. She wants to look on Christmas pyjamas and that river. Crying. Very screaming to move on or grabbing everything. OK, just go and have a better. Time, I suppose the reason I asked that was because anyone listening, that's a point I wanted to make. It doesn't have to be a flashy thing. No, you don't have to go to the pub. You know, it's nice to go to the pub. That might be one way that you do that and you cordon off your time and you just go and do it. Find what works for you, because what works for me I've found, and I've known this for a long time and I think I've touched upon this previously, what works for me to switch off is doing something that seems just completely innate where it's I'm, I'm playing snooker. Yeah, I'm, I'm and I can really zone in. I'm just thinking where can I hit that ball that hits the other ball that goes in the pocket? It's like solving a problem.

9:45 It's like doing maths. But in that moment I am not thinking about anything outside of the snooker. So me and you might go together, play snooker, play snooker. My other friend as well will go and we will talk about nothing like like genuinely nothing. And that's great because we, we spend a lot of time talking you and I about the state of stuff. It's quite heavy. We do the education on the podcast and all that kind of thing. Do you know what? Sometimes we go snooker and we will chat nonsense and I after half an hour I wouldn't be able to tell someone what we've been. Talking now or we'll be honestly quiet. Yeah. Because. Because most of the time you're just. You're being quite anyway, out of respect and Snooky let the other person play a shot and then you find all that just kind of continuously. And now it's awkward. You just, you're just doing your thing, yeah. It helps switch off and you're really you like you took it really well when I won last night as well. I think that's worth mentioning.

10:27 Like you took it really well and I won 3232 to me, I. Thought you're being. Genuine. I know you can see your face. And I was like, I'm gonna ruin him. I'm gonna ruin like, did I? Yeah. I was just. I was literally doing nothing but trolling. You there? The whole time I was talking about really genuine ways to switch off. You were just like, how can I get an IBM? How can I, how can I get an IBM? Because I beat him. And that isn't gonna help him switch off knowing that he's lost. He's lost. I'm gonna tell him I tell you what makes me feel great. I went home thinking I'm a winner. I'm a winner today, you know, and. But that's what I do to switch off. I will try and find some time and weird and honestly anyone they see. Again, I'm talking to myself from four years ago as well, so don't think I'm being condescending here. Oh my gosh. Please take advantage of the time you have.

11:07 If you're planning on having children at some point, or even if you're not, that's great. And I've got nothing against that. Please be aware of the free time that you do have. Like, yeah, I know, I know education is full of doing extra work and stuff we talk about all the time, but you still do have them Chuck Nuggets of time and Oh my gosh, yeah, make the most of. Them you don't have to, you don't have to. Like I think some people feel like we talked about the last two episodes about teacher Martyrs where we went a bit uninged. I think, you know, I sort of talked about these teachers that maybe don't have certain responsibility. They don't have children, perhaps I don't have other responsibilities, I don't know, whatever it is. And then they sort of think to themselves, well, I've got this free time. I probably should do that extra planning, that extra marking. They almost like convince themselves I've not got those other things to take up my time, so I should.

11:49 No, you don't. You know what? You don't have to have kids to then have to then finally put your foot down exactly and be like, no, I actually can't do this anymore because I literally have a child to look after. No, we just do that anyway. Yeah, it's because it's a job. Yeah, that's the reason why. And when people ask me, did Rory change that because they hear what I'm saying now, I'm not like, oh, you're quite steadfast about this, actually. You're really, really on the ball. Is was it because of Rory? And I go out of my way to say no. Yeah, I was doing in this anyway. Rory might have accelerated it because it it became less of a choice of me choosing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And more necessity. But I was already on this path, and I think everyone should be. And I don't think parents have a monopoly on caring about their free time. No, don't let anyone say that to you. You don't have kids. So what? Your time is just as valuable as my time. Yes, I've chosen to have a child and I'm going to raise that child.

12:35 And that's really important for society. That's true. And I'm happy to say that. And if you don't have children or can't have children, you are still just as valuable to society. Don't let someone saying that about them raising children make you feel less worthful. Worthful, worthwhile, worthwhile because it's just not true. You are just as worthwhile. Your time is just as valuable. You can say no just as much as I can. I don't want to ever rest on the fact that I've got a child as a reason why I'm saying no. No because of Rory. No, no, no, no, because it's my weekend. And that's the same for everyone. I think that's. Powerful. It's a really good point. That's a really good point. And I think I fall into the trap of saying of using river as a bit of a scapegoat, as a bit of a reason to justify. And actually I'm going to try and stop doing that. I'm going to try and start saying no because it's the weekend.

13:15 Not no, because I've got my, you know, oh, it's my kids party this weekend. So I'm not going to get any. No, no, no, no, it's the weekend. What do you stop talking to? Me. Your kids play. The work is honestly no more important than someone going to visit their friend. Yeah. Down in Cumbria, sit down and watch the TV series because it's the weekend. It's your downtime. Yeah, enjoy it. Another nice thing is before we move on. Yeah, because I because I know you see it all the time. And when you send, when you send me messages from Instagram or e-mail where people where you guys write in to us, I just love it. And yesterday I still don't reply to this guy because he we got an e-mail from someone in Australia. And it was so nice to hear that people relate to us. This guy was basically writing and saying, Oh my God, I can relate so much to this podcast, even from around the world, you know, about, about all the stuff we're talking about teaching martyrs and the state of education and. What?

13:58 We even read it, didn't we? Well, you, you read most of it and showed me and I and we said we can't reply yet because we want to give it a really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't want to do it in it like did do a classic like, oh, thanks for writing, Inmate. Yeah, really nice to hear that. Glad you love it. I don't want to do that. I want to prop. I want to have a real conversation with this person. So if you're listening, if you know who you are for some reason, then then I will reply properly. Hopefully I have by now. No, it's nice, but I see it all the time. See it all the time. Comes in on Instagram at TCP Podcast. Guys do follow us. It really, it really does make our day when we get people messaging saying we listen to you. Yeah, someone messaged the other day saying you make my Monday evening dog walk and I'm just like the idea that we are part of a routine for. Something I love that. Where they know Monday's OK, Monday, cool, I'll get through Monday this evening, going to walk the dog, listen to CHT, repeat. And I'm like, Oh my God, that's insane to me. That's the idea that exists.

14:44 Fuels my ego. It does. It does. It makes me want to do this more. It's good, you know, this, this in all honesty. I mean, we're like, what, 88 episodes into this? We did. We're doing this for a laugh still. Yeah. This is just a passion project. We do it for fun. We like talking about stuff. We'd have this chat anyway and we thought why not record it because some people might want to listen as well. So the fact that you guys here giving us love, we absolutely love it. But we still get, we still get, I know I'm just going to trigger you now because you see it and I'm lucky to be away from this, but we still get the odd comment and we're talking like 2% of people. It would just make some crappy comment to us or what was. It well, they fall into two categories, these comments, right? There's one type of comment which is genuinely just hateful. Like just doesn't care.

15:24 It's almost as if they've not listened to the video we posted. It doesn't matter, they just don't let teachers. Cool. Honestly, troll them, ignore them, I'll reply something silly or just be annoying. Right. And the other type are people who understand what they're talking about. But we'll then try and say that we're bad teachers. I'm just like, I think that's worse. Yeah, but if you're just a general troll, you're an idiot. Yeah. I've not even got time. Yeah, exactly. Not even gonna. It's water off, ducks back. Sake comment Reply finally. Whatever. There was someone the other day I did a meme about there's, you know, that one child in your class who still doesn't listen to you after 17 times of explaining to it. Yeah. And someone commented going a whole class doesn't know what you're doing. You must be a bad teacher. And I just replied saying, well, you must have had a bad one because I don't know where you got the whole class from.

16:06 Like it was just it. Just says one child in it. Honestly I was like cool, that's the water off ducks back and similarly someone else the other day but they felt like they were being serious. I did a post from last episode about teacher martyrs and I spoke about how sometimes the solution is saying no because we're obsessed in education. And I think in most walks of life where if you remotely dare to suggest something isn't working, you must have a a way of coming back at it and having. Like an alternative. And I think that's good. And I think we do that a lot on the podcast. We're always looking for a solution. And all I said was though that there is sometimes where no is the answer and the solution is to not do it. So when are you going to get that display done? I'm not. But that that's the solution. Just don't do it.

16:49 And someone commented on that saying Oh well, you'll never get a job with that attitude. Did you see the? Bio where I said that we're two primary school teachers who also have a business on the side and we like there's there's no part of this that we don't work. What are you? Talking about nuts, do you find from your because you chat to a lot of people that there is AI don't know if I'm being really stereotypical here. Is is there a little bit of a disconnect you think between generations like ages of people. Do you find that that people that comment that are normally of that older generation where the culture just it just was different in like the 80s and 90s, it was different, work culture was different. Or is it just random? Is it just? No, do you know what? I'm going to be really, really clear how I word this, OK?

17:30 When we get nice comments, it's from a wide range of ages, a very wide range of ages. There's no one age where I go, oh, it's you. What we get a lot of is a lot of new teachers who just resonate a lot more of what we're saying. That's just because of what we're talking about. But when we get nice comments, it's any age. I've, I've spoken to older, older teachers, middle teachers, younger teachers, really nice. When we get nasty comments, it's one of two things, right? When it's teachers, they're older, right? OK. When when it's teachers, they're older. And they'll say, oh, I've taught for 45 years. It's always been hard workload. What you moaning about? You just got to do it. Do it for the kids. And I don't think they quite understand how times have changed. I don't think they quite understand how much pay has been squeezed. They're sitting in their house they bought for 40 grand when they're on 30 grand in the 80s, OK.

18:12 I don't think they quite get how the difference is now in terms of even if expectation has stayed the same, what we're getting out of it as a society, as a person, as a young person in this country is much less than they were getting out of it. And that builds resentment and that's normal and that's acceptable. They don't accept that. They just say no, you should get on with it. Just get on with it. Do it. Stiff up a lip. You stop being your avocados where your Netflix and just we didn't. Have avocados. Netflix when we were young. Exactly, you also had to spend 10 buttons on a new door. So, you know, give and take. And the other group are younger people who do angry comments. Yeah, who aren't in teaching. Right, OK. OK. And and there's some older ones, but when they're younger and they give hungry comments, it tends to be they're not in teaching. Yeah. And they'll say something along the lines of you sound like a bad teacher.

18:54 I wouldn't want my kids to have you as a teacher. Yeah. And I'm just like, you have not got the slightest clue how much how passionate I am about helping children. Yeah. And how honestly, at this point in my career, good. I am teaching children. Yeah. And what I'm saying on Instagram to a real to my fellow professional that we put out there for people to listen about what teachings like is not what I'm putting out there for my children in an English lesson. No, no. Are you insane? Did you not intelligent enough to separate these two things out where I can complain and say things are broken without then of course, I'm completely shielding my children, my class from that. I'm going to give them the best. Thing, I guess it is nuance, isn't it? People don't know that. People don't understand the nuance and rather than recognising maybe I don't understand the nuance of this and that this has triggered me in some sort of way, but I'll leave it because I probably just don't understand something like profession. This is much more tempting and easy just to be a keep up warrior.

19:42 Yeah, I've been there, done it. I've been the people. Warrior, you've done it in a different. God day done it. Yeah, I go on everyone else's profession. I follow every profession except teaching on Instagram. And I'll come and say, oh, think your job's hard. Do you try teaching race on the bottom, baby, Try this everyone's job. That's all I do. Yeah, it's never. Oh, that's true. It's always. I'm worse than you. Yeah, I've got it worse than you. Teachers always moan. How about your 13 weeks holiday? How about you? Enjoy them, yeah. Do you want to join team? Yeah, come on, do it then. My goodness, right. I think we should move on to the main Barclays episode. I'm looking forward to this because for the first time, and I think the whole history of the podcast, you know more about something than I do. That's that's unbelievable. I don't know. We'll find out. Offset a bit in the news in the last couple of weeks, never out the news it seems but big news with Austed, which is proposals.

20:26 I don't know if they were leaked or if they were kind of released to see what people think or if it was on purpose. But either way we've got an idea of what Ofsted want to do from September 2025. S very, very brief recap Ofsted for a long time are facing pressure because they were just too draconian and and instilling fear in schools and not seen as useful from educators and unions were saying this needs to change. The general election happened and it seemed like lots of things moved quite quickly, especially with the incident of Ruth Perry. And I feel like in the last couple of years it was like, OK, we're going to move towards reforming Ofsted. Everyone thought that was great. People trust that it was going to happen. I'm not sure, but we're moving towards, OK, we're going to do that. And the old met the old way. We're going to more detail in a second. They brought in some immediate changes. So Labour said no, no, we're going to change this right now from September 24 because this needs action right now. Yeah.

21:16 And then they were basically given from September 24 to September 25 to come up with a whole new framework of how Ofsted works. Yeah. So that's where we're at at a minute. And what's just happened is we're in in the moment. We're in the interim kind of period of some changes of having to Ofsted, others haven't. And what's been leaked is what the plans are for the future. And, and it feels like it's sparked a lot of controversy, a lot of uproar. So I'm going to throw over to you because you've done a lot of research on this. I think before we get into what the new system that's being proposed is and whether it's good or bad or whatever our opinions are, let's just clarify very quickly for people. Then this kind of three-step process I'm seeing with Ofsted, which is the old method, Labour come in and say we're going to get rid of stuff straight away.

21:58 So the interim method and then we'll maybe we'll dive into what the changes will actually be. That sounds good. So Ofsted traditionally so last few years before September this year, What did an offset inspection look like? Yeah, let's just go the big bits, especially the bits that people had a problem with, right. So Ofsted traditionally for all of my career and longer has been this, this force of driving standards up, which is what they say, OK, however that their system involves, it's a one more grading system essentially. This is what people have a real big problem with is the fact that a school is judged after the whole Ofsted procedures happened and they get one word and it's not even a massive scale. It's not like there's 1010 points on this scale and there's like, oh, you're somewhere in this. It's literally just basically you have a good amazing all your crap. And that's what they did. They came into schools and did that.

22:39 And obviously that you spoke about Ruth Perry, that is the perfect example of how that system was so flawed and just absolutely decimated schools over potentially 1 area that needed improvement in school and everyone else working hard. They've got this one word grading. Oh, we've all worked so hard, don't we? They said English was really good and I'm the English lead. Your school, though, requires improvement, right? Oh, OK. Brilliant. So that that that was the old system. You didn't know when they were coming. Yeah. So another huge factor of stress was you. Honestly, I remember because we went through the Ofsted procedure not long ago, head teachers would just wait every day just thinking, we know we're in the Ofsted window because it's been X amount of years and all that school up the road has been ofsteaded. And normally we get Ofsted after them every day waiting till 12:00 thinking oh, is that phone going to ring?

23:20 Is that phone going to ring? Is that phone going to ring? Because I'll tell you what, because they got, because when they ring, they come in the next day, you get no time to prep whatsoever. So that was another huge, huge problem. And just I guess, summarising the system, there were different types of inspections. I'm not going to go into the details of what they are. You just need to know that they were full inspections and there were other inspections for schools where they basically just come in and check that to see if you're still the same grading. That was a different type of inspection to a full one. But yeah, there were different types of inspections. Inspectors would come in a team, it could be one person, could be 6 people depending on the size of your school. They come in, they scrutinise certain areas, they deep dive. So again, not always been like that, but in the last couple of years they've had a deep dive system where they'd come in and say, we're going to look at this subject and this subject and we are, we are going to literally deep dive into it. And we're going to look at every possible aspect of that subject in your school and like really, really scrutinise deep. And if you're the geography lead in a, in a, we will still do geography.

24:13 You're geography lead in a primary school. You're sat there thinking like sweating thing. Oh God, I've not been paid anything for this. I don't, I've had absolutely no time out to to do this. And they're going to come in and scrutinise every single element of geography in my primary school. Very stressful. Very. Stressful. So hopefully I got across that idea of stress from the old system. That the what you've summarised really well there, just to jump in is, is why schools, particular educators were not happy with the current system. You can see why the government might have been happy with it, the the parents might have been happy with it. I had a message this week from one of my close friends whose child is starting school the next couple of years. And he sent me a couple of websites from different schools in the area. And he said to me, because he listens to the podcast and and this was really interesting because I thought, oh, OK, this is something we need to think about.

24:55 He said to me, hey, pick in between these two schools. How would you do it if I wasn't looking at the Ofsted of a sport? So his point was, as an educators, we say, guys, there's nuance here. You can't just look at the one word. You can't just look at that school's outstanding. That school's good. It doesn't necessarily tell you the whole picture, but it really opened my eyes to thinking, okay, if you're not in this industry, though, perhaps that system has got a little bit of an ounce of defence to it because a parent can look at it and very quickly go, well, I want to get into the outstanding school. Yeah, Now, I, I don't get me wrong, I, I had a whole conversation with him about whether that's the right thing to do or not, what might be good, what might be bad. But the point being that this system was well known by parents as well. And when educators come along and say, no, no, no, it's too simple.

25:40 We need to change all of this. I can kind of see why some people might be like, oh, I, I get your concerns, but like, OK, So what do I do otherwise? Then yeah, yeah, yeah. It's extremely easy to have the old system. Like, you know, what's more simple than one word genuinely for parents. So I get it, you know, I can see why that's desirable. But but like you said, equally, you know, with your friend, luckily was you know, I guess maybe if we listen to this or just knowing you in general was knowledgeable enough to be like, OK, this is probably not that. You know, everything. I should base this off, but yeah, you know, Ofsted in, you know, we've said it in long ago in episode it. There should it should be a system where parents actually, rather than just having one word, they can actually they're guided towards the things they should think about. Your friend didn't know what to look at. Yeah. And you probably said, well, maybe go in and look at the provision. Maybe, you know, maybe, OK, maybe think about your child specifically.

26:26 Yeah, Yeah, I think what do they need and go and see if the school does that. Sure. Because I tell you what, they'll be outstanding schools that will absolutely not meet the needs of your specific child. And there'll be good schools that definitely do. But they didn't take all the boxes. They didn't get outstanding and so it's like we spoke before, it was like Carwyn Ofsted needs a we need a way for parents to get the proper information. So true, and the information parents need is sometimes different to what educators want. So for example, my first thought of that was I'll say something about, oh, we'll see what teacher retention is like. That's usually a good indication. And and for people wanting to work there, if I wanted to get a job, that's one of the first things I'd look at. It's probably not the first thing I'd look at as a parent though, if I was just a parent looking at a school. I know some schools right, where staff turnover is not good, but the children get an excellent deal and and there is a disconnect there.

27:11 And I'm just saying if it's just a parent's point of view, not trying to fix education, he's just seeing what, what school to send his kid to that not necessarily the same. So there is nuance here. It's tricky. That's why we want something a bit more, I don't know, detailed, let's say we're going to change the system, but the, the main driving force to go back to what you said, everything you just summarised about the old system was that for educators, it was unbelievably stressful. There was an unknown tool, you had a lucky dip almost of inspectors in terms of whoever you got honestly, you I've spoken to schools who had inspectors who are maths specialists and as a maths lead you could say to them, well, we do this, this and this. The maths specialist inspector kind of just gets that and says, oh, I understand, that's excellent, sounds great. They'll get another inspector in a different school who I've spoken to where the Chief Inspector, there is nothing to do with maths, maybe an English specialist as a maths lead. They were saying we do this, this and this, and the inspector kind of was like, oh, I'm going to need to see some evidence of that.

28:02 Where can I see the book? So I don't understand what you mean. Or I've been given this framework and I don't know if that matches up when actually what they're doing is fine. Yeah. So that kind of lucky different inspectors as well was a big thing. Yeah. Yeah. So thinking about what offset was like. Yeah, obviously Labour win the general election, a big thing for Labour. Labour always are trying to portray themselves as huge in education on the side of teachers. Most teachers vote for Labour, so they've got a vested interest in keeping that core community happy with them. So Labour very quickly said, OK, we're going to change some stuff immediately. Yeah, on the top down. What? What did they change then? As of September this year, because there'll be some people who've have Ofsted, he'll be thinking this is pretty much the same. What do you mean? I don't know it, you know what it will, it will feel that it will feel mostly the same because what they changed was was the easier things they could change quickly.

28:46 They scrapped the one word gradings right straight away. So there's no day. Because I heard we still got one word gradings right? Like. There's no overall grading, right? OK, There's no overall grading. So the school like you know, the banners where people put Ask School is outstanding. They scrapped the overall grades. They still look at the area. So the key that there are four areas that Ofsted have traditionally you like looked at into at your school. And that's not changed, Yeah. That's not changed. And those four areas would then kind of amount to this overall grading where like, you know, somewhat tangibly to this overall. So they've scrapped the overall grading. So they but they will still go into your school and grade you on the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management, though they're the four areas that are that pre existed with Ofsted still currently exist in this interim.

29:30 They just won't at the end of it say so. Therefore, your school is good all right. That sounds like a good thing. That sounds like a good thing because you're still grading areas, which we all agree we kind of need to do, right? And maybe not officially grade them, but we need to know areas going on. Yeah, but we don't then say, okay, so let's say we got good, good, good, outstanding. The school would be good. Yeah, right. It might be very easy to lose the fact that quality of education at that school is outstanding. Exactly. And as a parent, you might love the idea of okay, but the education, Oh my gosh, my kids gonna get the best education ever. And the behaviour is outstanding as well. Let's just say, yeah, but the leadership of management is good. The personal development is good. OK well, as my as a father of a child, behaviour and learning is outstanding, though, even though the school's good.

30:12 Yeah yeah, yeah. And and that, that kind of level of nuance, I think is an improvement. I agree. I. Think it's a step in the right direction. I think it just, you think there's going to be a certain percentage of parents who even if that was on the report card originally, which it was, and often if you really look at the report, you would have seen those things underneath the overall grading. It just there, There would have been a lot of parents who only look at the overall grading though and stop there. And actually now it's like, well, no one can do that. And now you have to look at the four areas and you, you are automatically getting a slightly better understanding of that. School and when, when you move house, I know we've both gone through the process of moving house. We moved house knowing that Rory was on the way. So it became a thing just to look at school catchment. Never before we even considered it. And when you move house and you're on that right move or Zoopla and stuff, it will list education because it knows it's a big thing.

30:57 But it only says school grading. So say, oh, God, I'm going to move to this area because there are two outstanding schools there. Oh, that that area has three good schools. So we we want to move to this area here. It would affect house prices. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? In five years, it could flip. Yeah. It could change. And it became so important and it's malleable and people forget that. You know, you could you could have the idea now with Rory. He's just turn one. Yeah. We might have an idea in our heads now. Oh, we want to send it to this school. Four years is a long time in school and. And, you know, you can't plan that far ahead. And one word, gradings perpetuate this myth that there are outstanding schools. There are good schools. That's better. That's worse. Yeah. I agree. I think that's a really, really good point. So also in this interim system, so that was the only that was like the biggest change was they they just immediately scrapped those overall gradings because that was like the big thing the label were like, we're going to do this. You know, they got a lot of votes from that, I reckon, but other things they did.

31:48 So there's another thing called ungraded inspections and I was kind of getting on to early like the different types of inspections. This is one of them. An ungraded inspection is when when officer come in to a school and it's not a full inspection. Maybe seven years ago, your school got good and they're just coming in basically to check that you're still at that level. So this is this is specifically for schools who are outstanding or good. Outstanding or good. Yeah. And they come in to see if you're still at that level, if they feel for any reason you're not. This is what we had. This is why I know about this, because we had this. If they feel for any reason your school is no longer that grading because it's even better or they think it's worth then then it will trigger one of those full inspections. So for ungraded inspections there's a few more things I'll whiz through. No more deep dives effective immediately. They're just looking at subjects more in general. So no more deep dives. Great stress off of.

32:29 That so if your school's already good or outstanding, you no longer need to worry about the fact they might come in deep dive geography even though you're just being given geography, then you got nothing. To do exactly, they're still, they're not going to not look at any subjects, but they're not going to be like, where are you looking at geography today? Like in so much. And it was very much like here's 2 subjects out of nine and we're only going to look at these history of maths. Yeah, that's what it was, history. And they absolutely spend the entire time looking at those two subjects. So no more deep dives. Yeah, same sort of point. They're not honing in on one subject. They'll look at groups of subjects. And so, OK, let's look at the foundation subjects in your school. And I'll get all the subject leaders in one room. It's less interrogative. Interrogative and more collaborative. Yeah, that's a good thing again, I think. Here's my favourite 1 Genuine Genuinely my complete favourite. Even more than the ungraded overall system, this is the to me is the fact that they notify schools on the first day of the week. Right.

33:14 So I know not pretty, it's not a huge change, but it's, but to me, I'm like, at least there's if you get inspected on Friday, you'll find out on the Monday. You know, it's just the, the, the idea that head teachers were stressing at five days a week, yeah, waiting for a phone call till 12:00 every single morning, yeah, was just horrendous. Now at least it's like, okay, look by Monday at midday, let's say I don't if it is midday anymore, but by Monday, the end of the Monday, you'll know where not been. That's that week. You know, four more days at least that you can be like. Because the argument is still, if you know exactly when they're coming two months in advance, you play the game and look, and you know what, I kind of get that argument. I don't think schools would do that. We don't have the resources to do. I don't think that happen. But even if that is your argument, at least this kind of it, it still allows for an element of surprise in that exactly this week, but it does it's it's reduced honestly by 80% the stress because you're not waking up every morning. Anyone and anyone that thinks that a school can play the game honestly, even in a in a week or two weeks, You, you have not, you haven't.

34:07 You don't know about education. No, that's as simple as that. You can get your ducks in a row, but you can't pretend things are happening when they're not because they talk to the kids. And you know what the kids always tell you? Yeah. It's such a complex system in a school, it's just impossible to do that. Yeah, if it could, after what? After the model would be we come in for a week and you sort your whole school out because if you could do it in a week they would. They'd come. And do it. I like there's one thing they do now with safeguarding in terms of the no, but this jumped out at me as well. If the only downside is safeguarding and it's not a really serious safeguarding event, but if the only downside is safeguarding, like maybe you're fighting things slightly. Wrong. That's a classic. One isn't it? That's a classic one where schools get really caught up in it. And because it used to be right, safeguarding, that's an issue. No whole school, no needs improvement. And it's like, Oh my God, I just filed this under the wrong like subcategory and it wasn't put in exactly the right place.

34:51 Needs to be fixed, yes. Worse, the whole school going into requires improvement and having a flag probably not. So it depending on the severity. Of course, what they do now is they'll say, look, OK, we'll have like an interim of two to three weeks, sort it out, we'll come back, we'll check it, and then we'll take it off. Rather than this whole Cliff edge of if anything's remotely wrong with safeguarding ever, your whole school kind of shuts down. That level of nuance I think is good. Don't get me wrong, safeguarding is the most important thing. But when it's small things like that, clerical issues almost, yeah, give the school a week or two just to fix it because then, you know, it's not a problem anymore. You know no children are in danger and you can move on from. There quite like that one because in the old system that, you know, there was a possibility of being like quality of education at this school, outstanding, unbelievably good behaviour and attitudes, outstanding at this school, personal development, really outstanding.

35:37 Leadership management also outstanding. We're going to give it good actually, because safeguarding, you're using a really outdated system and it just wasn't logged properly. So the whole school requires improvement. Yeah, yeah. It was just like, ah, yeah, exactly. So there's a bit of a bit of leeway now for schools to fix those smaller things, which I which I really like. But the big thing here then we've kind of established what Ofsted was, how it changed immediately, where we are right now this second, if you've got an Ofsted call as of recording, it will be this interim version where it's a bit more stripped back. The reason that we have this interim version though, and the word interim is being used is because the whole idea was that we're going to move to a new system completely. A report card system was touted as the way to explain it. And I know you've done a lot of reading on this and this is what came out in the news in the last week or two. We're going to move to this in September 2025. We're thinking of doing this and there was from what I saw pretty unanimous push back that it's insane. So Hayden, I'm going to pass it over to you now. Can you explain what's going on?

36:33 Where are we at? What's going on? What's? I'd like to get your raw opinions. Yes, please do, because I've not read much about it purposely knowing you did a lot of research and to get kind of immediate thoughts here. OK. Where do I start? All right. So obviously, we've scrapped the gradings. Let's have that as our context. We've scrapped these overall gradings already in the interim period. And then obviously that those overall gradings are not coming back, OK. However, there are there is going to be a new grading system. And let me explain what it is because it will sound like the wrong thing before I get to the end. There is going to be a new grading system, OK, across 10 key areas in a school. So before we had those four key areas that I mentioned where they were kind of greater than that called sort of like amounted to a overall grading. Now they're saying look, no overall grading. And we like the idea of giving parents a bit more detail about specific things in a school.

37:20 So we agree that's a good idea. So here are 10 areas we're going to look at in a school. So quite a lot more and we are going to grade them, but obviously we don't want to use that old grading system. So we've got this much better completely changed grading system. So each of the 10 areas, and I will go over what the 10 areas are in a minute will be graded as one of the five following points and that colour coded as well. Just, you know, just for all of us teachers who love colour coding things. So at the top grade. Is it greater depth? I wish it were. I genuinely just wish they used the same for the kids. Just sort. Of just yeah, great depth expected. So expected work towards no work. Towards below. Yeah, literally it could have been it. It basically is. It's just buffer words.

38:00 I mean, you'll laugh when you hear them so. They got rid of outstanding they got. Rid of outstanding. They got rid of outstanding, a stupid word. We don't want to we don't want to grade things on that and they now we can get exemplary. So joke, isn't it? No, it's real. But don't worry, I didn't. Cause it's purple. It's not a number anymore. It's not like 5 or 4. It's now purple. Because no, because no, because numbers in, you know, numbers aren't good. Because people can compare numbers. They feel bad when there are one or five. So now it's purple. You can't compare colours, so again, I'm gonna stress this. This is in the 10 areas. Each of these 10 areas are relevant so you can be exemplary in perfect. Right. So that that that is the most egregious example of changing something because for the sake of saying you've changed.

38:42 It I don't ever see it though. So remember, just just for again, non teachers, the old system outstanding, good, good, adequate, adequate, satisfactory, satisfactory. And then it was like requires improvement, right. So, OK, so we've got exemplary at the top, followed by in in a nice green right, strong practise, OK. Not one word. Not one word. We don't. Do what we us labour. We don't do one word. System popping exception not. That one strong practise. Then in lime green, they've really thought, no, they've really thought about this. Listen, they've really thought about this colour system, didn't they? Stop taking the minute they really, they really thought about this system. OK, Then in lime green, because you're not quite green, you're not really green, right? It's secure. So I don't know what you think. I do find it interesting that they take they've split good and outstanding has now become three. So it's like exemplary, then strong practise, then teach. You like this?

39:30 More chances to be good. The lovely. Exactly more more things to work up. Yeah, more, more ladder runs and then. In the colour sorry I used to slightly lighter green. I wish, yeah, slightly less green, all that yellow. So the next one's yellow. Yellow. Is attention needed? Not really. Improved. It requires, not requires improvement, Dylan. It's attention needed. What do you mean? Like Labour on Tories, mate, They're not the Tories, all right? They wouldn't do the same thing. Attention needed. And then Joe, is this a parody? No, OK, this is real. And then down at the bottom 5th grade and the lowest one in red. Requires improvement used to be causing concern. Oh my. God, yeah.

40:11 So. I can I give you my my immediate feedback for that. That makes a mockery of the the idea that outstanding good and stuff weren't weren't good enough. So on its own right right now, I would say, are you joking? Now what I'm hoping is going to happen because I'm trying to be balanced here, because that's just funny to me. The idea that they've replaced outstanding to exemplary. We've got to find that funny. That's hilarious. Like what on earth's going on? What I'm hoping has happened then, because we've not got the overall grade. I'm hoping that what they're thinking with this at least is we can get more detail and just be more accurate for people outside of education looking at the card like we just talked about the parents, I don't really see, and we'll see what you say with more detail, how this makes the whole process less stressful for staff.

40:59 If anything, this seems more stressful because we've now got 10 areas that were judged against and five boxes to go in with colours. Like the idea of a school then instead of saying OK leadership, management behaviour, OK education, the the idea we've got 10 things to look at and now they all need to not be the lowest thing. It feels immediately like this is more stressful for staff and educators, but maybe better for parents. That's my guidance thing. Right now, yeah, I, I really think Ofsted we're going just my opinions after reading all this stuff and and also listening to other people. I've seen a lot of people talk about it and I really wanted to form my own opinion, right. I don't want to just jump on the bandwagon of, oh, anything, anything off to do with crap because which is realistically what a lot of people do, like anything the government do is terrible.

41:41 My, my gut reaction is I think they were really focused on, and maybe rightfully so, the idea that the one word overall judgement was the problem, not this idea that obviously we look at areas of the school. And, and then my next thought was, OK, well, if they didn't, if they didn't have something, whether it's a colour system or a word system, that means. Or a number system. Or if they didn't have anything genuinely, how how is the average Joe parent and teacher maybe supposed to look at be able to look at an offset report and like very clearly understand, yeah, the strength and weaknesses of that school. Yeah, I don't know because because I know one of one of my arguments from before like a long time ago was scrap gradients completely and just literally write a paragraph. Like, like, you know, when you're secondary school, we were there and you just, I don't know what it was like, but my teacher would they just write a little paragraph. Yeah.

42:30 But you know what, at the top, they just have the grade. It's true. They have the effort to the attainment. Yeah, yeah. But they always have an overall thing. You're right, give both, right. But I agree, I don't actually think there should be no gradings at all ever. Yeah, I don't think that. Yeah, I think, I think Ofsted could improve in how they do it and how consistent they are and how how thoughtful they are and put into account the whole thing that we'll talk about later in terms of, you know, schools are broken like so it's hard to meet all of these things at once and it's not necessarily always the school's. Fault. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, you've got to judge stuff, right? So I'm, I'm interested now. Then you mentioned we've moved from 4 things to 10. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That really interests me because it feels like there's more opportunity for me to be able to say why are we judging that or Oh yeah, definitely. That's really important.

43:11 Let me tell you the 10 areas and if you want to stop me at any point, talk about it just. Just stop it. Do all 10 go on? I'd say what I'm going to do just one more time so I get really clear so we can compare. The four original ones were quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management. So in my were the original 4. What I'm thinking is going to happen here is we could probably place all 10 into those four. That's kind of what I'm thinking as well, because a lot of them were too, weren't they? Leadership and management behaviour and attitude and attitudes. Yeah, OK, right. So here are the new 10. Just stop me as and when so very #1 curriculum. OK, John, I'm going to do every time I'm going to say whether I think that's a good thing to judge or not. Curriculum, yes, I'm, I'm OK with that. Teaching, honestly, I don't think that's bad to be graded. However, I think it could be a massive problem. Why?

43:55 If done incorrectly, we say it all the time. Now we look at we look at observations now, if they're done incorrectly in a way that makes teachers feel awful instead of supporting them, it's not good. And it's quite normal now for observations to not be graded in school when it's not Ofsted. Yeah, OK. I like that now because it's more about support and help. Yeah. Yeah. OK. At the end of the day, do parents or should parents know what the quality of teaching is like in a school? Yeah, yes, that's just quality of education. Is this the way to do it? Maybe not. And that that's I'm agreeing. I'm saying here this could be a problem. Yeah. OK. It's not like curriculum where I'm like, OK, is the curriculum good enough? Is it covering the curriculum? Is it wide? Is it arranged? OK, Yeah, Cool, cool. Yeah, teaching, yeah, very quickly changes as well. You get an Ofsted inspection in 2020, there could be turnover 50% within two years.

44:42 What's to say teaching is just as good that we're individuals that so it's not it's not necessarily going to be very helpful. I think it opens the door back to what people really hated and and genuinely was proven just not useful, which is observations of teachers. Yeah, unlike understand you're. Right. Do you know what's going to happen now? If this comes in? There'll be observations. There'll be trust saying, OK, observations will come back. You're gonna get colour every time we do an observation. You're you're a purple teacher. You're a green teacher or a lime teacher. You're a yellow. That's what it was when we started, Yeah. And it was toxic as hell. OK, so I was. So toxic. I, I, I am very worried about that. Yeah, me too. I'm genuine, genuinely. I can see why the government were like, obviously, obviously in education we should we should check the teaching is alright. But I think they're playing a dangerous game, opening up Pandora's box there with oh.

45:23 Yeah, I've gone from being out teachers to very unsure about it now. Me too. Me too. Next one. Next one's safeguarding. Absolutely. Obviously obvious one next one achievement. Depends what it means, because again, depending on area, post code you know what's your catchment like? What's achievement to you is achievement. Simply achieving, you know, expected standard across the board in SATS for English reading. Is achievement more holistic than that? Well, if it is, then how do you measure achievement in? History I'm going to give a benefit of doubt and and I'm going to assume from the fact that that my next word isn't one of the other ones. I think it's about going to be about progress. I was just thinking that because, because I feel like no one's going to not think about progress. And if I wanted them to be separate, I'd have them a separate, I'd have achievement, then I'd have like progress data, like separate things.

46:05 So I, I, I'm going to give them a benefit of doubt and hope that when they say achievement, what they mean is they're going to go into schools, look at children's starting points, look at children's finishing points and measure their progress. And that's another thing. Right. That's. I think that's completely fair. I actually think that is exactly what that's what we do with. That's what key stage tests are for. That's what the whole thing about school is about. That's all we think about. Yeah. How can we get children from A to B? Yeah. And are they on track? And if they're not, we need to identify. I think it's a really, you know, when we have people progress meetings, that's what doing all the time. We're saying, oh, hang on a minute, this child came in at key stage one at greater depth and now they're, you know, looking from our tests, they're at working towards like what what's happened? Is it an external factor? Is it something we've done? What can we do? That's a good conversation. We're judging all the time. Why not have a general? Judgement, but if they're going to come in and look at SAS data. Right, this is what I mean.

46:46 And just say you're above or below the national. That's exactly it then. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible like that. Yeah, yeah. Next one. Agreed. So we're four in curriculum, teaching, safeguarding, achievement. Next 1 #5 leadership. Yeah, very important. Yeah. Again, I can imagine this puts a lot of stress, though. I'm a teacher, right, who just saw teaching and went, oh, that's a lot of stress for teachers. You know, it might be observation, blah, blah, blah, be really bad for leadership. Top down the same kind of vibe of leadership. Like could a leader sit here and go, oh, that's really stressful for me, It's not really going to be very helpful, blah, blah, blah. In a way, yes, but you don't also have the teachers are lower down on the rung and things can be put on them. Pressure, pressure, pressure all the time because of us, they're doing this thing. Who's going to put lots of pressure on leadership? Maybe themselves. True. The governors, maybe?

47:28 Can I tell you why I strongly disagree that it's nothing to do like teaching? Yeah, Is because for teaching, to me, the the the red flag of teaching is they're gonna come in and observe you for 40 minutes in a lesson and judge everything on that. So leadership, what they gonna do? Come in and and and watch you deliver a meeting for 30 minutes and judge the whole of your leadership on that. Yeah, that's the problem. Or talk to staff. Yeah, but those sort of things, do you know what if they come in and if they if teaching, if what they mean by teaching is they're going to come in and just actually look at the the provision that's that across your school. They're not actually going to come and watch your individual lesson and grade you as a teacher. But that's curriculum, isn't it? I know this is the problem. This is why I don't think this right. But if they came in and they were just looking at curriculum and teaching kind of together and it was like, what training is there for teaching? But I guess I'll come into leadership. This is where I'm struggling to defend it, but the idea for leadership for me is they're going to come in and they're just going to look at what training you putting in for your school, like how you managing staff, how you managing turnover do. You have that folder with the tick box saying you offered well-being yoga classes to all your stuff he did. It was great leadership.

48:24 Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I reckon that will still be a thing. Maybe I do. I still do this thing. I think it's impossible to get rid of tip box exercises because they're easy to show. As a leader, have you put out an anonymous questionnaire where you ask staff to say what they think about the school and be as honest as possible? Or when anyone is honest, you've asked them to do it again because it's not exactly what you want to hear and you've called them in. You made their life hell. You did great leadership. Great leadership. Brilliant. No next one. Anyway, OK, leisure. Next one is called behaviour and values. I think that's good. That's something you can control. Again, doesn't mean walk into a school of bad behaviour, say bad, awful behaviour, worse behaviour in that school. Therefore this behaviour is just bad. It's not. Simple as that. Yeah, ignoring catchment. Yeah, yeah, Behaviour is all about catchment. Behaviour is all about. I like how they put values in there. It sounds like OK, your behaviour might be might be a bit on the bad side in terms of there's a lot of behaviour problems, but your values are amazing, you're upholding standards and the behaviour in this school is much better than it would have been had you not done.

49:14 Exactly, that's the right way to do it is what does your school have in place? It's not about necessarily the outcome only obviously that can be different. You can't identify it. Yeah, but it's like if you look at two schools, one's got a behaviour system and one literally doesn't even have one because I don't really care about the outcome. Obviously the one that has a behaviour system is probably doing a better job at least trying to have values in their school. Yeah, because do you know what part of that is? People look at it and go, well, that's not the school, No, it's not like behaviour a lot of the time isn't the score. Some of it is though. Yeah, some of it is. And you know what? Let's just have a bit of nuance, and if that's done right, it could be good. Yeah, I agree. Next one attendance. Do you know what this is One I knew because this is the big one that I saw online. I, I, I please correct me if I'm wrong. Please, please write in if you have a really solid argument against what I'm about to say.

50:00 But this seems insane. Like I I don't understand how a school can be judged on the attendance of children. OK, I know there could be nuance. Again, I know that some children might not want to attend school because their provisions aren't being met because the school aren't doing it in an appropriate way. I know that attendance might be a problem if the school Willy nilly sends children home when they're just feeling a little bit off. I know that there are some things schools can do better for attendance, but the vast majority of the issue of attendance is nothing to do with schools. It's to do with, you know, socio economic factors of of families. It's to do with their work schedules at home. It's to do with their attitudes towards education. It's to do with the family values in general. COVID.

50:43 It's to do with COVID seriously, exactly that. It's to do with just, you know, anxiety around going into school. It's to do with so much stuff. We did a whole episode on the on the absence crisis and I just think you've got poor absence in a school when you're doing everything you can. This needs to be still be you're able to get strong practise. And you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to put myself on a, on a limb here and say, I think that's what it's going to be. I think I really just hope maybe it's the word. I hope that you, I think you summarise that perfectly well. There are things schools can do, schools can make an impact to attendance. And I think, I hope they just mean we're just going to come in and make sure you're doing all that you can do within your bank. We know there are extreme external factors, but you know what, 20% of it, it is down to the school and we just want to make sure that you're you're putting your fair share in that 20%.

51:33 The ultimate way that this could be tested very quickly is to look at attendance figures and see if it completely correlates to the grass they're going to get. So it's if it turns out that exemplary is 98% plus, yeah, strong practise is 96% plus, secure is 94% plus attention needed, 9290 or less is causing concern, then I'm like, cool, no point doing that. Yeah, no. Broken system, Yeah, that there should be. I should be able to look at off the reports in a couple years time and see schools with 82 percent attendance that are still getting like exemplary precisely. And I look at a school that has 94% attendance and it's and it's not secure whatever exactly that that should be what? They're not chasing up there. Exactly. They're saying can are you doing all you can as a school? We're not going to judge on the fact that you live in a different era. And you know what?

52:14 These parents just don't want to don't want to take their kids to school. Hope so. I hope so. I'm being I've been trying to be positive because people have been very negative about this. I'm trying to see a potential way that it could actually work. Next one preparation for next steps. Yeah, that seems vague to me. I've not heard this. Yeah, I don't really know what it means does. It does it mean, you know, as a school, it's very clear you've got an idea of what you're doing badly, not badly necessarily, but what, you know, your next steps are. For example, I know in our school I could sit down and list the three things we're focusing on. Yeah, maybe this is to do with the school improvement. Yeah. You know, as a school you're like, actually, do you know what? This cohort of children are well, well behind in this pupil premium children are really not getting a good deal with this, and that's what we're focusing on. Is it about the clarity of that? Is it that staff know that?

52:55 Good thing if so. Do you know what I did read in an article and it probably is linked to this. I think you're right because I can't think of anything else that's linked to. I did read an article like a quote from Ofsted or the government or whatever it was talking about the idea they want to put more like more stress on that idea that the the plan for the school is a really important part of the inspection. Like it doesn't have to be perfect now. Brilliant. They really, they were, they were saying actively like it's not a, it's not a perfect performance on a date, but if, if there's loads of areas for of weakness, we just want to see that you've got a good plan on how you're going to tackle. It, I think that would massively reduce stress if we can, if we can get that into the heads of people who run schools, if we can get. Yeah, it doesn't need to be perfect. You don't need to have heard that. Ofsted went to a school down the road and said in their report that they loved the way that they did their morning provision when they walked in, they they offered breakfast in the morning or something.

53:43 And then they did some times tables before they went off. OK. If Offset have said that's good for them, also means that Ofsted are probably, if this new system is what we think it is, have said, but these other areas aren't as strong. OK. But that's not going to be in a headline report. And schools wouldn't have seen that. And other schools might be doing those next steps really well. Yeah. And instead what happens is schools see the top line. That was really good. Oh my gosh, need to do it right now. Yeah. Yeah. No, you don't because you're doing other stuff really well that that school wasn't. So what you need to understand is you know what you're doing well already and you have next steps. It doesn't mean you need to jump on the bandwagon. Change it immediately. Well, let's reflect on our experience for a second. Our school, we did panic. Of course we panic. It's the old system for a start. We were extremely stressed when we knew after becoming extremely stressed and we are, our school is good at identifying areas that need improving.

54:29 Definitely that's what our school is good at. And we identified that our foundation subjects in the afternoon, they were just getting a bit outdated. I guess it's the same sort of system for a while. And it wasn't the curriculum properly anymore. There's been a few changes. We had an update, a few things. It was like, you know what, we need to really revitalise our afternoon curriculum. And what happened was I'm just being deadly honest here is we rushed it and we put we had we put in so much work because we were obsessed with the idea that when officer come in, it needs to already be perfect. And I like the idea that if I could go back in time and it was this new system that there is like it's really clear that do you know what? No, no, no, no, they'll be happy with our really good plan, that really good plan we've made. We don't need to rush to do three years of workload in one year. Let's let's just show them the plan and they'll be really content, just as content with that as if they would be as if we'd already done the plan like that was to me, that would have taken so much stress on.

55:18 Yeah, the only thing is don't have a plan for everything and have nothing working. But then, but then this is what I mean when I say you can't fake ofsteds, right? Because you come into our school cool foundation subjects were like that. English was like down the road of like we've done all this extra stuff, we've done this, that maths was in a really secure place. You know, if Ofsted, they said we're coming next month, we couldn't have got maths into a really secure place. As well as. Impossible. It would just be like, oh, we've all got a plan for everything. Is that OK? It's like on Dragons Den, when they come in and they say, you know, like they'll pitch their amazing product, right? And the Dragons will be like, oh, I don't think that works. I mean, we should maybe change this or change that. And all of a sudden the investors go, yeah, yeah, there's scope to change that stuff, The scope to change stuff. We can change stuff definitely. It's like doesn't really work at that point because you already weren't going to do it.

56:01 If they come in and said we've got this, here's our plan to change this because we've identified that's bad. It's a much more sound investment. Same for a score. If an offset inspector comes in and then go, do you know what? We're really proud of XYZ. We understand this isn't great. We haven't had the resources, obviously, as you know, because we don't have the resources to do everything at once. But we know this is what we need to do with that and we've got a team of people working on that as. Well, and here's our really, really thought out precise plan. Yeah, so we've not faded because you can't do that in a few days. Here's our really, really, really, really precise plan. All of the justifications. Right, let's fix the last few. OK. So the last there's we've got 2 left, next one opportunities. OK. I assume maybe that's for like enrichment or maybe trips or something, I don't know. Well, listen. I'll tell you what, I'm going to the next one as well because we think they're very linked.

56:43 The next one is called inclusion and belonging. I think that's lovely so. Opportunities, inclusion and belonging. Yeah, To me, opportunities, I don't know. Again, I'm hearing this for the first time. If that's to do with like, you know, opportunities for like a wide curriculum, seeing like visitors going on trips and stuff. Do you know what? Fantastic. We need more funding for it though. Don't judge schools on the fact we can't provide those opportunities because we might not have the teacher who happens to be an expert in something. We don't have a forest school out in the back or we don't have things local that we can go to. Just just like a bit of nuance. Again, inclusion and belonging really important. I think that comes honestly with paver and values. To me, there's under one umbrella, yeah, of the way you act, the way you carry yourself, the way you belong in an area. You're you're part of the school building. It's inclusive.

57:23 Everyone's part, everyone's equal, the values you have. And that even like, you know, Sen. Yeah, you know. Our children with particular learning needs included and less is probably appropriately, but again, it comes with funding both of those things. To me, I'm like, if you want to see that do being done really well, we need to stop pretending that we are, that we can do it now because we can't. It's impossible. We can have the right attitudes, we can do the right things, we can say the right things, but we can we can't literally fund these opportunities and things if we don't have the actual. We can try. So I would say looking at those 10 things, you know, I'm trying to, I'm trying not to jump on the bandwagon again. I'm just, oh, this is ridiculous. I feel like to me, it's almost as if we've gone from the old system, had a lot of issues with educators, and it was we were saying it's overly simplified.

58:07 Yeah, it feels like this is quite intensely more complicated, like if it feels that way. Well, that, that's the been the biggest, you'll be pleased to know that's been the biggest criticism so far. There's been lots of head teachers, union reps, all sorts of people in education, even in government that have been saying this is unbelievably complex. Someone said it was like looking for the lens of a kaleidoscope or something. Like that, it was all the colours. Yeah, yeah. But and because there's just so much going on as well. But isn't that? You're asking, do you know what, I'm glad I need to just rant for a second. Yeah. What do people want? I don't get it. Like I tell you what I do get some people just want to get rid of Ofsted completely. So any change in Ofsted is just not going to be the. Change. I reject that. I think I do. I think I do. It's when people say defund the police, right? And it's like people go, are you insane? And they're like, I don't really mean defund the police. I mean put more money into mental health services and direct stuff.

58:59 Like we'll say that then. Yeah, that's not what you say if you're saying get rid of of Ofsted, but you're actually, no, no, what I really mean is just like offstairs that dated we need to do in a different way. We'll say that then. Yeah, because it it it can just breathe confusion because if you just sit there and say get rid of Ofsted, it sounds like to me you're saying don't hold us accountable at all. And I know that's not what people mean, but what I'm imploring people to do is be really clear of what you mean then. I think that this new system, right, has the potential to be considerably better from the old system for parents. And also I do genuinely think it has the potential to be better for educators. But like we explained when we went for those 10 things, there is also the complete swing, like the swing the other way, like with teaching. Yeah, that's the one. Isn't it? That could be great.

59:40 That jumps at me more than attendance. Terrible. Yeah. That really jumps out at me more than anything. Attendance. We all know they're like, that sounds ridiculous. A great pushback. You saying this to me now? Teaching is the one that honestly raises like, my blood pressure a bit because I I worry about those staff in those toxic schools who will now honestly be taken advantage of. Yeah. And made to feel like crap because someone in SLT who's not taught in 10 years have decided they're yellow and that means it. Attention needed. That means support plans and the idea of heading back to that makes my skin. Crawl. Yeah, I really wished if I was to change that, I would. I would put curriculum and teaching together into some new word. And do you know what it used to be? Quality of education. Yeah. And I feel like that kind of almost was, was was like enough. Yeah. Yeah, provision, curriculum provision if I want to change it, yeah. Could provision, quality of provision or whatever, because I can't possibly use the same one that, you know, the Tories had. So I'm I'm in a really, really weird middle ground where I feel like there is potential for this to be better because I do think there are forecast system is better. We literally said this months ago. On our podcast, I agree completely. Reports are better because you get more detail and it's not just one word.

1:00:40 But remember, like you said, when you look back at your reports and you said, well, my teachers used to write a paragraph, your teachers also used to put your attainment and effort right at the top. Okay, Do we need to grade these things? Honestly, probably okay because I parents don't want to read A5 page document and that's OK and have to work out, yeah. If that's better or worse than in a different school, I think what in a different. Way right. I think what a colour system would do genuinely is it would allow you to look at a school and I don't think this is a bad thing, and say cool behaviour and curriculum and teaching are really strong here, opportunities and inclusion and belonging less so. So that that for this school might be a thing they're focusing on. But for my child, it's so important. With my SEND needs, there's inclusions really high. It's important to me as a person, as a family, that school has this more curriculums, like, okay, there, it's secure. But you know what?

1:01:31 For my values, I think I'm going to send my child here and do that. I think it's clear for parents. The only thing I would say with the parent thing, the best argument is it's malleable. Things change all the time. I agree. Because of an Ofsted report. How many schools do we know that were inspected in 2010 as outstanding and still have not been even re inspected Like even the minute 114 years later? Yeah, you got we going to pretend that's the same. School had a whole turnover of staff by that point. Leadership multi times over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree. But that was a good example of. And they put that on some of the articles that I read, like this idea that parents are gonna make a bit more of an informed decision of, you know, what do I want? And that's what we want parents to do. What does my child need? Like you said, my child's for Sen. And, you know, and we're new to the area and our belief system is really important to us. And you know what?

1:02:12 In this area, our belief system is not a typical belief. I want to go to a really inclusive school that's going to understand my child. Yeah, Yeah, completely. Yeah, completely that. OK, cool. So Ofsted in general, their overall aims, like they always talk about striving for excellence, raising standards and stuff like that. Again, I I'm not convinced and I want your quick answer to this. Do you think that this means now they will be striving and pushing for excellence and supporting teachers more because of this change? No, no it's not. I think they're going to report to parents a bit better, right? I don't I'm not remotely convinced it's going to be a better experience for educators and I don't think it's going to be uplifting for for schools. I don't think it's going to deliver high standards and raise standards or. Whatever. That's what they say their. Motto is I don't think it's going to raise standards really, maybe passively a little bit because they've broken it down into 10 things.

1:02:58 The schools rather than having four really big descriptors, quite vague things, whether I don't know what I mean. At least now there's there's 10 things in our school improvement plan and we just always consider these 10 things. Maybe that will help schools hone in on the right things. I don't know. So last thing then as like a little conclusion here, yeah, we talked about Ofsted wants to in, it's in it's mantra, say it's raising standards. I don't think that's what's happening. Yeah. The changes they've made, I think honestly, they're honestly, if I was to just say are they better or worse? One more judgement. I think it's better. I think it's better what they're doing. I think there's a lot of traps they can fall into. Yeah, but I do think it's better. OK, But OK, strip it back. Last thing we're going to talk about in this podcast then, because we always like to offer a solution. We don't want to sit here and say, well, that's good and that's bad because of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:03:40 What do you think then Ofsted should actually be? What? What to you do you think? OK, If this body is going to exist and judge schools, which is part of Ofsted, at the minute, it feels like the judgement is all Ofsted is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree. So we we think Ofsted should be wider, keep the judgement fine, OK, get rid of the judgement. It's probably a bad idea, but what else should it be? What? What should we have? I think. Ofsted, if it really is going to meet its mantra on we raise standards in school, needs to be a facilitator for that to happen. For example, Ofsted is the one that facilitates 2 schools partnering up and they make it happen. They make these schools work together. Peer support, because I really do think the best way to improve standards is teachers talking to teachers. We had some staff training the other day at our school delivered by an English expert who is a teacher from another school, but it just happens to also be extremely passionate expert in English and it was the best training I've ever had in 10 years.

1:04:33 It was inspiration. It was she was unbelievably inspirational and knowledgeable and knew exactly what she was talking. About I wish I could remember her name because I would call it out right now. Tara something, I don't know what. Her surname wasn't annoying the voice Pixel. But she, I mean, we'll, we'll talk. Soon away by her knowledge, her understanding. And it made me sit and think for the first time, Yeah, I want to do, you know? What made me think made me think, OK, can I come to your school then and see how you do it? And because that is the best way to learn. What I don't need is officer coming in and telling me. I don't think your plan for English is very good. Yeah, and you know what's great about that? When the inspector comes in, right to a primary school to do an offset inspection and you look at their LinkedIn because, you know, you're a bit nosy before and oh, what's your experience then? Worked as a head of school in a secondary school for 15 years, LED sixth form and done nothing to do with primary ever.

1:05:17 And was, I was head of, you know, humanities. OK, they come in though to a primary school they've never worked in before in a rural area they've never been in before and they sit there and they have to tell me if my maths planning is good or not. I don't want to listen to you. I don't value your input genuinely. I really don't. I don't think that's helpful to me. You're not going to raise my standards in maths. I'm better at teaching maths to primary school children than you are. And you're an offset inspector sat in this room telling me what's right and wrong. That is completely broken. Send an expert to me because you know what? When an expert sits down when we had the English training and we sat down and said here's our plan for Term 3, we're using this book. She said to us, I don't think that book's very helpful for these three genres. It might work for that one. What else could we do? I immediately no back. My back was not turned up by that. I was OK thank you.

1:06:02 Brilliant. You know what you're talking about. You did it in a constructive way. You talked to us like professionals. You backed up with your knowledge. You said why don't you try this and that instead. It wasn't just criticism, it was raising standards. It was this doesn't work because of that. Try this instead. It'll be better for your kids. As a professional, we have the utmost respect for that when it happens and we and that's the difference. Yeah, I agree. And okay, you know, I'm going to summarise my point really. We've kind of hit on everything that I would want to say. I think Ofsted needs to, I like these new changes, but it only in the context of it. It has to become one string of the bow. It has to be one part of their system. It's like, yeah, we report on schools because parents really need to know how these schools works. And you know what, we scrapped one with systems because they were just stupid.

1:06:43 And actually we've replaced it with a 10 point grading system. So parents still get an idea and they can compare schools, but they need to look at all the individual points and they can whatever all the things we said. But in the meantime, because we also raise standards of schools, we do exactly that. We go into schools and we we facilitate and identify because they're busy in schools. We facilitate and identify experts who can come in and help them with our school improvement plan and they come in and they raise standards together. We do peer-to-peer support, we link schools together. You're not in an Academy. These guys are in an Academy. They've got a bit of peer support here. You're going to go and talk to that Academy and see what ideas they've got. Because I'll tell you what, as Ofsted, I know that they are, their maths curriculum is unbelievably impactful and, and excellent there. And they've got a similar sort of catchment to you. So go and have a little meeting with them. We've, we've done, we've, we've facilitated this.

1:07:24 That's what Ofsted need to do. And I think all the people that are saying scrap Ofsted and replace with this sort of thing, they have the, they have the same intentions of that. I just don't think we should scrap the report card system as well. I think we should have both. Yeah, have both. That's my, that's what I think. I don't know. I completely agree. It's a it's a balancing act, OK, It's a seesaw, right. What I've said doing at the minute is they're very much were too heavy previously rather to being really clear to parents. That's why they had the one word report. It was very helpful for parents. Parents loved it. Parents knew they could send their school child to an outstanding school, brilliant or not send their school a child to a reprise improvement school. Yeah, OK. What we did was we balanced the scales a bit by saying, do you know what? We can still be helpful to parents without burdening staff. That's the other side of the seesaw. The more helpful you are to parents by doing these judgments, the more you're burdening staff. Really, that's what was happening. It was like a real stress burden, such high accountability.

1:08:15 It wasn't helpful. So they they brought that balance back a little bit. OK. That seesaw is all Ofsted is right now. Ofsted need to be a park. OK, We've got the seesaw over here where between parents and all accessibility, that's one thing going on. Cool. That's not just offset though, because we've got the slide over there. Yeah, and you can go on the slide afterwards and we can help facilitate the experts to come in and help you do that. Also, we've got a roundabout. That roundabout has four schools on it, all trying to do the same thing, all trying to improve. And we've got someone pushing the roundabout who's done it themselves before, and we can help you do it. OK, So we need to widen the scope of what offset is. That is not just this judgement scale of trying to how can we balance between parents? That's just one part of it. So much more could come out of just widening the scope. Ofsted actually help raise standards and if we do that, schools will improve and that's all we care about. Do you know what I thought it was such a good analogy. I love the park analogy.

1:09:02 I'm going to use that all the time. What does the fence represent in the metaphor of the park? How many gates has it got? The fence represents the budget and the fence closing in. We've got no room. We've got no room for the slide anymore. We've got room for the roundabout. It's just a it's just a park with a seesaw in the middle with all the parents on one side. That's all it is, and of course it's broken. I'm annoyed at how perfect that is. It's so perfect. It's so perfect. We need more gates on that part. So let more people in to push that fence back out. We need more money is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Do you know what that's I'm going to leave with that. I'm going to finish with that point after everything I've said here. And nothing will change without funding. I don't know how many times we need to say on this podcast, Bridget, if you're listening, we need more money.

1:09:45 She's gonna run that well. Bummer. I. Knew she wasn't listening, but there we are. Maybe in the future she'll listen. We need more funding. Nothing will change. Nothing will change this. But the whole chat was pointless. If we don't get any more funding, honestly, nothing will change. So give us more money and we'll do these things. And we'll build a slide and. We'll build a slide. I'll tell you what. We'll build 2 bloody slides and a roundabout. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Hope that's helpful. Please do if you've listened this far. You are a legend. I would love it if you could leave us a nice review Wherever you're listening to your podcast, send us a message. What are your thoughts on these new Ofsted improvements? Are they improvements? Are they getting worse? Let us know what you think and we will catch you next time. See you later.