Ep 134: Will Ofsted Ever Get It Right? Report Cards, New Gradings & Wellbeing Controversy

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach the Repeat. My name is Dylan and my name's Hayden, and this week we're going to be taking a look at the brand new Ofsted report cards they've dropped. They're here to stay. There's a few changes Ofsted have made. We're going to go through all of them and discuss why fundamentally, we don't think that these go far enough. Right here we go again. Talk about Ofsted. Let's let's get into it because it's something we covered a lot in it, several points in our podcast career, let's call it, where we like to talk about Ofsted. And I just get annoyed. It really just frustrates me because I feel like teaching and education in our schools and our children absolutely deserve some kind of independent body that can come in and assess schools and just make sure they're getting what they need.

0:50 But I just feel like this whole system is completely broken, doesn't really work whatsoever, just strikes fear, anxiety, worry across the board in so many schools. And we've lived it. We know that's true. It's not just us looking and going. We don't like being judged. No, no, no, no, no. We are absolutely fine and we know and understand that we need to be held at higher standards as educators. But the way Ofsted runs, it's so frustrating. And the reason I'm annoyed now more than ever is because obviously the report cards have been rolled out. They were first mentioned a few months ago. We did a podcast episode about it. And it just feels to me as if at no point do any of these changes actually seem to be addressing the problems that school staff mention. And it feels as if everything that they're implementing now or introducing, it's just the same thing repackaged with a different word, maybe at the top or a, a, a different line saying how they care so much about schools without it actually really making an impact whatsoever. And, and I think that's why I just wanted to start off by saying I am all for the reform of Ofsted and things changing. And I want that to happen.

2:02 And it frustrates me that I feel like every time Ofsted do something or say something, it's. Just more of the same and, and it feels like we're not being listened to whatsoever. Yeah, that's the frustrating bit. I, I think there are, we're gonna go through some changes. I think on the whole, from the parents perspective, like we can talk about some of the changes being quite positive, I think, but the biggest, like you said, the biggest problem is, and I and I even feel like they tried to listen to the feedback from the first when they bought this out months ago and we and we reviewed it and we said a few things that our opinions. I feel like it feels like they've listened to a few of those things, but just whilst ignoring the big one. It's like, Oh yeah, oh guys, sorry. These are all little things as teachers all screaming like, what about the crippling pressure it provide it puts on us.

2:42 Well, what's that? It's like they kind of hear that bit. They didn't hear that bit. It's like, that's the bit that feels like, damn, that hasn't changed. Oh, the fundamental issue we had with it in the first place. The big one. How about, how about, how about, how about how about we just changed the word outstanding to exemplary. So let's just go through some of these changes and let's just dive into them. So we all aware of actually what is happening, what they're doing, what we need to know. And I just want to give a big shout out to schools Week. My goodness me, Schools Week's a website has articles about what's going on in the world of education. I find myself on it multiple times a week, just keeping up with things. Amazing journalism, really, really useful. I think if you're a teacher or anyone in education and you don't know about Schools Week, my goodness me, just jump on there because short, sharp full of information is what we're going to be using today for a lot of what we're talking about South.

3:27 First thing, the first headline thing I did AI did a Instagram reel about this was the fact that they are renaming the grading system again. So let's just go back initially it what used to happen a year or two ago is a school would be judged by Ofsted and at the end would get a one word judgement for the whole school. Yeah, I think we all agreed that was a bit daft. It's hard to compare then a good school with a good school with a good school with a good school. They're all obviously very different. So that was kind of like a bad way I think of judging schools. So what they did initially, they said OK, cool, we're not going to do one way judgements of schools, but we do still have to judge different areas of your school, for example, the teaching and learning, for example, the inclusion. We're going to get into all those different categories in a minute. So they initially had said, OK, cool, we're going to rename them.

4:13 And we made a joke about this, how it's not very different. And they said we're going to have from the top what used to be outstanding down to what used to be requires improvement and even inadequate. The new scheme was going to be this, the new way of doing it, exemplary at the top, strong, secure, attention needed and then causing concern. So what I've said I've done is I think this is what you alluded to earlier about them listening, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they, they listened to people potentially and they said, OK, look, fine, fine. We're listening to you educators. We're hearing what you say. And we know it's really stressful and it's high stakes and leaders are getting really anxious about it. We're going to change the words again. So here's what they've done.

4:55 They've changed. Let's go through one at a time. I want to get your opinion. So also the original 1, you said the new one, OK, go on. So exemplary is now exceptional necessary change. We've come from outstanding to exemplary to exceptional. Yeah, what a waste of time. I know that. That just seems mad. The next one it was it was strong. That's not enough. It's now strong standard. Strong standard. OK. This is the big one. I thought, well, actually there's a big one, but this is an important one. Secure. OK. And this was said to be quite confusing. Yeah, secure, they changed it to expected standard. Yeah. So that it's in line with what we would say for the children. Yeah, I I actually think as far as words go, I probably prefer expected standard over secure. Yeah, sure. Irrelevant really.

5:36 Yeah, but but it's like, OK, if I had to pick between the two, I probably would pick that one. Fair enough, Fair enough. Next one down was attention needed. Well, it's now. This is so funny. I've not really realised how funny this is. They've changed it from say again. Attention needed. To needs attention, yeah. Fair play. Why have they done that? Don't want to be shown to keep them the same. Dylan and the last one and a bit of context to this one, because professionals and parents were a bit concerned about the the terminology of the previous one, which was causing concern. They were like, it's a bit too negative, it's not very nice. So they've changed, causing concern too, urgent improvement. Yes, he's gone. I'm going to do it sort of in an audio audio way. He's gone from all bit causing an urgent improvement. This is terrible, no?

6:20 Is that better? Here's what gets me about this. This is what I think. This is what summed up like I think the annoyance of school staff and educators because Austed say they say, right, OK, look, causing concern. OK, look, we don't want to give providers that judgement because it's unnecessarily harsh, clearly. OK, we can, we can agree, OK, we're fine. And it's like, wow, instead of listening, they're saying that words do matter and they do matter in this case. And they're saying causing concern is bad. Wow, Ofsted have they've finally realised that there is a bad thing to do and they're going to improve it. They chose something worse. They chose something more alarming. They're like, yeah, causing concern. We don't, we don't want to, we don't want to do that to our poor, poor providers. So instead of saying it's causing, we're going to say urgent improvement. So it's like they've accepted I was saying, you know, words matter.

7:05 You need to be careful the way you say things. They've gone. Yeah, that's true. Let's make it worse, yes? I know, literally. It really cracked me up when I first saw that. I thought, surely not. They must have a reason behind it. Maybe they were just doubling down there. Yeah, it should be that the bad one should be bad because it's bad. Maybe that, I don't know, maybe that's what they're doing. But it certainly sounded softer to me to say I was just causing someone said that to me. But OK, there's a bit of an issue here, but it's not that urgent. We can sort it out. When you put the word urgent in it, it's like it's immediately, right now, terrible, as terrible as it can get. So bad that we urgently need to improve it. All right, all right, fair enough. So where you want to go? This is interesting. Schools Week ran a blind online survey asking readers to distinguish between the criteria for secure and strong descriptors.

7:46 And on average, more than of more than 3000 respondents got two of the five wrong. So clearly there was a bit of a discrepancy there. Back when it was secure and strong, They they've tried to make it more clear. And you know what, fair enough that they've they've made efforts to make that more clear for people to understand. I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not going to sit here and say everything Ofsted, everything is bad. But to me, the other one is insane. If they if they've accepted that causing concern can have a negative impact on the well-being staff and then changed it to something literally worse, I'm just like, OK, we can't win. We actually can't win. Are they doing this as a joke? Yeah, yeah. So funny, absolutely cracked me out. So that was the first of eight points that we go through. The second one again from Schools week is core inspection areas reduced from 8:00 to 6:00.

8:28 So this is something we had a massive discussion about when we first did our episode on when this was all released the first time. And I remember think we actually said something on the lines of some of these inspection areas that you mentioned inclusion earlier. I'll go for all eight in a second. We were like, aren't they kind of the same thing or at least similar enough to be banned into one? And it sounds, it looks like they've clearly listened to similar feedback and they've and they have reduced if made six. So I'm going to go for, I will read the original 8 inspection areas that could be graded as the following grade of the grades. We just talked about urgent improvement perhaps. And then we'll talk about the how some of them have been merged. So the original eight were inclusion curriculum, developing teaching, achievement, behaviour and attitudes, which is 1 attendance, personal development and well-being as one and leadership and governance as one.

9:15 So lots of like, you know, like you said, I, I don't think we've never sat here and said Ofsted should be scrapped completely and there should be no accountability. So I, I, I don't have a problem with the idea of accountability. And obviously it makes sense to break it down into different areas as well. But I do think they missed a few tricks with that. It didn't really like somebody. It was just a bit vague. I thought some of those like that. Well, we said it straight away, like curriculum and teaching, they are one in the same, right? And it is nice to see the offset have gone. Do you know what, you know, we don't need these 8 categories anymore. We can just go down to six and actually curriculum and teach and we can put it into one. Because remember we said if we're having developing teaching as its own stand alone thing that's being judged against, we can see how that would become detrimental to staff well-being.

10:01 Because suddenly imagine a situation where a report card comes back, everything's in the, you know, the Nandoscale green, right? But the only thing that's syringes developing teaching and you just know for a fact in the wrong school, the wrong environment in the toxic school, teachers will have that on their back constantly for the next. That's what's letting us down. That's the developing teaching. The teaching is bad, right teachers, we need to do this. We need to do that. I can just see it being a way of pointing fingers, pointing fingers. So it's nice that it's kind of merged I. Think I would if I worked in that school and it happened, I would constantly be referring to myself as a spicy teacher, preferring to nanoscat until they just stopped talking to me. I think that's the only way you could battle that off, you know what I mean? Was IA bit too spicy? Was I? A hot baby. Was I extra hot when I was? Teaching lemon and herb and then. Lemon and Herb eventually leave me alone, I think because they just they.

10:43 Dismiss it. What I found really, really, really, really interesting, and I'm not sure how I feel about this, is that they also then put together behaviour with attendants. Yeah, So they they they put those together. And I guess my problem with that is I feel like it's putting them in the same boat as if they're the same thing and as if, you know, attendance is a symptom of behaviour. And I do think they're very, very separate things. And I think they have very, very different reasons as to why 1 might be good or bad. And I think lumping them into one is kind of detrimental. If you've got a score with poor attendance, it doesn't necessarily mean behaviour's bad. No. So I, I, I do just find that odd. And I don't know, I can't remember what we said in previous episode, etcetera.

11:23 Maybe we said, oh, we could if they were together. But you know, having now kind of gone into it more detail about the attendance crisis and behaviour etcetera, it does struck me as slightly odd that we're going to be judging them both as one thing. I guess what I, I can imagine, I was trying to think like, what is that line of thinking of this? Because they've obviously done it for a reason and I guess they're trying to say poor attendance is a behaviour like I, I, I can imagine they're really loosely linking it to it's the behaviour of the child, whether they. What's? Coming to school or not, it's insane because to me behaviour is such a a distinguished part of school life. There's nothing to do with attendance. That's why it's insane to me because I'm like, I get I can understand that line of thinking, but there is something called behaviour policies and right behaviour that in school where there is nothing to do with attendance like and the the other side of this that that that surprised me a little bit is do you remember when we first did this episode?

12:10 They were banging on at the time, They still kind of are about this attendance crisis and how attendance needs to be better. I'm very surprised they then haven't kept that as a separate thing. I'm like, they are like adamant that this is like a behaviour. Is this singularly really important thing? Sorry, attendance, yeah. Is this such an important thing that he gets his own pedestal? And I'm like, now they've just banded it with behaviour, which I think is also a massive thing. So I was a bit surprised to see they've done that. I think there's a huge difference as well, I've got to say, between primary and secondary school. I do actually think, I think they're more interlinked in secondary school, but to me still separate enough in terms of children do have more autonomy as they get older as to whether they go into school or not. Yeah, true. And etcetera. I can't really, I can't honestly think of many children in my time as a primary school teacher that were persistently absent where it was because their behaviour was bad, like, or.

12:56 I can't really think of many schools that I've been in where the behaviour policy and the attendance policy were were that interlinked, that they should be judged together. Off the top of my head, I can only think of the opposite. I can think of children right now. Where I would say, oh, the attendance was honestly almost nothing to do with them because like they're, they're tiny kids, They're not, they're not driving themselves to the school, they're not in water school themselves. They're being taken to school by parents and carers. And it had nothing to do with their behaviour. Like it just literally had nothing to do with it. So yeah, it's a weird one to link it. Hopefully there'll be some clarity like in within the report card, which we'll look at in a minute. You know, hopefully when they are actually probably rolled out, there will be some clarity in the way they present that information. I don't know.

13:38 That just separates behaviour and attendance a little bit in the way. Even if it's in the paragraph or the descriptors, I don't know. I also hope that schools aren't judged on pure attendance data, rather what they're implementing to try and improve it. We, we talked about this previously. I don't see much about the, I don't know what it will be yet and how it's judged etcetera. But you know it, it can't just be 92% attendance is this level on the spiceoometer 94% attendance is Lebanon herb. You know, it can't just be that because a 94% attendance rate in one school and a 94% attendance rate in another school, one might be absolutely fantastic for that area and it's a huge improvement and the other one might be negligent or actually you could be at 9798. Well, I get a really good feeling, and you have to stick around in this episode to find out why, because it is point #8 when we get to it at the bottom of this, I have a really good feeling that they're actually going to do the battery. Be right of that you trust Ofsted. I don't want, I don't think I want to. I don't think I want to say that on a podcast then because it could get clipped.

14:33 But I do feel like there are some positive changes in in these eight points. And I think the next one is so you'll listen in to #8 because that's where I kind of describe what it is. I know I'm just, I'm I'm really getting hang of this. But #3 is again, something I thought I read it. I thought this was quite good. So I'd be interested to get your opinion. We've not talked about this before this. It says school context narrative to run alongside the grades. So what that means is, well, I'll just read it. Ofsted had faced widespread calls from the sector to replace grading with narrative descriptions. This is something we mentioned even way back before this new Ofsted stuff came out. When we were talking about Ofsted in general, we were like, wouldn't it be better if we replaced like one word with maybe a sentence or even a paragraph? Because you can get a bit more nuance in it about the school. And they were obviously pushed to do that with these because they were rightfully criticised that, oh, you're just using one word again though, right.

15:21 Like it's kind of the point. We was we didn't really want one word, yeah. Yeah, so it wasn't the fact it wasn't exemplary that made me annoyed by this. System so below the information where they where they can get the the one word grading are still they will now visitors will now be able to click on each of those judgement areas to reveal several paragraphs of narrative verdict which I think he is just a net win. In all honesty, I don't know what if you have any thoughts? On that, you know, it's, it's good. I just listen, I don't want to be the person every single time he sits here going. So because, because my, my issue still is with the inconsistencies of the reports, the way that, you know, you could still get an inspector come in, who's a secondary school teacher who specialised in sixth form, who's come in to judge an Infant School. Like, I don't really care if I can see a power of his opinion on how phonics should be taught.

16:05 Like I think, OK, sure, it's a good thing. And there's more accountability and there's more context and for parents, that's obviously a good thing. I don't see how this has remotely any impact on schools themselves. And, and, and if anything makes it more anxiety ridden because you know, you're about to get written up on absolutely everything as well. So, so you know, it's great for people who want more information and it's, and it's hitting the box for parents, etcetera, who want to go and find out about the school. But as as an educator, I'd be thinking, Oh my God, it's just another thing. It's just another, but it's another, it's another hoop I've got to jump through because I know they're going to be writing up everything about it that'll be available to parents as well. If anything increases that anxiety doesn't actually take anything away from that.

16:47 Sure, it's more clear. And I'm, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, by the way, I'm just looking at it through the lens of educators. I'd be like, OK. Yeah, it's an interesting point about the anxiety it puts on teachers because I do also think that really like this whole way, whole way through my, you know, I can even give my conclusion now. I don't really think that the anxiety levels have changed much of any of these things. I feel like it's no better. We sort of said that, but I'm trying, I guess I'm trying to isolate this. I just, I where I just think it's an improvement. Like I feel like I probably if I've got a pick between just one word or one word with a couple of sentences, it just explains a bit more as to why that one word has been chosen. I think I'd still choose that one. Sure, probably for sure. Even though they don't really make me feel any different, I just think that's better.

17:31 Yeah. And that, that's kind of hopefully summarised by what I mean when I say like, I'm like shrugging my shoulders at it. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, yeah, OK. And it would be nice to see if you maybe got, I don't even know what the levels are now. There's so many words in my head. If you got average dude as your level, it would be nice to see why maybe that you got that and it would must see the reasoning behind it because then maybe it's easier to either accept it and say do you know what, fair enough, or say that is just nonsense though. Whereas beforehand, maybe it was more like, yeah, good, yeah, yeah, Chronology. Chronology's off in history. It's like, is it, What can you explain it? What? Nah, Nah. That's why I can't explain it. You've been there for three days. Can you explain it? Nah. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying like it's, it's from from a from a school's point of view.

18:14 OK. I think you mentioned another, you snuck in another little point there. It's probably a wider point which I want you to address now, which is you said about not necessarily caring about this paragraph full stop. Because if it is someone who's come in, you don't respect basically who's written this because maybe it's a secondary school expert and they're coming into judge of primary school. Respect is harsh. I don't know, I don't know what the word is, but like, but you, you clearly put that as a point of to like, well, that I might not, you know, I might not even care about the sure, the paragraph based on who's written and what their experience is and and whether I can trust their opinion on it. Like what can you go into that a bit more? So what I'm saying here in more detail on a on a wider level is that if I were to write, if I were to put into a list of things I think Ofsted should be changing for the better, there's things that come before adding a paragraph for every evaluation, right? So it's great.

19:04 You can, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, this change. I'm not saying, oh, it's awful that you're adding in this paragraph information, but if that comes before actually ensuring that people who are judging schools have experience of being in that school setting themselves and are experts in that school setting. I don't care what you have to write about it at the end. Because I'm listening to someone say how phonics should be taught to in the early years from someone who spent 12 like that their whole career, you know, running a sixth form. And maybe they were, they were they were a sixth form. They've got their expertise and they're fantastic at what they do, but I don't want someone to come and judge my school's phonics capability. Honesty from someone who's never taught phonics in their life.

19:45 Do you think they can't? I don't. I don't think that they can't. I think they could. I think it could be trained up, but I don't necessarily trust that the training is fantastic. I don't think that it's consistent whatsoever. I think that the fact that you could have 5 and I would go as far to say 5 very different offset inspections simply based on who they send to you, I think that's not good enough. And I think there should be a minimum experience requirement level of people who come in and judge a setting of your experience in said setting. I, I just think it's insane that we just don't have that base level of just, there are enough Ofsted inspectors out there. I'm sure that we could at least say, well, if you be in a primary school that's been judged, your lead inspector has experience in the setting of a primary school.

20:29 That seems to me to be the bare minimum that we can accept. I'm obviously not saying that someone couldn't possibly do that job. All I'm saying is let's just have that as the base. Requirement, yeah, let's maximise the chances that it's going to be. I think it's such a high stakes procedure, yeah. Ofsted in general an inspection, it is really, really high stakes and it causes, like said, a lot of anxiety for people. It needs, it needs to be right. You know what I mean? Because you're right. The, the, one of the biggest gripes of Ofsted over the last however long has been that 01 school got an Ofsted inspector in that said this, this and this. And this other school got an Ofsted inspector in who said the complete opposite things and praised us for these things that that school just got ripped apart for. And the inconsistency in the inspectors was a massive problem. So I do agree in terms of the hierarchy, we need to be like, we need to be prioritising Ofsted inspectors being the absolute best they can possibly be at that job.

21:16 And and yeah, making sure they're in schools where they have a proper expertise before we add in a paragraph. I do agree, but I'd like to think that we can, we can do both. You know, that they should be just prioritising both those. This is great for the parents. And it'll also be even better if yeah X happens, which is that I wouldn't. Even necessarily not do it now because the order's wrong. Don't get me wrong, or all I'm saying here is from my point of view, is that there are more pressing things that I think should be changed sooner. Changing exemplary to outstanding to whatever else it was as a superlative for something fantastic is, is honestly, to me so ridiculously pointless waste of time that I can't fathom that anyone's brain power was remotely put towards. And what's the best word for that? Because no one. No one on this planet at all was annoyed by outstanding being a thing instead of exemplary.

22:04 No one, no one, no one was saying when they said one word judgements. They were talking about the macro level of a school just being a good school. It's not very useful. That's why it's good. I think that they got rid of that once one word judgement. But what we're seeing instead now is that schools, instead of having a big massive banner outside saying outstanding school, they're just doing that. But instead of saying outstanding wants, they're saying outstanding 4 times, and all they'll do after this is say exemplary 4. Times. And you know what they'll do? Teaching exemplary Inclusion. Exemplary. Exactly. It's just. It's not going to stop that from happening, and I just think, OK, we're getting to the root of why a lot of schools are annoyed. And frustrated, it's not really fixing that. I saw an argument that that was saying that the banners will increase. And I was like, here we go. And they were like, because now there's six descriptors that they could get exemplary in, and they'll just put that one on it.

22:49 Yeah. It's like, we are exemplary at leadership. And it's like the other ones, we're all, you know, we're all, hang on, let's go back to this scale. The other ones were all absolutely, urgently terrible. But this. And it really made me laugh because I always thought, Oh yeah, banners will stop being a thing now because there's not just one word grade. No, no, I think it was 6 to choose from. I've already seen it, by the way, on schools that have had it since right where instead of saying we're outstanding, yeah, they'll they now have they list because it was forced out for a while. Yeah, when they changed it like they they got rid of the one word judgments before any of this came in. Yeah. So instead the school would have leadership and management outstanding, teaching and learning outstanding. And you know, it's I don't whether they have the. Report card on the. Banner literally and it's just like, you know, harder to read, more of an eyesore but still doing after. That at least with these narrative changes, we can now have the banners that have the entire paragraph on it.

23:32 At least you know what the small print will be there. I'd rather that. Can you click on the banner? It just extends. You can just contact. It's just the person, they're employed all day to unfold it when someone goes. It's just one massive QR code and it goes to the the dissertation of the score, right? Go on next one then I'm, I'm, I'm interested by this. What, what we're talking about here. They mentioned about toolkits being tightened up, a bit of a backlash. So Ofsted pledged earlier this year to publish tool kits for each evaluation area to take any mystery out of inspection. Clearly a good thing. By the way, I think you should know what you're being inspected on. So providers can be clear about what we will and importantly will not look at as Ofsted inspectors.

24:13 These will Orient around the expected standard grade is what the watchdog said today. The likely three most common awarded grades which are needs attention, the expected standard and strong standard. So the three in the middle will appear on one page, then the two extremes, either urgent improvement or the exceptional will sit on the following page. So clear guides hopefully for what each standard looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ofsted said. The expected standard is in the middle of the page of the toolkit because this is what we would typically expect to see on inspections. It covers the statutory, professional and non statutory guidance that providers are already expected to follow. Meanwhile, the strong standard has tighter definitions and looks for evidence of practise to be consistent, embedded and highly impactful.

24:56 So overall, I don't want to get your thoughts overall on schools being given this. You know, there'll be some people out there who say, well, you shouldn't need it. You should just be, you do what you do, offset come in. And then if you're, you know, you're just working towards the curriculum, why is this vital? I've always thought that it's complete insanity, by the way, the idea of like, ohh, you don't we're gonna come in and do this really high stakes judgement you'll get every few years, not gonna tell you what on the. Yeah, yeah. Could you? Because we're just professionals, not kids like this is. What do you think this is? Or you might cheat. Cheat. What do you mean what implement good policies like Follow the guidance that you're looking for so that you can see that we're good at what we do. Like what you're talking about.

25:40 It makes no. Sense it's the speed camera argument. Yes, it is the speed camera argument. It's always the same. It's just like, why is the speed camera there? The speed camera's not there as a way of racking up money, although in some cases it does. The speed camera's there to slow you down. Yeah. It's like, well, you need the speed camera to slow down. So yeah, some people do. Yeah, absolutely. And then therefore they've slowed down and that's good because then it's more safe. Same thing here. You got the, you got the things you're looking for. Oh, but then schools will just do it. Yeah. That's the idea, literally. Funnily enough, that is the point. When I was a kid, just to speak, everything really made me laugh. When I was a kid I remember questioning to my mum, I said why do they put a warning sign before the speaker. I could not get my head around it. I was like, you're not going to catch anyone doing that, are you? Everyone's going to slow down.

26:22 That's stupid. Yeah, they're not going to get. There and my mom was like, that's the point. She was like, they want people to slow down. We don't actually want to catch people speeding. We don't want people to speed right. So the more signs you put in the better because people will start thinking about slowing down even earlier. And sometimes there's not even a speed camera. They just put the signs there to slow people down. And after I was like, oh God, that makes so much sense. And I do feel that exactly what you just said. I won't just regurgitate the same thing, but. I could you can. I couldn't build more strongly about the idea that obviously schools should be given as much information about the about the inspection as possible, including, by the way, when they're going to come and do it. That's that was a whole nother conversation that's not even mentioned. In this, but let's come back to that in a second. But let's dive into what you just said. Because again, This is why I get so annoyed. This is why it started off with me being frustrated because it took a backlash for Ofsted to accept that and tighten up this toolkit because it was going to be quite vague. It was going to be quite wishy washy, like, Oh yeah, maybe you're kind of like that.

27:14 Kind of, oh, we're going to, you know, Oh yeah, we used to deep dive there. We're going to deep dive there. Yes. And you know, just make sure you've got everything ready for me. It took backlash again, from teachers, from educators for Ofsted to be like, oh, yeah, OK, do you know what? We'll give you that. And that's what frustrates me so much. And that's why I get annoyed because sure, someone. Well, they did it, didn't they? Yeah, but they weren't going to. And when people go, oh, teachers always just bloody moaning, aren't they? Would get you know why? Because this has happened now. This has got more tight. This has become better because of the backlash, because we were like, what are you doing? Give us what we. Need to know what we would like is for this massive body to have a bit of forward thinking themselves and maybe just be like, oh, do we need people to moan for years for us to think this is a go?

27:58 Can you just think of it? It's like it's just it's your job. Like this is the one thing you need to do, right? It just, it just baffles, baffles me. So yeah, I think the toolkits thing, no brainer makes complete sense. Obviously they should be tightened up and released and shared with schools so it so that it's a positive process. We again, I'm sorry, going off on again now, but we've mentioned this before of like Ofsted's supposed to be about bringing schools up. It's supposed to be a collective action. It's not supposed to be catching schools out. So there was never ever, ever, ever a reason for this to be so behind closed doors. I remember one year, I think maybe it was when we were having offset, it was like a, it was labelled as like a leaked document, leaked document, Ofsted framework leaked. I'm like, what do you mean leaked? Could you show me this so that we can implement all these clearly great things to our school?

28:43 You're going to fudge through the inspection what the inspection, which you've decided are the most important things. Oh, they're going to do those most important things. Is it? Is it fudging if you've done it? Yeah, yeah. It's like, come on. But you can't fudge it, it's just completely anyway #5 On this list is called Exceptional. Won't need an Ofsted Academy submission. I had no idea what this was before I read this about you. Tell me about SO Ofsted had planned to require inspectors to submit examples of exemplary practise. Is that is that outstanding or? No, it's actually exceptional. OK. Sorry. Of course. Previously known. Previously known as. Awesome. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So, yeah. So it had planned to require inspectors to submit examples of exemplary practise to Ofsted Academy, which is the watchdogs training and development arm.

29:26 Right. I had no idea this existed, by the way, Which would then sign off that a top grade could be awarded. So it was like an extra step. Do you know what I mean? It's like, oh, you want to be exemplary? We think we've got evidence for it. We have to submit the evidence right, Make sure they agree. Some more workload. More workload. Yeah, send it back. Like I I can see the the principle of it makes sense. I can make sense. They're just double checking. I get it. More heads, you know, you can be really sure. But the plan was dropped because many respondents found it too complex or worried it would create an additional burden. Right, that's that was my first. Thought, which is basically what you were saying. You just said that instead, which is what I thought happened. Anyway, inspectors will evaluate exceptional practise, not, sorry, not exemplary practise, exceptional practise in the. How many words are there for very good? I know in the same way as other grades, which yeah, again, I just thought was sure that's.

30:13 What? Yeah, use your toolkit. Use your evidence. Just do your inspection. Yeah, so Ofstead said all the strong standards need to be met for an exceptional grade to be considered. If they I'm just laughing at the the the. All these levels. Yeah, the changes between exemplary and exceptional. If they are met, inspectors will then look at their evidence against the standards for the top grade. OK, So it makes sense. I mean that makes sense and it's and it's a good thing that you won't need that anymore. And again, please, I sound like a broken record, but I'm gonna make the point again. This is another example of something they were going to do, which they're now not. Back when they introduced all of this and said we were the first ones. But what? This is insane. And people but don't move. And then now they're tracking back again. So they obviously know that, you know, they just didn't go far enough and change enough.

30:57 I still don't think they've gone far enough. By the way, we'll talk about this at the end, but go on, keep going. Well, one, one thing I thought was interesting, this is the last bit on this point and I just want to get your thoughts on it, is Ofsted said that exceptional practise needs to be sustained and evident over time, rather than a recent improvement, which I thought was really interesting. So you can't be an exemplary school if it's like, yeah, this is great, but you've only just sort of implemented it. It has to be sustained and evident over time. It needs to have a transformational impact on the outcomes of disadvantaged youngsters. Clearly, yeah, clearly. Do you know what if, if I, if I was thinking of what a top, top level school would be, it would be that it's doing that. Yeah. And I and I quite like that kind of nod towards moving away. It's kind of contradictory because this seems to be moving away from like we clearly can't tell in two days whether you're exemplary or not, but we're still going to try and do it. So we're still going to try and get the impact over time just in a 2 day window, like it's the right thing to say. But I just don't think it stands up to A2 day inspection unless, unless you're expecting schools to have this, you know, Bank of evidence of how they've had that sustained impact on disadvantaged kids, which would ramp up the workload for schools, which would then be more of a detriment to them. So I think it's a brilliant, I think that is the right way that we should be judging the best schools in the country are doing that.

32:15 But I still I don't really see how that's compatible with the current way that we do inspections. Yeah, I I get what you mean. I think for me it highlighted, you know, how it used to be good and then outstanding and they were kind of like the ones you wanted. You know, you have a good score is that that was basically the expected standard. Yeah, we're outstanding. It's highlighted to me that they have shoehorn in that extra and where it's now it's the expected standard, strong standard and then exceptional. I'm like, I can see what they're doing here. They're kind of trying to differentiate a bit more like this this top, this top top whack is like is really hard to get and you need to be meeting these like super tough criteria, like really sustained high impact over time, like really, really making a difference to kids. I imagine what will happen is a lot of outstanding schools will now be strong standard because they're not, you know, they were what they were considerably better than what was classed as good.

33:02 There was, there was basically there was such a massive gap there between good school and outstanding where it's like, you know what, there probably is a middle ground. It doesn't make sense to say, do you know what, this school is just really strong, but they don't have that sustained impact over time. They're not making a transformational impact on their disadvantaged pupils, although they're making a really good impact. And we're going to reserve that for some, like genuinely incredible schools that are that are just, you know, doing these unspeakable things, crazy things. Unspeakable, unspeakable people. Such a good day. No one can know about how great this thing is. I think there's, I think it goes both ways though. I can think of a lot, a lot of schools that are in the good category, which are much better than other schools in the good category as well. So I reckon a bunch of those good schools will probably sneak into that middle ground as well, which would be really good. Yeah.

33:46 Look, I don't think again on paper, I am not going to say that's a bad thing. I think that that's a good thing to have really high standards and the the, you know, top top schools only being the top, top schools if they're having really sustained positive impact, especially on disadvantaged kids. That's all it. That's all good for me. That's fantastic. Can I read the next one to you? And I'm, I just want to read like the headline point. Yeah. And I just want to get your point, your point of view straight because this one really sparked my interest. And it's number six. And it's an extra inspector to ease anxiety for leaders. What during an inspection? Yeah, that's all I want to say for now. I'm not going to give it too much. What does that make you? What do you feel and think straight away when I say they're going to give an extra inspector Now, if you have, if you were normally going to have two inspectors, you now get 3. And they said to ease anxiety for leaders, just gut feelings. OK, my gut feeling there is.

34:32 If I were to think of all the reasons why Ofsted is potentially anxiety inducing for leaders, the number of inspectors in my school wouldn't be on that list and adding one wouldn't necessarily make it better. Yeah, let's see. But you know, thinking about it on the spot here, I can see why that could be a good thing. Yeah, because it's, you know, it's like we said earlier, oh, bad luck. You've got someone who's not in this setting or, or bad luck, you've got someone who just thinks on their opinion that it's, it's not great what you're doing. Actually, there's another voice now that might actually back your corner a bit. What you're saying there is, is the is the nuance they're actually providing and saying the reason it just really made me laugh because on the surface it doesn't, it doesn't sound like a positive, does it? Don't worry because it in a school setting, you put in the analogy, it's like, don't worry.

35:18 You're not going to be observed by the just the the head teacher today. Today you've got the head teacher and the CEO of the of the Academy trust is can I just have one? I don't want to like so I can. Think and your mum's coming in, she's going to watch, she's going to help your dogs in there as well. It's like normally having more people watching it, it doesn't feel like naturally a good thing. But I, I do genuinely, I can honestly see the reason. It's like, it's basically exactly, you nailed it on the head, to be honest of you, I've read what they put. So. Ofsted said it heard concerns raised through consultation about the additional workload that some feared the revised framework could generate and the implications for well-being of the professionals we inspect. I that's absolutely true, and it's nice they've at least said that. I agree and we can just talk about more about well-being I think in a minute. As a result, the watchdog said it was increasing inspection capacity for schools by adding an extra inspector to teams for one day of all full inspections. Having this extra inspector should allow, should should allow the lead inspector more time to focus on engaging with leaders, coordinating their inspection team and overseeing and quality assuring the inspection, which is basically what you were saying.

36:19 So last bit, this means we can reduce pressure on leaders through the inspection process. Open for debate, I think the the Extra Inspector will enable lead inspectors and leaders to really collaborate across the inspection and should ease any anxiety for leaders by acting as a regular point of contact while allowing the wider inspection team the time to gather the evidence. I, I, I, I think that's good. I think that's good. I think my my gut instinct now is that is overall would be a good thing if it plays out like it's been described. Yeah. Yeah, exactly that. Because it still doesn't really solve the problem of who is in your school judging your setting and their experience, etcetera. But what it clearly does, it clearly something can run more smoothly if you have an extra body on board. So I think if it runs the way that's been described and it's more collaborative because exactly 1 of the lead, the lead inspector can now be more collaborative with the leader rather than trying to do 7 jobs themselves. We've had it ourselves, we've been through offset inspection, we've been mass leads doing deep dives, etc. And that inspector, it was just him and he was doing everything and he'd have points where he'd go away and have to type stuff up for two hours.

37:24 And it can be quite isolating, I can imagine for that inspector and quite tough, like let's just think about that for a second. Like it can be quite tricky to walk into a school on your own and be like, right, I'm going to judge you in two days. I need to do absolutely everything. So adding that extra person in, I think that's actually really good because then you can say, right, OK, let's delegate this out a bit. You're a qualified inspector. Why don't you go and walk around with the mass leads you and I maybe go and gather some evidence for maths. I'll sit with the leadership team and we'll talk through what maybe we think is important to look at after that and you can just get more of an idea. And give it more time of day because I, I genuinely think there are points because we put so much thought and preparation into that often inspection. There were sometimes where I was like, do you know what? I kind of wish they'd give me a little bit more time because I'd put all this effort into like, trying to display all the great things. We wanted to talk about.

38:09 I didn't really get a chance to do some of it. And I was like, oh, he's he's not really got the full context here. Like luckily I can't. We've got across what we need to get across. He's obviously trained professional and he was and he was, he was good at what he did. To be fair, this inspector. We had a very positive. Experience, yeah, a very positive experience. He was a nice guy and but absolutely if if like he had a bit more time, he they would have, we just would have got across more. Yeah, you're right. And it may be even when I come out a bit better, I don't know. But so I can see the positives, but totally, totally reliant on Ofsted, like transforming the the entirety of what they do like it needs to be a collaborative positive process. And it's not that yet. So at the moment I can see why people might have their gripes of this because it isn't that yet. It can be, but it's not consistent. It can be. Yeah, exactly. It's not consistently at all that yet.

38:50 When it is that, I mean, this will be genuinely, which is a really good change. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think that's that's it, isn't it? It's like. Yeah, people have that anti offset thing straight away off the bat and and therefore adding an extra person actually funnily enough could in in like increase anxiety in the short run, in the short term. It has to come alongside everything else that you're saying. I think that's a great point. Absolutely. And so talk about inspections. Obviously they're releasing that new framework and the everything's changing completely. So inspections are going to restart in November the 10th, but it's going to be only with volunteer scores. So this was interesting, I thought. So come in and see me please, please. So school inspections will resume from November the 10th. Offset have confirmed which was always in the pipeline and said this will give providers at least full two months to become familiar with the changes.

39:39 Look, is it a bad thing? No. I think it's good that you give time to school to become familiar. I think now if it's more clear what the framework is like, they've tightened the toolkit we talked about earlier. It's clearly a good thing. It just seems a bit. The timing seems a bit crazy, like how we can start the school year and be a weekend and then all this drops. I just. That seems insane to me from a leader's point of view, You'd be a bit like, could you have just done it a month ago? Yeah. Could we have just timed this out a little bit better than when I put everything in place and? I've done a week already with all of my staff and I've done all my training of my INSET days. They're gone now. And now I've got this dropping on new framework. Yeah, and obviously I want to share it with my school. Yeah, but you're kind of ignore it, are you?

40:20 So the two-month things, cool, but I don't know. So when inspections resume, Ofsted will prioritise volunteers for full inspections in the weeks between November the 10th and Christmas. These inspections will result in a report card with a complete set of grades. Ofsted will then return to the normal schedule for state funded schools, with the full inspection every four years towards the end of the period and not before December the 1st. However, if there are enough volunteers, we will continue to prioritise them after December 1st. We will not carry out inspections in the final week before Christmas. Hallelujah. There'll be no offset. Inspector coming to tell me how good my school fare is for Christmas. How great's that Christmas party?

41:00 Your spread's not great mate. I'm going to write that up in a contextualised paragraph and you're going to get an exemplary. I always felt so sorry for those schools where they found out that officer were coming in on the day where they just planned to do. It's like the last day and it's like we're making angels, mate, and we're hanging it up on a hope like now we've got to cancel this because we have to play the game. You're coming in like I felt so sorry for schools in that. Position. Can I just write? Can I just read this editors note as well? Hilarious me because this is from schools I said earlier. By the way, again, I was gonna plug schools week. Fantastic resource for journalism for schools. Editors note Ofsted publicly discredited a School's Week story in May that reported the watchdog was considering delaying the rollout of routine report card inspections. However, the plans today reveal the return of routine inspection has been delayed until at least December the 1st and potentially January. That's such like a like burn moment from the editor. By the way, you said this was wrong, but it was right. Yeah, they discredited us when we said this thing that they did.

41:53 Yeah, I think, I think, I think this delay is, is a good thing. Yeah. Can you imagine if they were just like, here's a new thing, see you next week. Yeah, of course it. Is it would never go down well no, no. So this is the bare minimum they could do in my opinion. The thing I'm matching on to here is read this again. If there are enough volunteers, we'll continue to prioritise them after December. I tell you what, if you're thinking about volunteering, do everyone else are solid? Get on that list. Delay those Ofsted as long as possible For everybody else. Get yourself on that volunteer. List, I'd love to hear from ready or listening to this right? Who's in maybe like Ofsted coming up, I don't know, whatever, whatever window they're in, who is genuinely willing to be a volunteer for this? Like, yeah, I'm sure there's some people coming, there's going to be, but what I'd be, I just want to be interested to know like, why? Why would you not just wait?

42:36 And like, because a lot of like previously that we talked about getting ready for Ofsted visits previously, there'd be a lot of, oh, that school had it and they said this, this and this, Oh, this school did that. And when they did a deep dive in maths, actually they really cared about that and they didn't care so much about data, etcetera. So like, I feel like from my point of view, selfishly as a school, I'd be like, I'm not volunteering. I'll just just wait and see how this rolls out. I, I, I coming, that's one reason. I don't know if it's a particularly great reason, but I imagine some head teachers who are really confident in their school are thinking like, I want to showcase this, might genuinely look at this and be like, I want to provide better report cards. I just want the parents in my area to see how good this school is. And I think this reporting system is better than the one I've got from four years ago. And I just want to get this new one out so people can get lovely paragraphs about my school and stuff. I think people might be in that position. I think it's probably quite unlikely that they would choose that over what you just said, but you never know. I feel like this is, you know, correct if I'm wrong here, but I, I've always felt like in the schools I've been in that we kind of have a good idea where we're at as a school. Like we kind of like we kind of know if we're on the cusp of outstanding ish.

43:38 We're good in these places. Oh, OK. We're at a certain level where we know that we, we won't get this judgement. For example, I wonder if those schools who kind of feel like, you know, we're, we're in a good place actually, maybe they want to like, do you know what staff team, let's put a poll out. Should we just get out of the way? Should we volunteer? We're. Going to do well out of this. Yeah. And if the staff say yes, they're like then go for it 100%. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't say to someone definitely don't do it ever. But from my point of view, I'd be waiting. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Right, Hayden, do you want to read the the last point here when I hooked him in the air? Go on. So see if you can remember what Dylan said earlier, because I can't. I can't either, so that's just good. I I can't sort it. You'll get it. It's something about whisper goals. Yeah, so #8 is Ofsted Explore an area? Is that the title of it is called Explore an Area for those that are just listening and watching to provide school context.

44:26 So the idea here is as well as providing more contextual information on report cards itself that we've discussed, Ofsted will introduce a new service called Ofsted Explore an Area. This will bring together data to show what education provision is like in and around a local area, which I thought of. This peaked my interest. Right move will have their ears pricking up right now. They all love that. Yeah, that's so interesting. Well, that's hilarious. And explain how the provider's performance sits within its local context. So you were making some point earlier about this being important, about how in different places, different things matter. Like if you're comparing attendance in one school to another completely random other school in the country, it's like the can we really compare those? And the answer is no, of course we can't. And I feel like when I was saying, oh, I think they're doing something about this. I feel like this whole exploring area thing is a bit of a nod to an agreement along the lines of, yeah, we know, we know that context is important, obviously, yeah, different areas have different outcomes for.

45:22 A lot of grammar school in Seven Oaks or some part of Kent where it's really affluent, it's obviously going to have a completely different attendance record. Yeah, to a different place, a different local community, in a school where education isn't seen as on a pedestrian. Exactly. And we don't even need to go into the reasons why. You just know that's true. Yeah, You know what I mean. This is one of those things that I wasn't argue about it. That's true. Yeah. So I like that they're doing this. I read a bit more. It says it will replace Ofsted's area in site service. They do currently have a service in November and be published publicly. OK, so will get further training on how to use data as a starting point for understanding context. Good good stuff. The watchdog has also started to develop a similar schools comparison measure to help inspectors and schools understand how schools compare with those in similar contexts. Okay, so sorry, comparing in the same context. So I immediately thought the same judgement and that's like circular.

46:11 No, no, OK, no. So it's like this school has a very similar context and background and area to this other school and that knowing that genuinely might help you make comparisons and make better judgements completely. It makes sense to train it off to the inspectors in that and also provide it like it says here to schools as well. Why wouldn't you? So. This do you know, do you know when people say how like, you know, the the extra detail is a good thing, like when and for parents, it's great to have that extra information etcetera. Yeah, and, and there might be people out there saying, well, teachers, you ask for this, you asked for extra information and detail and nuance, etc. No, this is what I was talking about, this kind of level of extra detail and extra nuance of actually judging schools in a proper way. That's fair. And still judging schools and still hunting on a pedestal. This is what I was talking about. And I'd say I have everything so far when they're changing the word choice or they're adding information for the sake of it, but not actually changing the problems. Like we said about experience in the setting of a, of a, of an inspector and then writing a paragraph that I'm like, OK, cool.

47:05 I don't, OK, great, It's extra information. Well, you asked for it. I know this, this is what I meant. Like actual useful ability to compare settings of different scores and different areas doing great things. And the ultimate version of this, which still doesn't feel like it's happened, is then to say, cool, work together. You've got similar setting. This was fantastic in this score, instead of berating the rubbish one that I've said is awful. Oh, this score was great. Link up. Yeah. Or how are you? Battling attendance well, we're doing this and it's really working for our kids Love coming nice. Let's try that yeah, that can be Ofsted's roll and the reason we're going to try that is because Ofsted have helped us identify that you're in the context bus rather than saying that school up the road's doing better than you Yeah, so yeah, that's called the roads. Completely different context, so you have a different catchment. Everything's different about it.

47:50 We can't compare. Why are you doing that? Just because they're. Close. And this is where I'm like, I can see how amazing something like Ofsted could be for education. I can see it. I can see how this independent body could drive standards so much and really help schools. And I'm like, we're getting there. Come on. It's, it's within our grasp. And then they change a word to exemplary and think they're doing something. And I'm just like, Oh my God, why we, we are so close to this here. And if the only goal we have is to increase standards for our kids and make them better at anything, right, If that's our only goal, that's, that should be what Ofsted's forefront should be, not just what this looks like for parents clicking, not just what could go on a right move listing of a house because it's an property, it should be.

48:37 How can we improve that and raise standards, which is our literal saying through a really robust inspectorate system where we can compare things and then link up and support. What's the point in all of this is if at the end there isn't the support in place to improve and drive standards? It's missing that link. And and this is coming full circle to what I'm saying earlier about how I'm frustrated by it because there's lots of little things. We can sit and nod and agree or sit and say a pointless. It's all almost futile. If at the end of it, it's not cool. See you later in four years. What? No, at the end of it, it should be support, link together. I care about the kids in my school the same as I care about the kids up in Sunderland.

49:22 And I'm not even exaggerating. They might think, well, it's your job, you should care more about your kids. Obviously I'll put more time into the kids, maybe in my school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I fundamentally the child who happens to be in my class, because they live in the post code that I live in. I care as much about them becoming the best member of society they can and getting the most out of them and enjoying school and getting the best grades as I do from anyone in this country. So if it means that this system supports other places more than my place because my place are getting on, that's a good change for this system and that's what I want. Yeah, because what you're saying there about your view on all of the kids being called that, should that like that's harder for a teacher because you can you can get drawn into what is these are my class in front of me. From the government's perspective, from the Ofsted perspective, that should absolutely be their only goal. They should absolutely be thinking we we're trying to support and raise every single child and teacher and every educational establishment in this country. So it kind of brings it back down to because I think those eight points are really interesting and and just for clarity, I think overall they are positive changes. By the way, those eight changes.

50:19 I think overall, I think there was a couple we sort of laughed about and like the, the name changes suffer a bit inconsequential, but like there were a few things there. I was like, OK, it's. Clearly not a bad thing. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. They've they've listened to some feedback here and actually the step they've made is a step in the right direction. You know, I'm very reluctant to say this is it's all great because I don't think it is. Because the big looming thing is what we said literally right at the start of this, which is like, yeah, OK, this could be really good for parents. But at the end of the day, all of this change started happening really off of the back of Ofsted being slaughtered for being such a negative anxiety inducing process. Do you think with all these changes it let's even just imagine the best possible outcome of all these things be really positive?

51:02 Do you think as a whole Ofsted is going to be less anxiety inducing than it was three years ago? No, why? I just don't think that and I can sit here and give you my personal opinions. I'll be regurgitating a lot of what I just said. So what I'm going to do instead is just is just read to you what people in more positions of expertise have said about this. So, so a big push back from this have been about a well-being report has been published as well from Ofsted, from the, you know, the sad story about Ruth Perry, the head who had a bad experience with Ofsted. That's kind of feel like what what you know, it it it's a shame it took that much to kind of kindle this, you know, this spark. Yeah, Kindle, Kindle, Yeah. To spark this kind of discussion. I'm going to read this section out to you here. So the changes have not been allied with the unions concerns around this.

51:51 Ofsted today published the findings of an independent well-being impact assessment of its new report cards. So alongside them introducing the report cards, they had an independent body say OK cool, can you just judge this for us? A good step. Yeah, it makes sense. Of course they should. Led by Sinead Mcbrady, CEO of mental health and well-being charity Education support. So this is a an expert. This isn't just me sat here going no I'm bloody Ofsted. This is someone who spent months doing a report. Yeah, fair. Staff well-being is key to the Ofsted reforms which were triggered by the death of headteacher Ruth. But the well-being report found that the new report cards would actually increase stress and workload for school staff, despite the sector already being among the top 3 industries with high levels of work related ill health.

52:35 Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders union NAHT, said the frankly damning report shows new inspections do not reduce pressures on leaders, repeating calls for the return of inspections to be delayed. Ofsted's plan to push ahead regardless, quote, speaks of an inspectorate that has completely lost the trust of the profession that has failed to properly listen to teachers and leaders, he added. The watchdog said it has taken well-being concerns extremely seriously and nothing in its plans should add to a provider's workload. Can you just say that after the independent report that you commissioned and I see this all time government, you know, they'll Commission an independent report. Yeah, offset of commissioning an independent report. And when it's said the independent report has said something that doesn't quite align with them, they've just gone.

53:27 Yeah, I don't agree. Yeah, but when it does say something aligns with them, it's the most important document in the world. Yeah, yeah. Like, like if an independent report from ACEO of mental health and well-being charity that's literally 2 of education has looked at all this and said, well, you know what? If anything, it's going to increase anxiety on staff because of XYZ. You have to rethink what you're doing or implement other things that are going to reduce it. Particularly if I'll say it again, it was sparked by something like the death of Ruth Perry, which ultimately it kind of what was the catalyst for this whole thing. I'm like if, if, if this whole thing, if there's all this reform was was sparked by parents get banning together and saying we just want a better reporting system.

54:11 I'd almost be like if that, if that was the primary motive, that's definitely what they're serving. I'm not. I think, I think that's what they're doing. They're, they're, I think they are improving the service that the parents are getting through Ofsted. And that's part of what officers should do. Exactly, and I do not disagree with that, but when the fundamental start of this was about like the anxiety and pressure it puts on schools to. To the leaders. Particularly, yeah, exactly. It is particularly leaders and but to ignore that bit and be like, I don't think it will Yeah. So, well, not only there's, there's almost 2 layers to this, I'm like, it's, it's kind of bad to not make any improvement. It's particularly bad to make it worse, right. And if the independent body is coming out and saying, I think this might actually be worse in terms of anger, the anxiety and pressure it puts on schools For these reasons.

54:56 And, and I'm not going to go into them, but there is like a whole, a whole document on the well-being report. Yeah, the well-being report and even schools, we, you know, keeping these out, they've done a really nice separate article that just goes through all that as well. Go and read it. I'm like, if they've said that you probably should take it seriously, but it then it just leads me to the question and I genuinely don't know the answer to this right now in my head. And maybe we can hash it out between us, but what is the alternative? Like what? What does everyone want? Because I can imagine Ofsted as sort of being like, we need to keep schools accountable. We've tried to think of a different way of doing it. We've scrapped the overall judgements because they were clearly one of the worst things. Like we do need to keep schools accountable. What do you want from us? Yeah, yeah, completely. And I think that's something we have to all work together to to work towards. I think when.

55:41 So if you look at what's actually changed, This is why I push back a little bit when in my head, I do push back a bit when you say I think these are positive things. I'm like, OK, for what they are, maybe for, for serving a different purpose, maybe they're positive things. But from my, my point of view, I'm looking at this very much from a school's lens, OK. This increases the the, the number of categories that the school's being judged on. It adds extra detail for every single category because there's going to be a paragraph written in detail about it. Yeah, I can't see assist. I can't see this being rolled out in schools where that doesn't increase workload, that doesn't increase anxiety, that doesn't increase worry. Because now instead of worrying about four things, you're worrying about 6 things Now instead.

56:22 Instead of, you know, like I said earlier, imagine your teachings bad. Oh, God, the teachings got to be really good. Teach it. The staff are going to get it in the neck, potentially from leaders. Oh, leadership's bad. I'm already stressed. I'm a leader, My goodness me. And now I'm being told I'm still awful. Every single part of why leaders were feeling anxious before is still in this current system and being exacerbated because you're still being judged individually at the end of the day on these high stakes ways of, of, of coming in and saying no, no, no, no. It's, it's causing concern or urgent improvement or whatever it might be, that's going to have the same impact because it's still just as high stakes. And if things go wrong, until we fix what happens after inspections, I don't see how this is going to change anything whatsoever. If a school's in urgent measures, an urgent, if the same thing happens as before, it's just called something different. We need to really step up our actual support for schools and we need to really step up the the point of Ofsted and have fundamental changes as to what they literally do. And if if their forefront of their mind becomes support and help instead of judgement and pointing fingers, that's the change I want to see.

57:31 Whereas what I see here is it's still judging, it's still pointing fingers. It's just got a new fancy word at the front. It's just got a nice little Nandos card instead, at the end of it, it's it's actually, you know, we're going to, we're going to judge and point fingers still, but we'll tell you why. We'll write a little paragraph at the end saying why it's so bad or why it's awful. Look, I think it's I think leadership is such a tricky job. I think it's so hard and and amazing leaders out there genuinely inspire me. And it's very easy for us to sit here and be like, yeah, that's awful because you're exploiting your staff and talk about all the toxic stories of things. I do think about amazing leaders must look at this and go, yeah, it's just actually increased my workload. It's just made me worry about more things. It's just giving something else an extra chance to go wrong.

58:14 And fundamentally, no matter what you think about Ofsted or what they should do, that's clearly to me a bad change. Yeah, they shouldn't be left feeling like that. I couldn't agree more. And I, and I do often think when we're in this context, I do think of Ruth Perry and I do think of all of the other head teachers and leaders that have been, have been, have been left in a horrible way, in all honesty, like feeling terrible and anxious and awful about upcoming Ofsted inspection or a previous one. And I do agree, I think if they've Ofsted just shift their lens a bit to think first, like how could, how could we still deliver this school feedback that they need because they have to be accountable. Like even you said, oh, no, the teaching's bad. I'm gonna worry about that now.

58:55 I'm sort of like the other part means like, yeah, you know, if the teaching's bad, they need to be told sure. That's the point of accountability. Yeah, teaching's bad. It's never not, it's never gonna be nice to told that you're doing something bad for sure. But you've got to be told it so. Yeah, but but there's a but it can be supportive. Exactly. It can be a longer journey. Exactly. Rather than every four years having two days. Yeah, they even said themselves. Just going back to it. Sorry. They even said themselves on the top level, you can only get the top level if it's sustained over time. And I'm like, I'm not being that's how you judge a school anyway. It's sustained over time. You can't possibly do a snapshot judgement of a school in just a 2 day visit. You can't do it. You are assuming a lot and you are taking on face value what people say a lot. And that makes it really high stakes and that makes it a bad system that's going to be full of anxiety inducing parts.

59:38 Because if you as a leader think, oh gosh, my maths lead won't get across all these things we do in that 10 minute chunk of time, they have to get across all these things we do. It doesn't matter if we do them or not. What matters is if in that snapshot, the inspector thinks we do them and that's why the system's flawed and this doesn't fix that. This doesn't change that whatsoever. So that's going to continue to be anxiety inducing for leaders with more points that could possibly go wrong. So until it changes to a long term sustained, yes, accountability, but also support, I think have to come in equal measure because what's the point in being accountable if you're not helping them get there? It's a circle to me. And I think that's where this can be fundamentally fixed. And we have to go from the ground up.

1:00:19 This is patchwork. This is like you, you know, OK, cool. Yeah, we can make it great for parents and right move. Cool. But the system's the same. It's broken. It doesn't actually fundamentally do what it's set out to do. And it's going to continue to be anxiety. Induced raising standards in schools. No, causing anxiety and not helping it. It needs a rethink, fundamental rethink. And again, this is not that. It's just, it's just the same thing. Different words, different different scale. Same thing I think they've they've done they've made some changes. Cool crack on. Leave that those changes are done now. Lovely. Yeah. Maybe it's better for parents. I mean, the next step for Ofsted, because they're obviously listening is, is to do it. I think you've nailed it on the head by the way. I, I, I couldn't put it into better words. I'll never tell you that again.

1:01:03 But the the next step for Ofsted then, in my opinion is working on that part is working on OK, we are supposed to be transforming schools for the better. What are we now going to put in place? What policies you look, we've added extra inspectors to your to your inspections. Great, cool. What are you going to do on the bigger level now fundamentally to make the inspection a more a positive process? And again, it's outside the box. Isn't like we said before, they've just taken the box and like moved it around a bit, just relabeled it. Think outside the box, Ofsted, come on, think of some new strategies and new things. If it's about sustaining impact, like like Dylan mentioned, OK, what are you going to do for that? Because you're coming every four years, tackle that problem, then that's your next step. Tackle those problems because you're not tackling them yet. And it's got to be a better collaborative process. And it can be.

1:01:50 I'm sure there's plenty of experts out there who, if you put them in a room for a week, they could probably think of some really, really, really good ways to do that. But you've got to then actually try and implement them. This is all great. Cool. Thank you for making some changes and listening to us a little bit on some things come up. You're missing the fundamentals here. Completely agree and one thing Oster could do, get all their inspectors when they're training to give us a review on Spotify. I was really. You're really. Intent me listening. They give us a review and might have a platform that the listeners are on right now. It really helps us. You can share this and I think honestly this is 1 episode where I will say to you, please do share this episode with anyone who works in a school because they can get a real insight into what's changing with Ofsted and and really, you know, give us a review as well.

1:02:31 Yeah, I want to know your thoughts about because one of those things where me and Dylan will say we'll talk about it, but we'll often form more opinions after. We'll talk more after it and stuff. No, I form my. Dylan, obviously, he knows everything, but other people will write in and say, oh, do you think about this? Yeah. That's such an interesting way to think about one of these things. Please get in touch. We love it. We love hearing from you guys. Absolutely, guys, thank you so much for this thing. We'll see you again next time for another episode. Yeah, see you then.