So I’ve shared the fact that we had “the call” (Part 1) and was observed (Part 2). Now time for the feedback session.

You may remember (I know it sounds odd) that myself and Seager met with the lead inspector to get feedback on our lessons together. As we walked in it felt OK (we did check … don’t worry we didn’t ambush the inspector!) … in fact he seemed VERY OK with it as much of the feedback session was about running the department. In retrospect both of us came out and said to each other that there was very little feedback about the “actual” lessons (I’m tempted to ask for my observation notes!)… apart from the fact that he had seen the same subject being taught. The discussion very quickly went onto (not verbatim) two key areas:

(1) How were we addressing prior knowledge given the changes in curriculum? This is something we are very aware of – all all our schemes of work have a section in relation to prior knowledge and we aim to assess this is in place prior to launching into a new topic. One strategy is to use “boarding cards” for lots of the key topics that we are aware of may be missed with the shift in topics downwards from KS4 to KS3 and from KS3 to KS2. In terms of our scheme of work we’re using something at KS3 adapted from the collaborative scheme of work and so it hasn’t been developed in isolation but has drawn from the experience of lots of teachers and at KS4 we’re using an exam board one that we know has been through so many levels of quality control that nothing (fingers crossed!) is missing … we may also know one or two people involved in putting it together which helps! We also very briefly discussed “mastery” teaching.

(2) Assessment was a massive area of discussion. How are we assessing? How are we ensuring that assessments are rigorous and reliable? We mentioned that we use past papers at KS4 (year 9 onwards) and in the interim period we intend to continue to do so as the results are based on whole-cohort outcomes. We made it very clear that making our own tests or using SAMs isn’t an option for us and once we start changing the existing materials we are changing the assessment objectives and so the grade boundaries become no longer reliable. We discussed how we will make subtle changes to the them where material is no longer included at KS4 or where topics are no longer worth the same number of marks (eg a simple Pythagoras question is likely to be worth 2 marks in the new exams!) and how we are already considering how we can make them into 3 papers for the current year 10 by the end of the year. In terms of years 7 and 8 we intend to continue to use KS3 papers – not because they are the best preparation for the new GCSE, and also not because a 4.3 actually means anything … what they do offer is the ability to measure apples with apples. We know that “loosely” if a student is moving up the number scale we could safely assume that they are making progress compared to the previous assessment. Going forward we have plans as to what we want to introduce in terms of a 5 year strategy but that has to wait until we’ve gone through the new GCSE … we believe that high school is a 5 year journey.

NOW as to the school judgement. As you may be aware SLT/governors are informed of the outcome at the end of day 2 of an inspection. I still, to this day cannot believe that our team were able to keep it to themselves but they were told that the “provisional judgement” was that the school had moved from requires improvement to outstanding. Wow! Just Wow!

Don’t get too pleased for us … as it turns out … much, much later during the quality assurance process our head was informed that the final judgement was a “Good”, with two areas rated as Outstanding and that the overall judgement of outstanding could not be awarded. If you aren’t aware – teaching and learning is a limiting factor so the highest grade you can be awarded is whatever your school gets for “T&L”. My understanding is that there wasn’t enough “evidence” collected/documented when the report went through Quality Assurance to say that the T&L was outstanding … isn’t that their flipping job?!?! #nuffsaid. Having read the report there is so much amazing stuff being commented on – it almost feels like the report was written for an “outstanding” judgement and then updated to reflect the new judgement.

Where do we go from here as a school? We went into this inspection as a requires improvement school and are now a good with outstanding elements. Nothing changes … apart from the fact that we no longer have the threat of being forced into an academy chain over us. Of course we would have liked to have gotten the outstanding judgement but if someone had told us before the inspection that we’d get a “Good” we would have been ecstatic … however for me, (remember its my opinion!) the gloss has been taken off the whole outcome and it feels that the process is flawed somehow. It feels a little like “here’s what you could have won” … the inspectors judgement not being an actual judgement is a farce!

Looking back, it’s good it’s over. The official judgement has been challenged and nothing is going to change (it never was if we’re honest) – we could have allowed a second inspection but what’s the point? Nothing will change and it would mean going through it all over again – at the end of the day what is important is what we do every day. We teach, we educate, we open up opportunities for students and that will continue.

It now seems like it was all in the long distant past for me personally and the focus has already moved on to what we need to do for our students.

Tis done!