Primary Teacher Resource Centre - Forum

[cherryblossom]

so sorry to hear this !
but well done on your lesson xx now rest up this weekend xx
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new beginnings !
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[crispy]

Take some time for yourself this weekend and try to relax.  Well done for your fab lesson.

It's over and done with for now so please try to not let it eat you up too much (I know how hard that is) x
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[justbrowsing]

Big hugs.
Have a good weekend.
Congrats on your lesson obs.

[whoa there pickle]

Hugs cuckoo, we had them this week too. I think there are so many different agendas out there that it is really messing up the education system. What one person says is right another person says is wrong.
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[Night Garden]

Well done on your observation. Been in this same situation at my school and it's blah!

[smallholder]

[Irishcailin]

Oh no! Congratulations on such an amazing lesson. Well done for being Outstanding. It's good that your LEA is supporting you. I hope your school community can recover from this xxx
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[cuckoo]

Thanks for all your words of encouragement. Don't get me wrong the grading could be worse if that makes sense but we just didn't think we'd ever end up where we are.

The tone of the whole inspection was so different to the last where we really felt they came to see the good and many outstanding features whereas this time it was to find the faults. No care for where our children come from, just that the end results are not good enough because meeting national expectations isn't good enough anymore! WTH?! I mean mathematically how can we all be above average? I just fear for our whole authority if that is the case! Their minds were made up before they walked in the door and it was apparent that they weren't there to consider any of our evidence or to listen. That is what was so frustrating. I don't think the inspectors were quite prepared to come out from giving their feedback to SMT and the governors to face walking past 50 members of staff waiting in silence to go in for sentencing. One of them was heard to say "What a shame."

The conduct of the inspectors was also very questionable and without saying too much there are a few members of staff who have very valid reasons to log complaints.

Seriously though, I am left in a place where I truly  think why on earth should I put myself through this for the next 30+ years.

However throughout all this, I am so privileged to have gone through this with my colleagues and our kids. We will battle on and who knows in the grand scheme maybe it will all work out for the best although the cynics in us are convinced it's because they want to turn us into an academy as we're so huge!

[brummie]

Oh Cuckoo, it makes me so sad for you to read that. What DO they expect from us? I'm speechless. When I was struggling so much I found that I woke up one morning and had to remember why I went into the job in the first place. They have been and gone and you know what is best for your children. You need to "wallow" for a bit and it's totally natural to feel devastated, but you WILL come out the other side, and you'll be even stronger believe me. Throw yourself into your day to day job of doing what you're brilliant at which is teach your children. Try to keep your chin up, Hun. Countdown to summer hols and all that xxxxx

[Night Garden]

You must of had the same inspectors as us, as you are describing what happened to us! One teacher actually did demand to be seen again as didn't feel their grade was fair. Got it and was graded higher. We have children who left KS1 on level one and who by year 6 were either a 3a or 4c and we were told this was not good enough. One reason why I hate levels!
All I can say is that in our situation the staff became even closer and supportive.

[greyengine]

I really feel for you as we had a similar experience a few weeks ago, except our inspection team were actually pretty good.  Pretty much told us that we were actually a very good school and they really liked us and what we are doing for some very deprived and troubled children, but the attainment and progress meant that they couldn't do anything other than give us NTI.  It's been a real blow to staff who have absolutely worked their socks of this year.    I think the drill is that they come in with a working hypothesis based purely on results and then look for 'evidence' to back this up.   What has upset me most about this whole process is seeing young enthusiastic and hard-working teachers starting to feel, as you have said, why should they bother.  Parents apparently gave fantastic feedback on us on their response forms but now are left wondering if they are missing something.  Like you, I personally came out of it well, but it's pretty small comfort in the face of colleagues who mostly seemed to have lessons judged at at least a grade below the one they normally get.  Have now had several resignations and early retirements including most of the SLT, and a couple of others off with stress related illnesses.

[shinygoldenlady]

[Night Garden]

[cuckoo]

Surely we need to be taking a stand against this??? Who is going to want to teach in a deprived area if this is what happens?  

Greyengine- exactly what you described happened in our school. Teachers who are consistently graded outstanding came out satisfactory. They don't have a satisfactory bone in their bodies. Reasons for those judgements ridiculously nit-picky!  

I am going to write a letter to Gove. I believe as MP he has to reply. Perhaps swearing needs to be avoided (see my fb comment) but I will do it. I know it means nothing but I feel I must.

[tog]

Our school is in a similar position (with a Visit pending.....) We have a very low baseline for our Reception intake, so our "progress" is more than national expectation but "attainment" still isn't high enough.... Our children predominantly come from low-income families with a high proportion of single parents /very young parents (our LA scores very highly on the teenage pregnancy league table!), generally with little education themselves and low expectations of their children.
Unfortunately all that we do counts for nothing - the accelerated progress, the well-behaved, articulate, and motivated children, the increasing attendance figures, the provision of a wide range of extra curricular activities which these children would not otherwise experience, and so on - none of this matters because our attainment isn't "good" enough, based on some arbitary standards set by someone a world apart from the lives of these children. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! (sorry! just frustrated!)

[cuckoo]

I am sorry for you too tog.

It is so frustrating and as much as we were devastated this week I am also so enraged. It feels better to know that this is because we are victims of the system rather than that we are "satisfactory/inadequate/rubbish" or whatever other terminology some outsider decides to fit.

grrrrrr.........

[Knightrider]

How devastating for you all.  My school had exactly the same experience  (outstanding teachers being told they were satisfactory and worse) 3 years ago and submitted a formal complaint about the lead inspector.  Last year the volume of complaints against her was so large that she was sacked.  So even though it didn't make a lot of difference to us, together with everyone else's complaints, they finally listened and got rid of the person who was destroying so many teachers.

Fast forward to just before half term - the team we had this time had experience of SEN (we have an additionally resourced provision so lots of statements and so will always struggle to get great data), and they didn't need to be persuaded that the data for the 6 statement children (out of a year group of 23) in last year's year 6 should be treated differently to the non statemented children.  At the end of the inspection the HT commented that she now realises just how bad the inspector last time was.  So keep a little faith in the system - your experience can be completely different another time.  It's just so wrong that it depends so much on which inspectors the lottery sends you.

Look after each other, and remember that you will get through it.  ((((cuckoo))))

[smallholder]

(((((((cuckoo)))))))))

Feel for you. Was there a year ago. Now waiting for them coming back. Sigh....