webofevil | Ofsted

A friend of mine who is a primary school teacher—a good one, at that—is cross. “We had our Ofsted recently,” she says. “The inspector was in for one day. She was in my class for a grand total of eight minutes. My 2005 class of 10 year-olds wasn’t bad and ($respectable number) of them got Level 5 for writing. My 2006 class, however, was pretty thick, but we still got (two fewer than $respectable number) out of them, which was pretty good. But, to the inspector, one number one year and two fewer the next means that standards are declining. So in her letter”—

Ofsted’s inspection letter is sent not to the teacher but to the children, thanks no doubt to some helpful inclusive strategy platform agenda framework—

“she said, ‘Writing must improve’. Except, the kids who got this letter are the class of 2007. They’re a bright lot, and I’ll be surprised if they get fewer than (> $respectable number) Level 5s this year, but they’ve read what she said and now they’re really worried about it. I talked to her about the difference in year groups and she said that she completely understood but that there’s no way of changing or challenging her initial report.

“On top of that, her letter about how our ‘writing must improve’ contained several basic spelling and punctuation errors. So I marked it with corrections and sent it back with a compliment slip.”