Head teacher kills herself over OFSTED

Thanks for putting up the link Ailidh. I think it was on the OFSTED site I read it.
The inspectors are damned if they do, or damned if they don't. They can't win. It sounds like the flossing issue wasn't such a big deal after all, but the media decides to make it so.
Like Marydoll have spent many a Saturday at school quietly and thoroughly checking and rechecking everyone's employment details. You have no option but to get this right. The poor Head will have felt devastated.

Although, I feel sorry at the outcome, I do agree with Maggienaybe.
As someone, who was very involved in safeguarding in my school and now in a voluntary capacity, the safeguarding of children must take priority. Procedures must be rigorous.
If they were not, then the inspection team had a duty of care to highlight the situation.

Maggiemaybe, it truly is in the report, I followed this link the other day from the school site.

www.cavershamprimary.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/10242325-Caversham-Primary-Sc-109778-final-PDF.pdf

I'm horrified for the woman and her family and her friends and her school and the inspectors but agree with you that the inspection team had no option.

Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures. They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school.These weaknesses pose potential risks to pupils.

If that is truly from the recent inspection report of this school, then the inspectors had no option but to grade the school as they did.

Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are complete for some staff employed at the school. This is completely unacceptable. I was responsible for safeguarding checks at the last school I worked at and thorough background checks are non-negotiable. We actually had someone with a very dubious history apply for a job in our school nursery. If we hadn’t spotted the discrepancies in their application form it could have led to serious consequences for our vulnerable 3 and 4 year olds. The safety of children has to be paramount.

OSTED sounds like something left over from Stalinist Russia. How ghastly and what right do outsiders have to just come in and comment anyway? Why don’t they get a better system ,some sort of peer review ?

I’d like to know what role the Governors played at that school. We all (governors) had to do safeguarding training and as governors were expected to ask challenging questions about that and other aspects of the running of the school.
The school advisor should also have looked at that as something to put on the head teacher’s appraisal if it was done properly.

Our last inspector was knowledgeable and willing to talk and answer questions. Others have not been the same. E.g. when the focus was on SAT results, rather than progress of individual children shown by the data, one inspector was totally unable to comprehend that cohorts differ. He couldn’t see that some years, you might have higher/lower numbers of children working at GD, no matter how hard teachers worked.

So easy to see how a service trained to highlight such issues could be a positive rather than a negative

Maggiemaybe

Galaxy

The Ofsted inspectors I have worked with have generally been of a really high standard. I am as uncomfortable with the demonising of inspectors as I am with the demonising of social workers, etc.

The Ofsted report hasn’t been published yet and the inquest into this poor woman’s death hasn’t been held, so any discussion about either is really just speculation based on hearsay and media reports, as as the case with so many tragic events these days. And of course the Ofsted inspectors involved are human beings, who must be feeling terrible about the suicide, whether their actions had anything to do with it or not.

The demonisation of any group of people - teachers, inspectors, doctors, police officers - is harmful and wrong.

You're right Maggiemaybe. It isn't unusual for an inspector to leave a school upset and frustrated because it has to be downgraded. They are not toxic like they are often made out to be.

I read the report for that school. I assume it was the real thing. This is what it said, ..............

^Leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding requirements and procedures.
They have not exercised sufficient leadership or oversight of this important work. As
a result, records of safeguarding concerns and the tracking of subsequent actions
are poor. Leaders have not ensured that all required employment checks are
complete for some staff employed at the school.^ *These weaknesses pose potential
risks to pupils.*

Erm

People are sharing that actual experience, here on this thread

I'm saying a lesson needs to be learned from that

Surely the wanted outcome for all schools is that they reach their full potential. I'd want a service that encourages and promotes that rather than something that raps your knuckles and makes you go and stand in a corner with a dunce cap on your head.

It's all wrong and I hate it for everyone who has had a negative experience because I've yet to meet a teacher not running themselves into the ground

I have felt the pressure of Ofsted and I certainly wouldnt be making those assumptions, I would be waiting to see the results of any investigation, if there is one.

From the evidence already shared Oreo

1. Past history
2. The experience of those who have felt the pressure of Ofsted
3. Flossing "sexualised"? Seriously, definitely a case of an inspector putting their own opinion above training

Galaxy

Yes every one who holds even a slightly different opinion to you has no empathy or logic.

galaxy I'm not even talking to you

What do you need from me to feel better today?

What are you on about VioletSky
‘This was a failure’ you say.How do you know that the OFSTED inspector in this case got it wrong? Perhaps they got it right and did their job properly.

Galaxy

The Ofsted inspectors I have worked with have generally been of a really high standard. I am as uncomfortable with the demonising of inspectors as I am with the demonising of social workers, etc.

The Ofsted report hasn’t been published yet and the inquest into this poor woman’s death hasn’t been held, so any discussion about either is really just speculation based on hearsay and media reports, as as the case with so many tragic events these days. And of course the Ofsted inspectors involved are human beings, who must be feeling terrible about the suicide, whether their actions had anything to do with it or not.

The demonisation of any group of people - teachers, inspectors, doctors, police officers - is harmful and wrong.

Yes every one who holds even a slightly different opinion to you has no empathy or logic.

Do people not understand that even the regulatory bodies need to be regulated?

Without taking failings seriously there would be no standard of practice.

Without standard of practice, any poorly suited individual could enter any job and seriously screw up all sorts of lives.

This was a failure.
This went wrong.
This had a negative outcome.

Something needs to be done about that... "I'm sure everyone was doing theor best" in regards to social workers and the like does not protect others from being let down.

It is not about demonising a whole category of worker, it is about making sure every worker in that category is properly trained and vetted.

If you can't see that, I don't know where your empathy or logic have vanished too on this subject because there is no such thing as an acceptable percentage of loss in children or adult welfare

Joseanne

Galaxy

The Ofsted inspectors I have worked with have generally been of a really high standard. I am as uncomfortable with the demonising of inspectors as I am with the demonising of social workers, etc.

This

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

This brought tears to my eyes. Working in childcare you out your heart and soul into the job. She sounds like a very dedicated teacher. My heart goes out to her family. Try going through an ofstead it’s nerve wracking and one false move and your downgraded.

My GCs certainly do the Flossing dance. They tried teaching me! If that is "evidence of sexualised behaviour" it's ridiculous. I thought we got past those sort of ideas when people did things like the Twist. Oh dear!Just remembered mine were trying to twerk the other day!!

And - this is not the first tragic suicide of a teacher after a schools inspection.

Something is very wrong indeed with the system.

The Flossing Dance
It is on YouTube, not something on the dark web!

Isn't that the dance that Jacob Rees-Mogg's children did in a clip?
I'm sure I've seen my DGD do it.

MaizieD

I haven't read much about the case, apart from what I'm seeing on this thread. But I'm a bit puzzled as to how the safeguarding issue put the school straight into Special Measures. Why wasn't it Requires Improvement? Are Ofsted Inspectors required to go straight to SM if they find a safeguarding problem? IIRC, they do have a 'tariff', but this seems very extreme.

(And I'm slightly as to how you stop children ever fighting in the playground.)

The report, which was published this week, found the school to be Good in every category, apart from leadership and management, where it was judged to be Inadequate, the lowest rating.

Inspectors said school leaders did not have the “required knowledge to keep pupils safe from harm”, did not take “prompt and proper actions” and had not ensured safeguarding was “effective”.

Caversham Primary School said in a letter in response to the report: “The school, led by Ruth, responded immediately after the inspection visit, to take action to resolve the issues raised

“Following the heart-breaking loss of Ruth, we have continued her work to ensure that the school is an effective, safe and happy place for children to learn and achieve.”

I find it hard to believe that a school dropped from 'outstanding' in its previous report under the same head teacher.
And how can a school still be found to be 'good' if the leadership is inadequate?

Mrs Perry's sister told BBC South that inspectors said a boy doing a flossing dance move, from the video game Fortnite, was evidence of the sexualisation of children at the school.
He had obviously not learnt that in school.

(I have no idea what that dance is btw).

Thank you Kate 1949.My daughter is a positive person too luckily but we can see things taking their toll.Fingers crossed for both our daughters🤞🏻

Poor lady and her poor family
Perhaps this could be the catalyst for change, I really don't think grades are helpful.
For wrap around care I believe it is a case of 'met' or 'not met'

The school should have a staff welfare governor (I am one) but the emphasis tends to be in the main body of staff rather than the head - note to self ... check how our head is faring!

The whole OfSted system is crazily stressful - we all know how a school can be downgraded on some small thing in one aspect, when as a whole the school is brilliant. It is soul-destroying. I have been through two of these as governor and am acutely conscious that if I have not covered one small item in the reams and reams of things we are supposed to do the school could be downgraded and all the dedicated hard work of the staff will be "rewarded" with a downgrade. And we are just volunteers.

The inspectors see a snapshot for one day. They talk of child on child abuse at this school - fights in the playground happen, it is a fact of life, but what matters is how the school deal with it. As to the criticism of "sexualised behaviour" by a pupil who was "flossing" - what can one say?

There will be pupils who exhibit true sexualised behaviour under the influence of home/media - again the school need to deal with it, but they cannot be held responsible for it happening in the first place.

Schools inspectors used to be about offering advice and practical help to overcome any shortcomings they might find - about developing a supportive relationship with the school for everyone's benefit. It may be that governance and management were lacking at this school, but proper support to improve is the way to go; not a blanket judgement that damns the school in the eyes of the public. Having said that, I would be very rich now if I had £1 for every time a parent had said to me that they take no notice of the OfSted reports and look at the school themselves and make their own judgements.

Our school would have been judged as Outstanding, but only resulted in Good as the attendance did not hit targets - we had had a great deal of sickness locally, and some of our children are part home-schooled - parental choice and right to do that if they wish. We cannot stop it. Most schools deny admission to pupils whose parents want to do this - we take the view that if the parents are planning to home school anyway, we would like to offer some of the advantages oif school to the pupils to enhance their education. The inspectors just look at the headline percentage.

The OfSted system is simply awful - it has no positive elements, and judgements are made on a quick snapshot.

How very sad for this poor head, her staff and pupils and the whole community.