Ofsted. Possibly the most dreaded word in any school, public or private, good or bad.
The school where I’m currently delivering workshops is due an Ofsted visit in the new term and that reminded me of the last time I was in a school being assessed by Ofsted.
This was my second consecutive day teaching at a nice school in Fulham, where I was covering another artist who worked there regularly. She had prepared an Ofsted-proof lesson plan for that day, with the QCA schemes of work linking to other skills, including literacy & numeracy, outlining the learning objectives, detailing how to help SEN & EAL students… EVERYTHING was there.
I walked into the school to find a ‘surprise’ Ofsted visit (they’d found out the day before). Instead of delivering the perfectly planned workshop, I was kindly and subtly asked to stay out of the way, putting up a school council display board (luckily I have an Art degree!) and to leave once that was finished, lest they start asking me questions.
Not sure who’s more to blame – Ofsted (with their narrow-mindedness when it comes to evaluating schools), the government’s system (putting other subjects ahead of creative ones, evaluating schools based on targets, etc) or the school (for turning into a madhouse and pandering to the evaluators).
Anyhow, I wanted to put that into writing to try and make sense of it. All part of the system. Sir Ken Robinson is so right, we MUST change the paradigm. Not that I think too highly of myself, but to have a professional artist come into a school should be something to be proud of, not to hide away….
