Ofsted insepection is a waste of money

Why don’t we simply publish a rank order of schools according to the socio-economic class of their intake?

The Ofsted inspectors pay lip service to making allowance for the quality of the intake of a school but the results clearly indicate that they totally lack the competence to do that.

If they had that competence then the main determinant of the performance of a school would be the quality of the management team and the teachers and the failing schools would be randomly spread around the city.

What a surprise then to find that the great majority of failing schools are within a stone’s throw of the Northern General Hospital.

Some years ago after I retired as a secondary teacher I did supply teaching in a number of South Yorkshire schools.

I remember in particular a couple of days that I spent in Firth Park Comprehensive.

It was no surprise that as a supply teacher the children tore me to bits but I was full of admiration for the staff there who could actually do the job and teach those children in an orderly manner.

At the time newspaper reports were talking about Sheffield Lane Top being a no-go area in the evening because of the behaviour of groups of youths but those same youth were being taught during the day by staff who could only be described as exceptional.

However, Ofsted describe them as ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Failing’.

Patrick Dyson