Website with OFSTEd early Warning

[timbo343]

I can say with 100% certainty that Ofsted inspectors do visit a school website from an Ofsted network. Maybe not in every case, but it happens a lot. I got my daily report this morning and for the first time in two years we've had hits - we had the call yesterday afternoon.

 

How many hits did you have? Ive got Service provider - page views and then filter this data - Onl show Service Provider containing ofsted. There has only been one session yesterday.

[timbo343]

Interesting because they viewed our site too

 

Looking into this session i dont know what to make of it...

[siuko]

Normally if yours is setup like ours you should be able to go into the report and there will be an option to click the ofsted isp info and get info on which pages they have accessed

[timbo343]

Normally if yours is setup like ours you should be able to go into the report and there will be an option to click the ofsted isp info and get info on which pages they have accessed

 

Ive just now setup a report with the following:

 

Metric Group: Page Views

 

Dimension Drilldown: Page Title

 

Filters: Include Service Provider Regex ofsted

 

This tells me they only looked at the Calendar and Dates page.

[siuko]

The menu layout has changed a bit since last time I used it

 

So now I have to go to Customisation > Custom Reports > change date to start and end yesterday > in search bar put ofsted

 

This will then show just ofsted data for that day and it should be a blue clickable link > clicking that will show you which pages were visited

 

That's if your report is setup like mine

 

Edit : Just re-read your post... sorry I realised you had already seen how to view the pages hit

Edited March 3, 2017 by siuko

[elsiegee40]

Ive just now setup a report with the following:

 

Metric Group: Page Views

 

Dimension Drilldown: Page Title

 

Filters: Include Service Provider Regex ofsted

 

This tells me they only looked at the Calendar and Dates page.

 

Checking the dates for the future? No point coming in on an inset or during the holidays

[JordanT91]

How many hits did you have? Ive got Service provider - page views and then filter this data - Onl show Service Provider containing ofsted. There has only been one session yesterday.

 

Two sessions, one of 20 seconds and the other of 2 minutes. They looked at the home page, news (but no specific articles), contact page, staff list and the annual review page (though this happens to be the landing page when you click on the information tab so it probably wasn't intentional).

[timbo343]

Staff here have said they are possibly checking the dates too. But i dont get why bss.org would be part of the ofsted network?

 

I'm trying now how to show what PDFs have been downloaded and need to find out when (date and time) these hits took place.

[JordanT91]

The two service providers that visited our site were 'logica ofsted ngdc' and 'logica ofsted aviaton hse'. I'm guessing their backhaul is shared with various other government departments.

[Joanne]

So I've set up the analytics... do I now need to add the code into the home page of my website?

[timbo343]

So I've set up the analytics... do I now need to add the code into the home page of my website?

 

There should be the tracking cookie that needs to be added to your site. We added it to our template.

[AJWhite1970]

So I've set up the analytics... do I now need to add the code into the home page of my website?

 

click on Admin, then Tracking Info then Tracking Code

 

You should find your unique code listed there

 

Andrew

[sloughman]

I am playing Devil's Advocate here. But will it make any difference to any Ofsted result, I have set up Analytics now, but just wonder at the point of it all really. So say an ofsted Service Provider is noted in GA does that mean they will visit, will it be tomorrow, the next day or two weeks' time, something else, or not at all ? In other words does the school immediately fly into OFSTED panic mode (as happens when the real call comes in) on the off chance that they will come in ? GA just tells you that they've been looking, and if they've been looking from home it doesnt tell you anything ! I think it just makes it worse in many ways....

[sparkeh]

I am playing Devil's Advocate here. But will it make any difference to any Ofsted result, I have set up Analytics now, but just wonder at the point of it all really. So say an ofsted Service Provider is noted in GA does that mean they will visit, will it be tomorrow, the next day or two weeks' time, something else, or not at all ? In other words does the school immediately fly into OFSTED panic mode (as happens when the real call comes in) on the off chance that they will come in ? GA just tells you that they've been looking, and if they've been looking from home it doesnt tell you anything ! I think it just makes it worse in many ways....

I agree, but want to test this theory

[Joanne]

Good ol' school jotter!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I agree, but want to test this theory

 

Same. I probably won't say anything to anyone and just see if it works.

[Love_Sausage]

Just to add that this works and gave us a heads up - I noticed the logica ofsted visit at 3pm on a friday, and we got the call 9am the following Tuesday. SLT (well, the ones that read their emails after 3pm on a Friday) were grateful for the notice. The Head decided not to tell the teaching staff in case the call didn't come, so they were blissfully unaware.

 

"ftip003239872 logica ofsted ngdc" was the service provider logged.

 

As for how useful it was to provide the information and what they did with it, I'm not fussed - but going above and beyond on occasions like this can't do any harm.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Love_Sausage

[mjk]

Just to add that this works and gave us a heads up - I noticed the logica ofsted visit at 3pm on a friday, and we got the call 9am the following Tuesday. SLT (well, the ones that read their emails after 3pm on a Friday) were grateful for the notice. The Head decided not to tell the teaching staff in case the call didn't come, so they were blissfully unaware.

"ftip003239872 logica ofsted ngdc" was the service provider logged.

 

As for how useful it was to provide the information and what they did with it, I'm not fussed - but going above and beyond on occasions like this can't do any harm.

 

Thats great news. Unfortunately, to counter it we have multiple visits from "ogica ofsted ngdc" one one day, centred around our policies. We are due a visit so I notified SLT - that was three weeks ago and we've not had the call yet!

 

[mjk]

Thats great news. Unfortunately, to counter it we have multiple visits from "ogica ofsted ngdc" one one day, centred around our policies. We are due a visit so I notified SLT - that was three weeks ago and we've not had the call yet!

 

 

.... and today we get the call.

[timbo343]

.... and today we get the call.

 

We too got a hit on our site from "logica ofsted aviaton hse" on the 2nd March, over 3 weeks ago now and still waiting for the call.

[mikeprice]

It would make sense for Osted to sometimes go out and do a look at several schools websites to keep in touch with what school are doing - and what the 'norm' is so that they can give advise about what needs to change

 

so seeing even genuine hits from them could be a false positive

 

but it does give an indication possibly

[mjk]

Most schools will know if they are due an inspection, and the early warning system isn't very useful for that because it appears Ofsted look up schools a few weeks in advance.

What it is probably more useful for is surprise inspections - if a school is suspected of doing something untoward and inspectors are called in an emergency to look for something in particular having been tipped off by a parent or local authority. I think then the early warning system will be of more benefit.

 

It would make sense for Osted to sometimes go out and do a look at several schools websites to keep in touch with what school are doing - and what the 'norm' is so that they can give advise about what needs to change

so seeing even genuine hits from them could be a false positive

but it does give an indication possibly

 

I've been keeping an eye on this for over a year, never see a hit, then we get a visit after a few weeks of some hits.

Edited March 27, 2017 by mjk

[john]

In my last job before leaving Education the way we spotted we were about to get the call was the SEF got locked out so we couldn't login to edit it and it gave weird errors. Not sure if these things exist still having been out for 4 years but at the time it was a good way as 48hrs later the call was received and a weekend of panic arrived

[sparkeh]

Experiment completed. Ofsted last week, no sign of them from Google Analytics beforehand.

[JordanT91]

That surely must mean they either didn't look at your website or they didn't use an Ofsted internet connection (they probably used their home connection).

[mjk]

That surely must mean they either didn't look at your website or they didn't use an Ofsted internet connection (they probably used their home connection).

 

For us it worked, albeit 3 or 4 weeks late. For others it doesn't.

The idea of this is so that you might or might not get a heads up, not that it is going to be definitively reliable.