We're getting an Ofsted Inspection

[pete]

Anyone had one recently? Any pointers? SMT believe we (IT Techs) might be interviewed as the schools self evaluation form promotes IT as a strong subject (science college etc).

 

The school should walk the inspection - we're pretty good here, but I'm going to have flapping teachers until it's over.

[Norphy]

We had ours at the beginning of the year. They completely ignored the IT Techs which actually upset me a little as they criticised our network without talking to us first. We're a science college too btw. I wouldn't worry about them.

[russdev]

Anyone had one recently? Any pointers? SMT believe we (IT Techs) might be interviewed as the schools self evaluation form promotes IT as a strong subject (science college etc).

 

The school should walk the inspection - we're pretty good here, but I'm going to have flapping teachers until it's over.

 

as far i understand it now ofstead will not interview ict support staff tony will be able to tell you more..

 

russ

[Jake]

Wahey !! always fun. Been through 4 of these at my previous school while it was in Special Measures. Havent had one yet at my new school though, so not overly sure what changes in procedure have occurred

[nawbus]

We had ours a couple of weeks ago and both of us IT support staff and the IT teachers had a half hour meeting with one of the inspectors. Basically we were just blowing our own trumpets, and saying a lot of the IT success is down to IT support!

 

Having said that the whole school came out as Outstanding! Everyone is well chuffed!

 

BTW Good luck!

[webman]

At our last inspection in 2003 one of the inspectors had a word (well, 30 mins worth of them) with us IT Support (Nm and myself, I was techie at the time) and the outcome was great....

[ChrisC]

We had one recently, and no one spoke to us.......

ICT came out as Good though.

 

Chris

[pmassingham]

2000 users, 500 clients but OfSTED didn't even bother to ask me about the ICT infrastructure and how it supports cross curricular teaching and learning. The only support staff interviewed was the school's medical room officer!

[Sylv3r]

We are due an inspection in the next couple of weeks - we are just basically waiting on the call.

 

I would like to talk to the inspectors, as the school uses ICT in all subjects and it would be good to get a good mention with regards to ICT in the report.

[steve]

We were inspected just a couple of weeks ago and ofsted hardly spoke to any non-teaching staff at all - despite there being more of us thatn teachers.

 

Given one of our previous areas for improvement was ICT we were all supprised how little they looked into it. We put it down to the fact we'd got the Naacemark a couple of years ago.

 

They seamed to focus on the SEF along with the general teaching and behaviour.

[Gatt]

we had an inspection just after the return from half term - school was hoping to come out of Special Measures

 

But inthe run up to it me and my colleague were running around like Blue A*sed flies making sure everyone had SIMS access (that was all we had to check!)

 

Then on the day of the inspection our network started the slippery slope to being deceased - it died a few days later and only got it back up today

 

We've got another one about May'ish - and so far they havent gone near ICT Support

[john]

At my last place they had one of those mini subject inspections, and it was on IT, and they didn't even talk to me about the hardware, as if they knew what was running the network, they would have been under Special ICT measure as it was appauling! But because XP ran, increadably slowly mind you, it looked good, modern and up to date, and lots of PCs as well, it meant all was hunkey dorey!

[GrumbleDook]

The general format of OFSTED now is not to target each and every department, but to pick a thread of the SEF. If that is differentiation then they may look at electronic resources and how they are delivered, and so talk to the techies ...

 

If they are looking at how you deal with the digital divide then they may ask the support team about what they have done to help students get access to materials at home ...

 

OFSTED no longer have a remit to actually inspect the technical support team, but it does not mean you won't be asked questions ... if you are asked it will probably be alon gthe lines of "the kit that you put in ... what impact does it have on the learning of students?" and a stock answer is "I don't know ... I just put the machines in place!"

 

A good answer would be "it helps to raise the ICT Capabilities of the students, which in turn can help embed work that is being done with ICT across the Curriculum." Follow it up with an example in your school about how ICT is used in a particular subject other than ICT ... eg, MFL using google as a translator, or accessing your VLE ...

 

All staff are meant to have an idea about what is in the SEF ... not just Manglement or Middle Managers. If you are unsure what areas are relevant to you then ask ...

 

The best advice I can give is to be nice about the teachers and other staff ... and hope they are nice about you.

 

There are several sure fire ways you can avoid being spoken to by the inspectors ... you can be off ill; you can mysteriously have a server page you to let you know of a problem that needs to be fixed otherwise a lesson may not be as good as it could be; have the ICTMark (or NAACEMark at a push ...) and my favourite has to be a suggestion from a friend shortly before his inspection about what he would do if approached.

 

The scene is a very tidy workshop ... several books are open on the desk; Minasi's books, NSA security guides, the Anarchist's Cookbook ... ; your favourite LART is mounted on the wall (perhaps a big piece of 2x4 with a rusty nail ... maybe a whip ... maybe a cattle prod) with the sign underneath of 'Please do not ask for help as mutilation often offends'

 

The Inspectors walk in muttering something about having to travel to the bowels of hell to see a nerd.

 

"Hello, I'm looking for the Network Guy."

 

Ah ... you are on a pilgrimage to god.

 

"Erm ... no ... I'm looking for the person who looks after the computers?"

 

Yes ...

 

"Erm ... we have to talk to him about how the systems"

 

You may speak ...

 

"How do you feel that you work has made a difference to how the students learn?"

 

"I am sorry I can't answer your questions right now, I am on secondment from the MOD and I am not allowed to talk to you about my activities until you have been cleared by MI6. I would advise you to leave now before I have to call in a tactical strike to wipe out all evidence that I was here."

 

.................

 

I think it was quite a good thing that he was never asked.

[petectid]

Apart from several pilots which were run in the summer term of 2005, from September 05 the old inspection system known by the inspectors as section 10 was replaced with a new framework, section 5. It is this framework that schools are now inspected under. As mentioned in other postings the schools SEF (self evaluation) and PANDA (Performance and Assessment Report) are the main source for the direction in which the inspection will take. If your schools Contextual Value added are good then it is unlikely that the school will fail an inspection its these indicators in the PANDA and what the school judges itself to be, either good or bad at that will determine where the inspection will focus. ICT is looked at but in only as much as does the school make good use of it, both for monitoring progress of pupils, cross the curriculum use etc.

 

The inspection is short and sharp, inspections can start at different times of the week but the head will be informed on the Friday of the preceding week for an inspection where the school visit begins on the Wednesday the two days prior to this the inspectors will be looking at your data and arranging with the Head about meetings and the lessons they intend to observe. Having arrived on the Wednesday they will be finished by the end of Thursday, a draft of the report will be with the school shortly after the inspection, and usually published within a month.

[StewartKnight]

Before I left my old school, about a year and a half ago, I completely replaced the PC's with brand new ones. Sure, they were cheap, and they looked cheap, but they were all brand new, and reasonable spec.

 

I just read their new ofsted, and the IT dept were taken to task over the "old" computers that needed replaceing.

 

They hadn't even checked, they just saw the beige boxes, and assumed that they were old!

[petectid]

If this happens then there is a mechanism in place for the school to challenge the judgement. The draft report will arrive in the Heads email; the school then has 24hrs to respond to the reports findings. If he/she feels that they are not correct, then the inspector may change the report.

 

The case you bring to light here seems unusual as some schools may be running on a thin client network and there desktop kit may be re-used old workstations, therefore they may not look good but would be running current software on a current operating system. I know of schools like this that have come out very well after the inspection, yet a large proportion of their IT infrastructure at desktop was old junk.

 

One issue that could allow such a report to be published is the general lack of understanding by heads of how a Section 5 inspection works. Even though they have all received information explaining every detail. Therefore many Heads miss the window for challenging findings, simply because they do not check their email or read documentation.

[pete]

Hmm, just had a look through our SEF. Based upon the number of times ICT is mentioned as a good thing / something we make good use of and responses here, I think we have a 50/50 chance of being spoken to.

 

Would be nice to blow our trumpet for 5 mins.

[GrumbleDook]

If they do speak with you have some evidence at hand to show that what you deliver makes a difference in the classroom.

 

Examples can be how the increase in ICT in humanities has improved the quality of coursework, meaning that the students results are higher than they might have been. (substitute the appropriate subject)

 

Electronic resources being made available so that students can study at home is another ...

 

If you have anything to do with the MIS in schools make sure you have read the Becta documentation about MIS ... so you can explain why your work benefits all staff, students and parents. The inspectors expect some stock answers but become suitably impressed when it is made relevant to your school (the use of predicted grades or info from FFT / YELIS / ALIS to help with mentoring) and so on.

 

I have asked for more guidance on how support staff fit in with OFSTED but the generic answer back is that it is not about how support staff can answer questions about how they are relevant to OFSTED, but how they are relevant to the school ... and if they are asked anything it will only be about how something they do fits in with other things in the school ...

 

It will not be "are you doing a good job as a techie / NM?", it will be "we have been told that such and such goes on at the school and you have some input into it ... can you explain your role?"

[petectid]

If they do speak with you have some evidence at hand to show that what you deliver makes a difference in the classroom.

 

Examples can be how the increase in ICT in humanities has improved the quality of coursework, meaning that the students results are higher than they might have been. (substitute the appropriate subject)

 

Electronic resources being made available so that students can study at home is another ...

"

 

GrumbleDook, do you think that an inspection team is going to have time to speak with IT technicians or Network Managers? Especially when they have such little time in which to interview the entire management team and a selection of Departmental Heads and Teachers. The inspection process is only concerned with whether a school is getting results, improving or has the capacity to improve if the inspection finds fault. If the IT support is doing a good job then certain aspects of school management will come out better. If IT is badly used or resourced it is not your fault but is the fault of leadership and management, whether the NM is part of that is debatable, though I can check this out if you want to know.

[pete]

Ofsted Day 01.

 

2x laptop kernel error bluescreens - both users fault

1x "forgot how to use Fn + F4 with projector"

1x projector not powering on.

1x Ofsted Inspector declaring "I haven't seen anyone using IWBs yet" - Really?, I've seen 12 lessons using them and I don't even get paid to look. (no, I didn't say it out loud).

 

Mostly though, it was a very quiet productive day - all the teachers were occupied with something else.

 

Oh yeah.....

 

1x

(we have German and French exchange groups onsite, they sit in on lessons with the person they're staying with).

Ofsted Inspector: "It's rather crowded in here (IT Room)"

Teacher: "Don't worry, they're Germans"

[GrumbleDook]

If they do speak with you have some evidence at hand to show that what you deliver makes a difference in the classroom.

 

Examples can be how the increase in ICT in humanities has improved the quality of coursework, meaning that the students results are higher than they might have been. (substitute the appropriate subject)

 

Electronic resources being made available so that students can study at home is another ...

"

 

GrumbleDook, do you think that an inspection team is going to have time to speak with IT technicians or Network Managers? Especially when they have such little time in which to interview the entire management team and a selection of Departmental Heads and Teachers. The inspection process is only concerned with whether a school is getting results, improving or has the capacity to improve if the inspection finds fault. If the IT support is doing a good job then certain aspects of school management will come out better. If IT is badly used or resourced it is not your fault but is the fault of leadership and management, whether the NM is part of that is debatable, though I can check this out if you want to know.

 

It varies from school to school. The main task of inspectors is to follow threads within the school and if that means looking at the support behind the mechanisms for delivery then yes, they will, and they will expect the staff to know what impact they are having.

 

One example I have had explained to me from Every Child Matters is that of student safety. They looked at bullying and spoke with the EWO, the LSAs, the students, the form tutors and also the support staff, asking about how much bullying goes on via email and what was in place to a) stop it, b) deal with it on a discipline level (looking at commonality of discipline within the school) and finally c) if all staff knew the procedure for reporting and dealing with bullying.

 

They may only have spent 10 mins with the techies or they may have come back several times to check further points ... but the emphasis is not on "is the computer network good?" but "is it delivering stuff in line with school policy?" or "does it have an impact on the students?"

 

If there are no methods of dealing with offensive messages, or no procedures, or if a techie does not know how to deal with a student bullying another via email ... then it is not the technician at fault, but the school and its leadership (unless the techie had been given the documentation, attended training and still can't be bothered to work it out!)