I am the headteacher of a tiny infant school which has just had its Office for Standards in Education inspection.
Despite the unfailing courtesy, consideration and professionalism of the inspection team, it was a very traumatic experience.
The worst aspect was knowing that any criticism of either early years or key stage 1, however carefully-worded the report, and however small the area of negative comment, would be attributable to an individual teacher, since there is only one in each department, and the whole village knows who teaches whom.
May I, through your pages, request OFSTED to alter its model, so that no individual teacher other than the headteacher can be identified through a report.
This is an issue for curriculum co-ordinators of larger primaries as well as for small schools, though the identities of the former are less easily recognisable outside the immediate school community.
Teachers in larger primaries may have glaring areas of inadequacy disguised in the written report by the presence of more competent colleagues. For teachers in very small schools, and for lone early-years teachers in any school, there is nowhere to hide under the present system.
CAROL V ROOKWOOD
Providence Cottage
Curtisden Green
Kent.
