Only the weak need fear OFSTED

23rd June 2000, 1:00am

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Only the weak need fear OFSTED

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/only-weak-need-fear-ofsted
WHY are teachers so scared of Office for Standards in Education inspections? I live in a Neighbourhood Watch area and every few weeks a policeman drives around to check. I don’t hide under the table and tremble, because I have nothing to hide.

So why is the school inspector, who is only doing a “policing” job, considered to be the lowest of the low? Could it be, as Chris Woodhead, the schools chief inspector, pointed out on BBC2‘s Newsnight, that there are some teachers who are being paid to do a job but are not doing it well and, therefore, dread the OFSTED visit?

If I employ keyboard operators to compile nspection reports who cannot tell their fingers from their thumbs - they get the boot.

Give OFSTED inspectors the credit they deserve. They are people who have a great deal more experience in the teaching profession than many of today’s classroom practitioners.

Inspectors are also human, they don’t go into a school looking for problems, but if problems are there you can be sure that, with their rigorous training and the constant monitoring, they will soon spot them and trace them to to their source.

Liz Jones

Riverside School Inspection Service

7 Little Silver

Tiverton, Devon


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