Them wot can do

Stardate 17 march 09

Ofsted day.

I got to be interviewed by Ofsted today as they came to inspect the teacher training. This was as my first meeting with the actual dragons that are sent to destroy us all. As teachers I think we were all curious to see how it would be what they would ask and it was interesting to see how well our teacher’s view of what the likely direction of questioning matched with what was actually asked. It was an unusual experience and I shall try to explain why. As a student we would be expected to answer one way as a Teacher we would answer another and defending a colleague another. I feel we all bullishly defended the course. During the meeting my mind played back to the irrelevant comments my own students had raised about the cleanliness of the canteen. As a group of inspection savvy trainee teachers we all gave model answers and emphasised good practice. Should we have raised issues about the things we went happy with yes we should but we didn’t, why? I think because we have the feeling that this stuff would be acknowledged and looked at if raised with the course tutors. Sniping from higher up is just a demoralising activity. What should are my criticisms btw I think the assignments would benefit from the person who set them trying to write them. The level and word count don’t match up in my opinion. To cover all the required elements at the correct level is nigh on impossible without turning the assignment into a collection of sound bites. It’s a weird one I know but I think either raising the word count or reducing the number of things to be covered within it would fix it. Back to the inspection it was an intense hour with a lot of tough high level questions I remember leaving the room with my cheeks burning , I’m sure we all felt like this and somehow feel for one inspector to test 6 teachers so thoroughly gave me the sense he derived some pleasure from it. This bothered me as during the recent external inspection the inspector who visited me couldn’t have been nicer. I can understand where the inspection hostility arises from, if one more person tells me they are just teachers who couldn’t cut it teaching, I might begin to believe them.