Parents — your views on Ofsted and next steps
Rather than simply press ahead with the changes, Ofsted invited all interested parties to give their thoughts on the proposals during a period of consultation earlier this year. The closing date for having a say was Friday 5th April 2019.
Parentkind wrote to Ofsted, because how schools are inspected, and the reports that are published online about each one, are important issues for parents. We all want the reassurance that our children’s schools and quality of teaching will be judged fairly and accurately. Equally, we want to know that Ofsted reports we read when considering a potential school for our child provides us with all of the information we need to help make an informed judgement about its suitability.
Key highlights of what parents told us about Ofsted
To ensure that we reflected genuine parent voice in our response to Ofsted, we created a survey for parents and invited responses. The answers offered by 316 parents influenced and provided evidence for our submission.
Overall, we found that there is currently a level of dissatisfaction among the parent community about how Ofsted meets its needs and expectations.
What conclusions can we draw?
Based on what parents told us, our consultation response included the following: