They are coming

[Espada]

Tomorrow we have OFSTED coming into inspect our school which means my work load and stress level have gone up by a factor of ten and to make matters worse, I seem to have developed some horrible bug from somewhere so every part of me is painful. So if you have a spare couple of minutes prayer would be greatly appreciated at this time.

[Shimshon]

May the Lord sustain your health and give you shalom to deal with your trials. b'shem Yeshua Adonai

[plum]

Tomorrow we have OFSTED coming into inspect our school which means my work load and stress level have gone up by a factor of ten and to make matters worse, I seem to have developed some horrible bug from somewhere so every part of me is painful. So if you have a spare couple of minutes prayer would be greatly appreciated at this time.
I haven't seen you around in a long while, Espada.

:prayer: going up right now

[Espada]

I haven't seen you around in a long while, Espada.

:prayer: going up right nowI've been around a bit but mainly lurking

[zhilan]

What is OFSTED?

[Wags]

We will keep you in our prayers.

[Tishri1]

praying for you in this situation, that you keep your shalom locked in your heart:hug:

[Lotuspetal_uk]

What is OFSTED?
A UK teacher's "thorn in our side" :D

Seriously, it's a government body that assesses whether a school is performing their duties in terms of reaching certain government standards. A royal pain in the rear as it merely serves to raise an already stressful job to intolerable levels.

Espada, praying that all will go well for the next two days.

Unless you're a HOD or senior management, you've got nothing to worry about. Make sure your lesson objectives are clearly displayed in each lesson, have lesson plans for the next two days, make sure you're up (generally aware of) on all the policies relevant to your department and the school's overall behavioural, marking, assessment policies. The onus is that the management have cascaded such information to you, the class teacher.

If you are stuck for some "whizzy wow" IT lessons, pm me and I'll email you some suggestions.

Also, if you're still doing DiDA and you're stuck, let me know for what our school scored well on.

:prayer:

Lastly, (as I know you will do anyway), first thing, before any kids enter, and when you are on your own in your classroom, pray that the Lord, will be right by your side for that day, and pray for a restful sleep when you get home.

May the Lord's great Shalom be upon you the next couple of days.

LP

[Espada]

Well day one is down without any inspectors coming into my lessons. One more day to go.

[Lotuspetal_uk]

Well day one is down without any inspectors coming into my lessons. One more day to go.
:clap:

Funny, but I was praying this exact thing for you on the first day :D

I remember last year with my school that OFSTED's focus was Core (English, Maths and Science) and the Arts due to the school's specialism. Since ICT wasn't considered a Core subject yet only one of my Dept was observed for a quick 5 minutes after they'd compiled their other findings, but they didn't inspect our policies nor question us.

God Willing, ICT may not be the focus again at this stage in this academic year, even though I know that they are piloting the KS3 ICT online SATS this year. I pray that again our subject is not the main focus yet, at least on a class teacher level.

Still, I will be lifting you up in prayer for tomorrow. :prayer:

You will know by the end of the week how your school got on, but let us know tomorrow how you're fairing.

[Espada]

Well inspections finished today and they left our department alone. I never even saw an inspector which is a real answer to prayer. So thank you for all of your prayers. Not sure about how the school got on as a whole, we should no tomorrow but as there were issues with the core subjects, it could be special measures.

[Lotuspetal_uk]

Well inspections finished today and they left our department alone. I never even saw an inspector which is a real answer to prayer. So thank you for all of your prayers. Not sure about how the school got on as a whole, we should no tomorrow but as there were issues with the core subjects, it could be special measures.
:clap: that you didn't get seen! It merely serves to increase your stress levels as opposed to them seeing how well you teach.

I will continue to lift you guys up for today - God Willing the school may get through with a satisfactory. It has to be really really bad (as in not reaching the standards under Core) if they deem special measures for a school.

Don't even think about doing anything over this weekend. Be sure to unplug your phone, and lie in the fetal position on the sofa, this Shabbat rest. :P

[Espada]

The end result was that we got a "notice to improve" which is not so bad. Apparently they were considering special measures due to the financial position we are being placed in by the LEA. So there will be an inspection in a year's time. I am hoping to have moved on by then, a decision I made before the inspection.

[Tishri1]

I'm glad all went well, and I hope you get your prayer of a relocation too:prayer:

[Lotuspetal_uk]

The end result was that we got a "notice to improve" which is not so bad. Apparently they were considering special measures due to the financial position we are being placed in by the LEA. So there will be an inspection in a year's time. I am hoping to have moved on by then, a decision I made before the inspection.
Amen, I'm actually considering leaving the profession completely right now. I dunno, what with all these inspections and internal reviews, I'm not finding the job fun anymore, nor can I justify the amount of hours I sacrifice at home for it.

If I was just allowed to improve a child's learning to the best of my capabilities, and make my subject enjoyable for our kids, I would stay in but that's not happening anymore. I keep seeing too many stressed children (which I've never seen before!) and even more stressed teachers. :sigh:

On a side note, are you guys still doing DiDA? There was a debate with senior management at my school that they felt it was too hard for our kids and they wanted the Dept to move onto a BTEC ICT qualification instead.

How are you finding DiDA now?

Shalom!

[Espada]

On a side note, are you guys still doing DiDA? There was a debate with senior management at my school that they felt it was too hard for our kids and they wanted the Dept to move onto a BTEC ICT qualification instead.

How are you finding DiDA now?

Shalom!

The guy who was Lead Teacher at the time we started it decided to do DiDA (or at least AiDA) to all students regardless of ability. Now our FFT data says that four of our yr 11s should get a B and not many more a C so you can guess the level of most of our students. Now I suspect that our LEA consultant had a hand in this, this being the same guy who when I mentioned I had more students than computers he said "you don't need computers to teach ICT" and suggested turning them off. Another time when discussing a student who had a yr 9 target of 2.7 he said that the data was wrong and that if she was that low she would have a statement. I pointed out that she does have a statement and he still said the data was wrong.

This guy is one reason I want to move.

Anyway back to DiDA, a lot of our yr 11s this year will fail because it is too much for them. They need something like the old GNVQ where it is short projects with tick lists saying have you done this. The SPBs are just too much for them to handle.

[Lotuspetal_uk]

The guy who was Lead Teacher at the time we started it decided to do DiDA (or at least AiDA) to all students regardless of ability. Now our FFT data says that four of our yr 11s should get a B and not many more a C so you can guess the level of most of our students. Now I suspect that our LEA consultant had a hand in this, this being the same guy who when I mentioned I had more students than computers he said "you don't need computers to teach ICT" and suggested turning them off. Another time when discussing a student who had a yr 9 target of 2.7 he said that the data was wrong and that if she was that low she would have a statement. I pointed out that she does have a statement and he still said the data was wrong.

This guy is one reason I want to move.

Anyway back to DiDA, a lot of our yr 11s this year will fail because it is too much for them. They need something like the old GNVQ where it is short projects with tick lists saying have you done this. The SPBs are just too much for them to handle.

:sigh: .. And I thought it was just my school. You know that in terms of my lower school classes, I have class sizes of 31, 29 and 26 for a classroom with 20 machines. We still haven't worked out how we will manage the year 9 online SATS tests with these sizes.

Although the GNVQ was hard work to mark (coursework folders with over 100 pages of evidence that you had to sift through), I agree that I see that DiDA is too hard for most students. Some of the design concepts use to be taught at A'Level six years ago! I'm in isolation in my dept with this thought though. If all of us taught it the way that the examination board wants it to tbe taught (minimal teacher input, students reading the SPB by themselves etc...), we'd have more fails, but it's not.

Yep, I feel I've reached my saturation point with my school :)