Ofsted

On Monday morning we received an email saying that a Ofsted administrator had called to inform us we were due to have inspectors in for Tuesday and Wednesday, and they would be having a longer phone call with the Head. Nervous excitement started to rise, and a slight worry as we were not "due" to be inspected for another 4-months. Also, since I had only been in post for a short time and we had been making some significant changes due, whilst struggling with some long-term staff illness and using supply for a significant period. At an after-school whole staff meeting the Head confirmed my department were being deep dived alongside 4 other departments. This had been in some negotiation with the Head, who was clearly confident in the steps and progress our department had made. The lead inspector had referred to us as "Sports Studies" and "Sports Science" and it was clear he was interested in KS4 PE.

After this meeting my team returned to the 100+ students waiting for after-school clubs to start (business as normal) and I was straight into a further meeting with the other curriculum leads whilst the head went back in the phone with the lead inspector. We were informed of the structure of the day and started to put a plan together for our inspector’s deep dive, mainly responding to their requests of wanting to see KS4 lessons, being something of a challenge as it happened to be a heavy KS3 day and staff absence etc. limiting our suggested timetable. So, we built a suggested timetable our inspector would follow, 1 inspector for 2 curriculum areas and we managed to plan out a potential route for him, moving back a forward between PE and Science. It wasn't until about 6pm until I got back to the PE (which can be problematic if you car share). By now my team had managed to refresh themselves with our dept. handbook and scheduling documents. I was blown away with the desire to show what we had done to come this far in a short period of time and the level of calmness from every member of the team (including a team of associate teachers that have set up shop in the dept office). When I left that evening, I knew we were ready for this.

After about 4-hours of sleep I woke with the excited energy feeling before a big sports fixture. My team all got in early and we gave the dept a bit of a tidy. Then I went for my curriculum discussion and our deep dive began.

I was second in and was welcomed with very brief small talk, smiles and jokes. The inspector explained the process and apologised in advance that he would be typing and not looking at me very much. His first question was "what is PE all about?" I took the route of explaining our intent, our values and vision which he seemed to be happy with and I felt quietly confident as this was "I had been training for", the second question was on the curriculum but very specific about how we designed it around disadvantaged and SEND learners. The questions that followed were centred around our support for disadvantaged and SEND, with very little focus on what I had planned and very little reference to the supporting documents I had brought with me. At one point he took out the National Curriculum and asked me specific questions on these areas. He also asked me a question to justify the 2-year KS3 that we operate. There were the standard questions on workload and staff bullying (a full list of questions from the day are below). This "interview" lasted about 20-minutes after which we went straight out to deep dive our lessons.

In period one we visited two lessons, 1 practical (Cambridge National sport science) and 1 theory (GCSE PE) spending about 15 to 20 minutes in each. During this time, he spent most of his time asking questions to the students, looking at work or asking them about their work, also asking how these lessons where linked to previous lessons (a list of questions is below). After these lessons he came with me to my own A-level PE lesson, where he then sat at the back as I welcomed the class and taught; he checked their books and asked them questions about the work that they had completed and about assessment, typed some stuff on computer then left on his own, despite my offer to help him find the next department he was diving.

Later (about 2 periods), after I had taught my own lessons, I went to find him, to be told he was already in a theory Sports Studies lesson where I joined him. Again, he spoke to many students and looked at work in books. We made our way back to some KS3 practical lessons where he spoke to lots of students (seeing handball, hockey and table tennis) and 1 KS4 Sports Science lesson. Throughout these lessons I started to ask students questions too, as I was seeing some subtleties that I wanted to be noticed such as differentiated conditions in practical lessons. The main focus was on disadvantaged and SEND, asking me to identify these learners, each of my team had their seating plans with these learners identified so that made my life easier. He asked me questions as we went forward such as "do we teach performance analysis to year 7s?", which allowed me to refer to our sequencing, but any time I tried to point out what we were doing with regards to teaching and learning, or memorability strategies he would change the subject or move straight on the PP or SEND questions. As the practical classes went to change we visited one of my own groups being taught by a trainee that I am mentoring, but he made it clear that he was purely looking at their books and asked me to get the SEND and PP books. He mentioned that quality of marking is not part of the inspection but as any professional he did have an opinion on it. Throughout the lessons he asked for students to demonstrate their learning, either showing him their work in books or demonstrating in practical lessons. During these lesson dives he gave me lots of feedback, strengths and areas for development, he was very candid with this, yet he made these in a developmental tone, but I suspect everything was being recorded. During these lesson dives he didn't speak to any teachers and typed up lots of notes.

At lunch time he asked to see 3 learners from year 10 and 3 from year 7 to speak to, and we sent down 15 books from across the KS4 curriculum for a work trawl. The inspector told me he would come and find me after lunch to see some other lessons, but he didn't return.

At the end of the day, he met with members of my team to discuss and triangulate what I had told him and what he had seen (and read in my SEF). This was an opportunity for some feedback, my team were able to show him a lot more of what we had been doing that I had wanted to show him and overall, they found the experience very positive and came back quite happy.

Then it was over, no feedback to me, the difficult thing of not knowing how it went.

In total he visited 9 lessons over two (and a bit) periods: 4 theory (yr10 & yr11 GCSE PE, A-Level PE and yr10 Cambridge National Sports Studies), 2 KS4 practical (yr10 CN sports science - fitness & yr11 CN sports science - badminton), 3 KS3 practical (yr7 handball, hockey and table tennis).

He made it clear that he didn't want to visit lessons where I had been covered in order to escort him round, and he didn't want the day disrupted too much, hence coming with me to see me teach my A-level lessons and returning after my teaching had finished. He was also clear that they were not focusing on pedagogical practices of the teachers in lessons.

In total 3 inspectors dived into 5 areas all day on Tuesday, on Wednesday only the lead inspector was in and it was a normal day for us with no sign of any Ofsted going on other than the various members of staff asking us about the experience.

My team and I were pleased to be picked and welcomed the opportunity to show how much strong work we had put in to the curriculum.

To sum up my deep dive experience I found it a frustrating experience; as a school we had focussed on KS3 being on track with this new framework, and being told the focus was going to be on KS4 "Sports Studies" slightly frustrated me as I wanted to "show off" all the changes we had made; and then trying to fit a timetable together with another curriculum area on a particularly heavy KS3 day was somewhat time consuming when I just wanted to speak with my team and check they were all happy (this timetable needed to be sent off to the lead inspector asap). On the day our inspector used the timetable as a basic guide but didn't particularly focus on KS4 as we had been led to believe and he went to lessons in all key stages. The most frustrating part of the process is that I felt I didn't get much time to show what we were doing, and it felt like he was mainly concerned with disadvantaged and SEND learners rather than the curriculum as a whole.

After a deeper reflection I suspect that our deep dive was influenced heavily by my SEF, which at the time made little reference to PP and SEND, where I had detailed heavily our teaching and learning strategies, sequencing and intent (whilst this was a focus of one of the other inspectors in another curriculum area).

As I deep dived with the inspector I realised that my SEF was being clearly and evidenced so was very happy with this. As this inspection caught us out of the blue, we have a true account of what we are doing everyday so our feedback would be valid and realistic. I was also no-wiser at the end of the day due to no feedback to me, which is also frustrating. Overall, I am delighted with the performance of team and how they maintained their high levels of professionalism, keeping calm and doing what they do every in everyday lessons. The outcome at the moment needs to remain confidential until the report is published.

Yes, it was exhausting, yes it was frustrating, yes it was (at times) challenging, but yes it was exciting, yes it proved my team and dept. are fantastic and doing an awesome job.

• Know the National Curriculum inside out and how it links to your curriculum.
• Know the school's intent and link your dept. intent to it.
• A SEF, make sure you have completed one and regularly update it. Be clear on your strengths and areas for improvement. Write it as is you were walking round with an inspector, detail what they would see happening in your dept.
• Conveniently a week prior to the inspection, I had been invited to present a curriculum review to our governor's and that put me in a good position, with similar questions the inspector had asked. Get in and make sure your governors know what you are doing.
• Ask your students lots more questions in lessons. I thought I had until I went around with an inspector. Get your students to demonstrate their learning, either in books or in practical lessons.
• Make sure you have considered how your Curriculum meets the needs of disadvantaged and SEND learners.
• Whatever research you do on a deep dive (including reading this), remember that no deep dive will be the same and they will be looking to confirm your SEF. I read loads of great tips and people's experiences, but you can't predict your inspector. I took everything I thought I might need to show them and all he took was a copy of my extracurricular timetable, although I was able to reference my sequencing document regularly. Another inspector would have wanted to see something different.
• Don't try to put on a show, it is supposed to be a true reflection of what you are actually doing, and the inspector will find out when asking the students.
• Do ask the students questions as well, me doing so led to some examples of really positive evidence being highlighted (one of which I hope makes the report). This was also the point that I realised I had some control over the deep dive.

• How is the curriculum designed to meet the needs of SEND and disadvantaged (not specifically PP, but it was inferred PP was the focus)?
• “Assessment?”, then I got him to ask a question, “tell me about assessment in your curriculum”.
• What is PE all about?
• How do you ensure that the team are doing what they should be doing?
• How are you supported with your work load?
• What will behaviour be like in the lessons I see today?
• How do we ensure extracurricular clubs are inclusive for SEND and PP? (he took a copy of the extra-curricular timetable.
• Tell me about staff bullying, how is it dealt with?
• At one point he took the National Curriculum out and asked how we covered it all; including how do we ensure all students get opportunities to cover outdoor and adventurous activities?
• How does the curriculum stretch and challenge learners?
• How much influence did I have over the "all do PE in KS4" model?
• Why do you do a 3-year KS4? Justify this.

During this meeting he spent the “interview” making notes and pushing me from question to question, he didn’t want to look at much of the evidence and paperwork I had brought with me, although I was able to refer to it myself, the most useful document during this was our sequencing themes document which linked to many questions and he had no choice to notice it as I kept pointing elements out (this was used throughout the day as well).

• How is your learning progressing? How does this link to last lesson?
• What are you doing? What did you do last lesson?
• What are you doing and why? How does this link to last lesson?
• What skills are you learning? (not knowledge)
• How do you know how to improve?
• How are your practical skills developed and assessed?
• How do you understand PE? (they struggled with this question’s vagueness)
• How do your teachers teach in a way that you understand?
• What is this topic?
• How often do you get this? (referring to DIRT)
• Why did you do this work? What was the point of this work? (referring to a particular piece of work).
• How often do you get feedback?
• What is your feedback?
• Today what are you doing?
• Why would speed affect a team game?
• Why is this a strength to you?
• How does it fit together? Link this to last week.
• In Table Tennis – How do you know what you are doing? Show me?
• What have you learned in lessons 1, 2, 3, etc?
• Why are you doing this?
• What do you know that you didn’t know 3 weeks ago?
• Lots of “Show me...”, “what did you do in lesson 1 of this unit” etc.
• To a student without PE kit (non-doer) “what will you be doing in this lesson?”

Questions I asked students, as I could see the subtleties of the lesson and him not being a practical PE specialist (and as I got more comfortable/confident):

• Are you in particular groups?
• Have you been set a certain task? Is it different to others in the class? (leading to worksheet being pulled from his sock).
• Does this happen in every lesson?
• Do you get to choose who you work with?

Questions asked to the dept. in staff feedback and questioning session (I wasn’t there, but these were what they remembered). This session lasted about 35-mins, they had the opportunity to show more evidence of what we are doing, as a few of them had their laptops.

• How can we ensure that the PP and SEND students are attending extra-curricular activities?
• How do we ensure that all of our lessons link and how do we know that the children know how they link?
• How has the curriculum been developed to ensure consistent learning?
• How do we know that SEND pupils are progressing and understand what is going on?
• What efforts have been taken to minimise the workload for staff?
• How often is the curriculum reviewed and how do you go about doing this?
• How do you assess the students and how do you know what they know?
• When did you have safeguarding training?
• What is behaviour in lessons like?
• What are the new elements that have been added into the safeguarding document?
• What would happen if you were concerned about the safeguarding carried out by the headteacher?

I hope this HElps - Good luck