Grindon Hall school

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Doberman said:
it happens in every school though so, with this in mind, lessons never challenge the clever kids?
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Rarely in your average Comp. But at least the subject classes are streamed so the top achievers tend to be in classes where the work can be a bit better pitched at their level.
 
jedi_toaster said:
I'm not connected to the teaching profession so I don't care what I say. I say 'not connected', but both my parents were teachers and now my wife is. I can't get away from the bastards.
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I'm not directly connected, but I have family and a good mate who are ITK and this has come as no surprise to them.
 
Doberman said:
Nope. I've hardly ever had anything to do with OFSTED and their last visit to my school was before I'd even qualified nevermind joined the school.

Anyway. I'm done with giving OFSTED a kicking. I hope Grindon Hall turn things around and make you all look silly.
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Hold on a minute you don't like ofsted but you've never actually gone through an inspection?

I have always maintained that they aren't fit for purpose but at least I speak from experience ffs
 
Doberman said:
Pupils talk to their friends and 'time waste'? Doesn't that happen in every school? They're kids ffs. :lol:

Happens in my school all the time and we're deemed 'outstanding'.

That isn't OFSTED nit-picking at silly non-issues is it?
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If that's the case then why didn't OFSTED nit pick at the school you work at?

Do OFSTED have a specific agenda against this one school?

I won't discount the possibility but I also cannot see why they'd come down hard on GH and not anywhere else.
 
Frijj said:
If that's the case then why didn't OFSTED nit pick at the school you work at?

Do OFSTED have a specific agenda against this one school?

I won't discount the possibility but I also cannot see why they'd come down hard on GH and not anywhere else.
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They come down hard on everybody. Across the board. They're bastards.
 
Frijj said:
If that's the case then why didn't OFSTED nit pick at the school you work at?

Do OFSTED have a specific agenda against this one school?

I won't discount the possibility but I also cannot see why they'd come down hard on GH and not anywhere else.
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4 faith schools done at same time...two deemed ok
Just Grindon and the connected Durham Free that were ripped new ones..
 
Hulkster said:
When they say a school isn't promoting British values, do they mean liberal, left wing values?
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You'd best check in with Conservative former Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, as he introduced the requirement for OFSTED to do this, which was backed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.
 
Ive been through enough external audits from government agencies to know that there is opportunity at every stage to give and receive feedback, with wash up sessions and daily startup meetings etc.

How GHC can only come out throwing mud shows that either. A they were that incompetent they didn't see a bad report coming or B they are that deluded they think they can PR their way out of it.

It seems that successive rounds of inspectors have been and had a really bad feel for the place and how it's being run, and haven't been blinded by the superficial.

My little one is in an outstanding place at the moment, and they have the basic of funding. And not the best of facilities. But the feel of the place is brilliant. They can't do enough for the kids.
 
Cee Jay said:
4 faith schools done at same time...two deemed ok
Just Grindon and the connected Durham Free that were ripped new ones..
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I have no leaning to either side here, but 4 faith schools done at the same time seems a bit unusual? The cynic in me can't imagine that they (Ofsted) haven't had a discussion about what they are going to look for before they turned up and that it isn't different from what they would look for in a "mainstream" school.
 
max wartbug said:
I have no leaning to either side here, but 4 faith schools done at the same time seems a bit unusual? The cynic in me can't imagine that they (Ofsted) haven't had a discussion about what they are going to look for before they turned up and that it isn't different from what they would look for in a "mainstream" school.
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Two have links so that would make perfect sense..
And by the same time..They mean around the same time.
Wasn't all Co ordinated for the same day.
The reports are detailed and feedback given throughout will approx 60 lessons observed.
Given falling results which cannot be disputed I can't see how this was any sort of witch hunt as the head is trying to spin...
 
Cee Jay said:
Two have links so that would make perfect sense..
And by the same time..They mean around the same time.
Wasn't all Co ordinated for the same day.
The reports are detailed and feedback given throughout will approx 60 lessons observed.
Given falling results which cannot be disputed I can't see how this was any sort of witch hunt as the head is trying to spin...
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Obviously, however to my mind there must have been a perception of issues at local faith schools, rightly or wrongly, for 4 of them to be looked at around the same time. I doubt it will have been a coincidence given problems out of the area.
 
max wartbug said:
Obviously, however to my mind there must have been a perception of issues at local faith schools, rightly or wrongly, for 4 of them to be looked at around the same time. I doubt it will have been a coincidence given problems out of the area.
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If a school is in requires improvement then they have to be inspected again within a set period..
If there were concerns about the faith schools that also meant getting an inspection is that such a bad thing ?

Btw many other non faith schools gave been inspected in the same period..Some good some bad so can't see anything whatsoever unusual about four faith schools being visited around the same time...
Dm gave a two page hatchet job on it today..
 
I remember a good few years ago having a big row with an LEA advisor when I was working in a faith school in Durham about how they really hadn't thought through the difficulty of demonstrating pupils' awareness of multiculturalism when you were teaching in a very very predominately white church school in a very predominately white-british area of the county and the fact you weren't likely to get a child chirping up that "Muhammed isn't in school today as he's celebrating Eid" to tick that box on the assessment forms and how did they suggest we got around that - I just got told we had to figure it out how to evidence that awareness or not be able to verify we'd done that. There's an element of the Durham story that I do think is the same issue, over 10 years further down the line - along with it being just generally shabbily run.

The Grindon Hall story I've thought from the start went much deeper. I've tended to keep my eye on the school as when I was possibly looking at moving back to Sunderland it was a school I was thinking about applying to for the kids in the future... but that Ofsted report is pretty damning and the school's just desperately trying to throw this British values red herring in to get the Daily Mail readership horrified and hide from the real issue - looking at the Ofsted report they've been pulled up on recruitment, safeguarding and basically - coasting their arses off with a nice selective intake of very supportive parents who'll be putting in the work at home and whose kids were pretty damned likely to be getting good test scores anyway. School I used to work in got hit in a similar way in that regard a few years ago (and bloody well deserved the rocket up their arse they got as a result of that one)... the value added is absolutely crap.

I generally pay fuck all attention to Ofsted categories - I've worked in schools from Outstanding to schools in Special Measures - there are schools who've had SM reports I'd be happy to send my kids to and schools that are Outstanding there's no way on this earth I'd touch - I pay more attention to the bits below the overall grade where they pick things apart - and the GH stuff there is pretty damned awful.

Oh and round here the uniform would easily be mistaken for one of our real bottom of the league tables turned into academies ones determined to mark their new start by having as strangely coloured a uniform with ridiculous blazer trim that it's possible to get - they've seriously all gone for that approach - to the extent that the "good" schools now are the ones still with boring navy and black uniforms.
 
When my kids were at GHS, it was a fee paying school, one of my kids was in the primary, about the time when the old stables had been converted into classrooms, the school had hired a new young teacher, to say she was thick was an understatement, she didn't have a clue, I'm assuming she had a degree or teaching qualification ( if so I dont know how she got it). So we were left with a child who was stagnating at school while we were paying thousands, it wouldn't have been to bad but he was a very bright kid. It turned out that she was a former pupil and went to the same church, she was employed because of being a bible basher at the same church. The next year the children the class caught up because they had to be taught from an experienced teacher ( who was an excellent teacher) to pull them out of the shit, but half the class left to go to a different school. My child ended up leaving school with 10 separate GCSE'S 2 a*, 4 a's, and 4 b's, god knows what he might achieved at GHS, I assume it would of been nowhere near them grades, but this school seems to have deteriorated since my children left.
 
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