As a teacher, one of the worse things you can hear is that Ofsted are coming in to your school. It’s not that teachers are necessarily doing anything wrong, but the whole process is said to be extremely stressful and can put added pressure on a teacher’s already busy schedule.

The idea of Ofsted is to come in to a school and check how they are performing in certain areas. These areas include:

Overall effectiveness, Effectiveness of leadership and management, Quality of teaching, learning and assessment, Personal development / behaviour and welfare, Outcomes for children and learners and The effectiveness of early years and sixth form provision, where applicable.

Once the school has been graded on the above, a report will be published to the public giving a summary in each area and the grade awarded. These grades can be Outstanding, Good, Notice to Improve or inadequate. If the school obtains either notice to improve or inadequate then they will be revisited again shortly to check their progress.