Ofsted Unsatisfactory

After the news announced by Michael Wilshaw that he plans for the word 'satisfactory' to disappear from the vocabulary in Britain's education system I loved read this blog post from Michael Rosen, the author.

I sort of see Ofsted's point. Sort of. I mean, we want to have an education system that is better than satisfactory. One that releases the potential of our pupils and offers the best future for them. But to say that satisfactory is unacceptable surely completely changes the meaning of the word. Satisfactory means that it does what it is supposed to. What's wrong with teachers and schools doing what they are supposed to?

On a separate note, it's typical for the government (Wilshaw's a politician's puppet, despite his background in teaching) to  make unbelievable proposals like this without putting in time and training for teachers to improve their skills. To make demands on the profession and simply expect it to happen without providing any funding or training is not on at all. Funding to local authorities has been cut to such an extent in our area that training courses and the advisory service has virtually disappeared overnight. It's a great time for consultants who must be raking it in!

But what a missed opportunity for the government to look like good guys for once. As Michael Rosen says in his blog post, " All that money on inspection rather than advice. Bullying rather than co-operation." Couldn't Ofsted have rebranded itself as a sort of advisory service? Couldn't there be a balanced of inspection and offering support and guidance to schools to help them to improve? In the absence of much of the advise offered by local authorities, perhaps there's a gap in the market for someone to regulate the advice given.