The dreaded O

We all knew is was coming, and massive hints had been dropped at school about when it was coming, but to be told that OFSTED is on it's way is still a huge jolt to the entire educational workforce of Great Britain.

It was to be high stakes for my school. We had previously been in special measures and at the last inspection we got out of that on a notice to improve. This time we were hoping to be completely out of a category, and do it with a judgement of 'GOOD'. I knew that my small part to play in this was simply to present a 'good' lesson, but after my experiences of observations so far at my school, I'd settle for a 'satisfactory'. Inadequate was not even an option.

First I got my data folder together - full of assessment data, targets, seating plans, photos of my classes, IEPs et al. Then it was on to lesson planning. Of course I already knew what I was to be teaching from the schemes of work, but what resources would I use to show my inspector my amazing capacity to educate?

My trouble is - I get so caught up in planning an amazing lesson, that it often loses its simplicity and subsequent impact.

Of course we never know when the inspector will appear, but I always hope for the start of lessons as they are generally better than the middle or the end, and definitely not during a crazy class.

Well, lucky old me had an an inspector turn up at the end of a crazy lesson with a crazy class right after a crazy set of events.

To not bore anyone too much with the fine detail, basically my lesson had been going fine right up until a set of parents walked in. (We had open morning that day too - a chance for year 6 parents and pupils to view prospective schools.) Our school operates a 'code' whereby if your door is closed, then the guides should peer through the glass, then walk right on by. For some reason, the guides ALWAYS opened my door to let parents in!

A sixth former asked the boy nearest to the door what he was doing, workwise. His response? "Nothing, because this school is crap!". Right to the eager faced 10 year olds and their parents.

My response? "Oh, I can't believe you said that. You don't mean it?"

Anyway, the offending boy was removed from my class and I was left to get on with the lesson. Unfortunately, this had really unsettled the class and a few more incidents were on their way. I did my best to put out any potential fires, but it was fair to say we were ALL unsettled by this point.

And then in walks my inspector.

It was the last ten minutes of the lesson, so I attempted my plenary as best I could. I referred back to my learning outcomes, I got children to tell me what they had learned that lesson, and I got them to answer a few 'reflective' questions in their books regarding their own learning.

When the lesson was over, the inspector had to go to her next observation, but offered me the comment on the way out that 'I could see what you were aiming for, increasing their confidence with algebra, but it would have been better if you had got to the contextualised examples as in the lesson plan'.

I thought it was a horrible lesson, and had (have) no idea how it was judged, and honestly, didn't want to find out. So I made the decision not to go for any feedback.

At the end of the inspection, the Principal told us that out of thirteen categories, nine were judged 'good' but our results meant that we could only get an overall 'satisfactory'.

He also said that no lessons were judged 'inadequate'. Hooray! That means I must have been at least a 'satisfactory', surely?