Secondary Schools: Open Days calendar

With the round of Open Days at secondary schools coming up over the next several weeks, we’ve compiled a calendar of several of the dates for local schools, which we hope relevant parents will find helpful.

We do recommend that people check the appropriate school websites to confirm that the times & dates are current and correct.

By all means do contact the Forum if you can give us updates or dates of any others local secondary school open days which we might add to the Calendar: thank you!

The Calendar will also feature as a Widget on the right-hand side of the home-page during the relevant period.

 

New Ofsted framework removes ‘satisfactory’

A new report published by Ofsted today reveals that ‘good’ will be the minimum requirement in inspected schools from now on.

The previous ‘satisfactory’ rating’ has been abolished, and instead such schools will be deemed as ‘requires improvement.’ The former five-point scale has been reduced to four – Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, and Inadequate.

The Head of the Inspectorate, Sir Michael Wilshaw, states in his introduction to the report that

Too many children go through their entire school careers in ‘satisfactory’ schools. From September, only ‘good’ will be good enough. The changes we are introducing will help schools that don’t meet this standard to improve.
The ‘satisfactory’ grade will cease to exist and will be replaced by ‘requires improvement’. We will inspect those schools that ‘require improvement’ more frequently and we will support and monitor them to help them to improve.

Schools adjudged as needing improvement will be re-inspected within a maximum of two years, and will be expected to become ‘good’ within a defined timescale.

Read more on Ofsted’s website here, and further details in the Ofsted document here.

Sending your child to private school: a Guardian Education journalist’s view

Education journalist for the Guardian, Janet Murray, reflects on the decisions she made in electing to send her child to private school.

As she observes at the end of the article,

Until local schools meet families’ needs and cater for each individual child, can you blame people for putting their hand in their pocket?

Image credit: The Guardian

Read the complete article here.

Ofsted want your opinion

Ofsted now have a ‘Parent View’ page:

http://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/

“Parent View gives you the chance to tell us what you think about your child’s school.

Parent View asks for your opinion on 12 aspects of your child’s school, from the quality of teaching, to dealing with bullying and poor behaviour. We will use the information you provide when making decisions about which schools to inspect, and when.

By sharing your views, you’ll be helping your child’s school to improve. You will also be able to see what other parents have said about your child’s school. Or, if you want to, view the results for any school in England”.

Please note that Parent View does not currently include independent schools.