With all this talk nowadays of the Ofsted investigation into Birmingham schools and the ongoing effort by the Secretary of State for Education to remove poorly performing teachers from the profession, I am reminded of the only time I was observed by an Ofsted inspector.
There was only one Ofsted inspection of Fortismere School while I was teaching there and that was in October 2001, four years before I retired. I taught a lesson observed by an inspector whose observation of my performance lasted just under twenty minutes.
I have calculated that I spent approximately two and a half million minutes standing in front of a class teaching, but that was the only time I was watched. In 37 years I was never observed by a Head of Department, or by any member of senior management.
We knew that Ofsted was coming in October 2001. In those days schools were given two months notice which seems ridiculous now as schools were given the time to portray an unrealistic impression of themselves. In fact, they would have been daft not to.
Monday and Tuesday passed with no visit to any of my classes and so I knew that there was a likelihood that I would be seen during period 4 on Wednesday as that was the only lesson I taught that day.
I was not happy about that. On the first two days of the week, I had taught really successful, well-planned lessons (in my head – not on paper) to my Year 8, 9, 10 groups and even my bottom set, Year 11 class of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds. I say “even my Year 11 class” because they were often a problem. When they were all present, there were only 14 of them but to say that they were “challenging” is putting it mildly.
I knew that on Wednesday, my Year 11 class would all be there because Wednesday was “Jerk Chicken Day” in the school canteen and period 4 was the last lesson before lunch. So usually, but not always, they behaved relatively well so that I would let them leave as soon as the buzzer sounded at the end of the lesson. That meant that they could be at the head of the queue and get the chicken before it ran out.
At 12 noon, the buzzer sounded for the end of period 3. I went into Room 306S and drew an ‘angle chasing’ exercise on the board so that the early arrivals could get on with something and not sit around doing nothing while they waited for the stragglers to arrive.
At 12.05 after a 5-minute changeover period to allow the students to walk the 400 metres between wings if they had to, the buzzer sounded for the start of period 4 but I was on my own. No one had come.
At 12.15 I was still sitting on my own in an empty room and I checked the school bulletin to see if the Year 11s were on a trip. They weren’t. At least, the Ofsted inspector wasn’t coming because he would certainly have been on time and as the next lesson I had with this class was on Friday, when their inspection reports were being written and no observations were made, any observation of my teaching would be with a more amenable class.
Then I heard a commotion on the stairs. There was shouting and laughing and the noise of running feet. The commotion became louder as it got nearer and then the door burst open and all of my Year 11 maths class came charging into the room shouting, laughing and screaming. They ran to the corner at the back of the room and gathered in a huddle, completely ignoring me. After a minute or so, I almost had them all sitting in their places.
Then, before I could find out what was going on, the door opened again and in came a somewhat disheveled, middle-aged man, red in face, smouldering with rage and shaking with anger.
“Who’s that boy?” demanded the Ofsted inspector. “He just knocked me over on the stairs.”
He was pointing at a large Afro-Caribbean boy wearing a pork pie hat.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I said.
“What!” said the inspector in a tone of some exasperation and disbelief.
“What are you doing here?” I asked the boy.
“He’s my cousin,” shouted Nelson. “He’s visiting.”
A deputy head teacher arrived having been somehow summoned by the inspector. After a minute or two she eventually managed to persuade Nelson’s “cousin” to leave the room with her and I started the lesson. The atmosphere was a little tense.
The 14 students sat in the back two rows of the room as they always did, while the inspector sat at the end of the front row near to the door. Perhaps he had planned his escape route in case things got tough. I thought things were starting to go quite well, especially after I muttered, “Jerk Day” under my breath a couple of times. The inspector looked puzzled each time.
“I’ll tell you later,” I told him.
Ayo, one of the six girls in the class, was obviously wondering about how things were going.
“Are you enjoying this, Mister Offset?” she called out but Mister Offset ignored her.
“How’s Mister Wilton doing?” she asked a moment later. “Do you think he’s any good? Can he teach us?” but again she got no response.
Fifteen minutes into the lesson, just as I got to the good bit where I helped the class prove that the internal angles of a rectangle must always add up to 360 because all rectangles are made up of two triangles, the inspector stood up and walked towards the door.
“Are you going to the canteen?” shouted Nelson. “They won’t serve you yet. You might as well stay here.”
Ignoring Nelson, the inspector reached the door and went into the corridor outside. Then he turned around to face me and raised two thumbs. With that, he disappeared down the stairs. There was no written assessment and I never saw him again.
So, all the recognition I have for 37 years of dedication is two thumbs up and yes, I was wearing my glasses, Caroline. They were thumbs and not middle fingers.
*******
I have checked the 2001 Fortismere Ofsted report.
Apparently,
“Two thumbs up” is OUTSTANDING.
“One thumbs up” is GOOD.
“One middle finger” is REQUIRES IMPROVEMENT and
“Two middle fingers” is INADEQUATE.
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