Choosing a School in England: Ofsted Reports

September has always meant back to school time for me, a time that, as a student, I would look forward to from the first week of August. Now as a parent, I have come to look forward to September as a nice break from the kids, one where I can fully focus on my writing.

When we moved to Hampshire at the end of December 2015, my youngest was already registered to start school here right after the holidays, but we had a bit of trouble with the secondary school for my oldest. In another post, I will break down the process that went into registering my boys from back home in Canada, but for now, let me explain something that seems to guide people's choices when choosing a school here, and on which I partly based my own decisions.

What is Ofsted, and why do I need to know about it?

There's this handy little tool in England called Ofsted, which stands for Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It is basically an independent department, that inspects and regulates schools at least once every three years, and that reports directly to Parliament. Become familiar with it before choosing a school, or maybe even before choosing a home. I say this, because Oftsed scores have a big impact on how people choose a school for their kids, some even moving to the catchment area¹ of a higher-scoring school to increase their child's chance of getting in.

Ofsted judges these elements within each school:

• Overall effectiveness
• Effectiveness of leadership and management
• Quality of teaching, learning and assessment
• Personal development, behaviour and welfare
• Outcomes for children and learners
• The effectiveness of early years and sixth form² provision, where applicable

 And then rates the school with one of the following:

1. Outstanding
2. Good
3. Satisfactory
4. Inadequate

From my research and participation in the Netmums forum, I have come to understand that everyone dreams of an "Outstanding" school, and "Good" is also perfectly fine. Satisfactory and Inadequate are to be avoided. You will also find schools that are listed as Academy Status³. Some Academies are considered better than schools rated "Outstanding".

This being said, let me share my own view.

Ultimately, I think it ends up coming down to personal choice, but if you plan on staying in England for a long time, and dream of your child getting into Oxford one day, then (rumour has it) choosing a high-scoring school will facilitate that. In our case, the school in our catchment area was listed as "Inadequate" but weeks before we moved their new report came out and they were just points away from "Outstanding". In my opinion, a school that is working so hard to improve is way better than one sitting on its haunches at "Outstanding". So far, I am seriously impressed with the quality of the school my boys are attending.

Find an Ofsted Report 
Learn what parents think of their kids' school

For people moving to Scotland, the equivalent is Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education; for those going to Wales, look at Estyn; and for Northern Ireland, it's the Education and Training Inspectorate. I am not familiar with any of these, but at least I can point you in the right direction.

Footnotes //

¹ Catchment area: a dedicated zone or district based on the child's home address.
² Sixth form college is a type of school where young people aged 16-19 study advanced schooling. Need to know more? Check out sixth form college on Wikipedia.
³ Understanding Academy Status

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