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Hi,
Has anyone been through a science specific Ofsted? We are being looked at next week and wondered if anyone had any pearls of wisdom to share as to what things were looked at etc.
I presume that as they are only looking at 5 of us there will be much more observation of individual lessons etc. Do they look at SoW/paperwork etc as none of this ever seems to happen with the big visits?
Much thanks for any help/reassurance.
Not a subject specific one but a general OFSTED last November. One 'paperwork' thing they were keen to look at was Health and Safety/Risk Assessment.
We haven't had a Science inspection, but another department had a subject inspection. As well as lots of observations and the usual stuff, they were particularly interested in:
This is just a taster of what they dug into in quite some depth...a lot of SLT and subject leaders spent a lot of time trying to answer some quite difficult questions!
Mark
Thanks for the replies :-)
Hopefully we are all ready to go for next week - my HoD has a stack of evidence to show him that is sky high so if we're lucky it'll take him 2 days to get through just that ;-)
We had a science survey visit in October - was billed as a development opportunity!!
We got good in all four categories which would have been outstanding on old criteria. It was very tough and everyone in department (5 in my department too) was seen at least twice. You really need to make sure of the following:
- spend lot's of time planning your lessons, make sure the objectives are acheivable and that you have shown the progress the students have made in the lesson, plenary etc. They all need to acheive it...
- Get the science subject criteria from the website and make sure you have covered it all.
- make sure of the H&S she was really hot on this - sources etc even the emergency eye wash on the labs!
- She went through the handbook so make sure this is updated!
- Are all your department following the marking criteria?
- Really know your data (& kids), I was grilled for 90 minutes on both days!!!
Sorry also need to add..
- she looked at all the schemes of learning
The best bit of advice is don't try to hide anything, they will find it. Just make sure you know the problems and have things in place to address them.
Good Luck - it will be over soon!!
It may be too late for your inspection, but here's the guidance the inspectors get.
Generic grade descriptors and supplementary subject-specific guidance for inspectors on making judgements during subject survey visits to schools.
Good luck!
Thanks for all the advice.
It went really well and we have gone up a grade from our last whole school inspection.
Happy department tonight
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