Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
woodlands park nursery unfair rating
This is a fairly detailed post, and probably a bit tedious to read but if you are interested I would like to go through in some detail what happened in the course of this OFSTED inspection because of what I think is an unfair slur on the reputation of a local children's centre.
Woodlands Park Nursery and Children's Centre was recently graded 'inadequate' following an OFSTED in mid-September. This is a bizarre outcome, considering the fact that the Centre was judged 'good with outstanding features'. Had the inspection been in July that would have been the rating. Had it been held in October 'good with outstanding features' would also have been the outcome. However, for a couple of weeks in September OFSTED decided to take an unsustainable position of absolute zero tolerance to even the smallest errors in the Single Central Record (a list of all staff which makes it easy to see all paperwork on staff easily). In Woodland's case two names had not been put on the SCR, though the paper work was in place. Governors appealed that the outcome was 'disproportionate' and were told vaguely that the school was 'over-dependent on local authority checks'. I am not sure why this is a problem. Schools and local authorities surely work together and the centre was able to show it had all the back-up paperwork.
Anyway, the point is that previously an administrative matter like this would have been able to be put right in the course of the inspection. But for those two weeks this was not allowed. (google Barnet’s school circular of 14th October 2009 and its link to OFSTED's own briefing if you want to verify this). Tens of schools which are perfectly good failed for the same kind of reason. Of course safety is extremely important, but what happened means that the centre was judged by a different standard to other schools. 'Inadequate' has always been an indicator of a really terrible school / centre, not an indicator of a perfectly good school / centre with an administrative oversight. It is a distorting picture and unhelpful to parents. OFSTED presumambly worked out that it will now have to go and re-inspect lots of schools which are fine and that this was unsustainable and a waste of time and money.
The centre's response was to appeal, then to ask for the earliest re-inspection to enable it to clear its name and to move on. I think it is grounds for a complaint, but I can see why the centre did not take this course.
I have put this up for two reasons: firstly so that people in the area understand why a place with a good reputation got such a bad rating. Secondly maybe other parents and users of the centre who feel concerned might want to write to OFSTED, either making a complaint or asking for an early re-inspection according to your will. The address for OFSTED complaints is
The Complaints Manager
Ofsted National Business Unit
Royal Exchange Buildings
St Ann's Square
Manchester
M2 7LA
Complaints need to be made within 30 days of the report i.e. asap.
No doubt there will now be some stories about 'bad experiences I had at Woodlands', but I would appeal to people to keep a sense of proportion about how significant a rating like this is for a workplace, and how unfair it is. Also OFSTED is being discredited (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/23/flawed-ofsted-fails...). Also I am a bit fed up of the national press etc behaving as if everything in Haringey is rubbish even when it isn't.
Please defend this local resource
Woodlands Park Nursery and Children's Centre was recently graded 'inadequate' following an OFSTED in mid-September. This is a bizarre outcome, considering the fact that the Centre was judged 'good with outstanding features'. Had the inspection been in July that would have been the rating. Had it been held in October 'good with outstanding features' would also have been the outcome. However, for a couple of weeks in September OFSTED decided to take an unsustainable position of absolute zero tolerance to even the smallest errors in the Single Central Record (a list of all staff which makes it easy to see all paperwork on staff easily). In Woodland's case two names had not been put on the SCR, though the paper work was in place. Governors appealed that the outcome was 'disproportionate' and were told vaguely that the school was 'over-dependent on local authority checks'. I am not sure why this is a problem. Schools and local authorities surely work together and the centre was able to show it had all the back-up paperwork.
Anyway, the point is that previously an administrative matter like this would have been able to be put right in the course of the inspection. But for those two weeks this was not allowed. (google Barnet’s school circular of 14th October 2009 and its link to OFSTED's own briefing if you want to verify this). Tens of schools which are perfectly good failed for the same kind of reason. Of course safety is extremely important, but what happened means that the centre was judged by a different standard to other schools. 'Inadequate' has always been an indicator of a really terrible school / centre, not an indicator of a perfectly good school / centre with an administrative oversight. It is a distorting picture and unhelpful to parents. OFSTED presumambly worked out that it will now have to go and re-inspect lots of schools which are fine and that this was unsustainable and a waste of time and money.
The centre's response was to appeal, then to ask for the earliest re-inspection to enable it to clear its name and to move on. I think it is grounds for a complaint, but I can see why the centre did not take this course.
I have put this up for two reasons: firstly so that people in the area understand why a place with a good reputation got such a bad rating. Secondly maybe other parents and users of the centre who feel concerned might want to write to OFSTED, either making a complaint or asking for an early re-inspection according to your will. The address for OFSTED complaints is
The Complaints Manager
Ofsted National Business Unit
Royal Exchange Buildings
St Ann's Square
Manchester
M2 7LA
Complaints need to be made within 30 days of the report i.e. asap.
No doubt there will now be some stories about 'bad experiences I had at Woodlands', but I would appeal to people to keep a sense of proportion about how significant a rating like this is for a workplace, and how unfair it is. Also OFSTED is being discredited (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/23/flawed-ofsted-fails...). Also I am a bit fed up of the national press etc behaving as if everything in Haringey is rubbish even when it isn't.
Please defend this local resource
Tags for Forum Posts: local nurseries, local schools, woodlands park nursery
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
-
I know that WPN has a good reputation but our experience with them in an administrative sense was appalling, we were not on our own. Discussion here
-
Permalink Reply by Katie-Meg on
-
I'm sorry to hear that. I think the point is that an OFSTED grade used to reflect a general overview of what is provided in the school. If WPN is not a bad school / centre how can that be the grade? It goes beyond common sense. It seems also that schools in some areas are being judged more harshly than in others.
-
-
We can only go on our individual experiences and that of whom we know. When we first visited WPN albeit six years ago, we were very impressed, with everything. We have used the drop in centre a few times with both our children, again very good. My concern is of one small aspect of the day to day running of the nursery - they didn't seem to care or want to rectify the problem even after several letters and meetings, that's why I thought it proper to take this further to Haringey Council and we did. Whether their policy will change and transparency and clarity will be more prevalent, who knows. As I say one small, but very important and to many the first experience they will have of the nursery just wasn't acceptable. I hope you get the grade that really reflects the nursery, whilst rectifying any outstanding problems.
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
Although only an occasional user of their drop in services and not of the nursery, I must say I'm amazed at this outcome. Parents I know who have used the nursery praise it highly.
This over zealousness with regard to an under 5s service is Ofsted covering its back after the fall out recently and some pretty full on criticism of their behaviour in and around Haringey Social services. It's not my experience with their school service that they give a low rating because of administrative errors, unless they are pretty major omissions of paperwork which this did not appear to be.
I am also in agreement with you that it is getting very tiring to see Haringey being constantly used as a whipping boy by all and sundry. It makes recruitment and retention increasingly difficult and affects the morale of residents and those working for them. I'd like to see an end to headlines like 'Baby P council' for every negative story about the council. Not because I want to forget about it (hardly) but because it is publicly punishing a whole workforce for something most of them had no way of stopping.
Hope WP gets this overturned, KM and that local users get behind it.
-
-
Thanks Liz. I so agree with you. I am sure any staff reading this will be glad of the support.
-
Permalink Reply by John on
-
This is, sadly, not a surprise - the new head of OFSTED, Christine Gilbert, has ordered whole-sale change to OFSTED inspection criteria. They are now so ridiculous that we will see an increasingly large number of schools and other educational establishments being downgraded and possibly failed on issues of small significance. A disproportionate number of these schools will be in more deprived areas because the new attainment targets are now no longer closely related to Contextual Valued Added outcomes for children (which take account of social circumstances). The NUT is currently aware of a number of reasons for failure of inspection since September, including: failing to ask the inspectors for their CRB certificates prior to offering them tea in the first ten minutes of the inspection; having an insufficiently high perimeter fence; misspelling a name in the SCR (incidentally, I am not aware that OFSTED have changed their approach to the SCR - have you got a link I could see about this, it would be really valuable info to pass on to teachers). This is deeply worrying - none of this is going to improve schools, but it is going to massively damage the morale and cohesiveness of education at a time when it is facing cuts in funding. The faster OFSTED is abolished, the better our education system will be.
-
-
Hi! yes this is a quote from the Barnet School Circular of 14th Oct 2009:
'Ofsted have issued a new briefing on safeguarding which came into force on 1 October 2009. It now advises that if there is a minor administrative error in the single central record such as the absence of a missing date on the register, and this can be easily rectified before the final team meeting, schools will be given the chance to resolve the issue.'
It enables you to click on 'briefing on safeguarding' which takes you to OFSTED's revised briefing which outlines what can be set straight over the course of the inspection. It doesn't get around the problem of the new framework though.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
This nursery is inundated with parents wanting places for their children. If the staff would keep a waiting list then perhaps that would be a morale booster for them.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
