Can Tribal Inspections be Trusted?

Did you know that Ofsted, like many other public services, have been privatised? Did you know that companies like Serco - who run prisons and who are currently being investigated for fraud - have contracts to run Ofsted inspections? So when 'Ofsted' go into a school it's often a private, profit-making company that performs the inspection.

One of the private companies with a contract to run Ofsted inspections is Tribal who have come to our attention several times over the past few months.

In May this year Tribal carried out an inspection of the London Nautical School, giving it a 'requires improvement' grading. In a clear conflict of interests one of the inspectors was Daniel Moynihan the CEO of Harris Academies. Harris Academies are a London-based academy chain that would be in a position to take over the London Nautical School were academisation to be considered. Private Eye picked up on this story in August and it is reproduced on the Anti-Academies Alliance website here.

"When the Eye asked in 2011 how independent “additional” inspectors working for private firms would be, given the involvement of firms like Tribal in opening new free schools themselves, Ofsted said it would regard any situation where inspectors and their employers were “involved in an organisation in competition” with the school under inspection as a conflict of interests to be avoided (Eye 1286)."

Then, in November, Private Eye covered the story of the inspection of Wanstead High School (here) where one of the inspection team was head of a neighbouring school - another conflict of interests. Like London Nautical, Wanstead High was also given a requires improvement grade. The inspection was carried out by Tribal.

Within the past month we noticed that Battersea Park School had complained about their inspection by Tribal which happened back in June. The complaint is on the schools website here, runs to 11 pages, and contains some very serious allegations about the conduct of the inspectors including a suggestion that they made up evidence. We suggest you read the full complaint for yourself as it is pretty damning. The school received an inadequate grading and is now due to be handed over to the Harris Academy chain.

Finally Longhill School near Brighton was inspected by Tribal in October. The school have complained about the report which rates the school as requiring improvement, a judgement they say "contradicts the views shared with us by the Inspection Team during the course of their visit." The school's letter to parents can be seen here and a report in the local paper is here. 

As a footnote we noticed that Andrew Barker, former head of Bishopsford Arts College, which was failed by Ofsted in 2012 and placed in special measures, is listed as an additional inspector on Tribal's website here. That school has now been reopened as a Harris Academy.

Edited to add: 

Our attention was just drawn to this article about Westlands School in Torquay who are appealing against their inspection in June by Tribal which downgraded them from a previous grading of good to inadequate.

We've also been alerted to the fact that the disputed inspection of Kings' Stanley Primary School in Gloucestershire, which took place in May, was also by Tribal. Read this local news report which says "Parents and governors of the school near Stonehouse say the inspection conducted by Tribal on behalf of Ofsted was unfair and feel they are being driven towards applying for academy status. Tribal used to help schools convert to academy status." This report says the school is appealing the decision to demote it from outstanding to inadequate.

This Guardian article examines in more detail what the motives for private companies giving schools poor Ofsted reports could be. 

#loveTAs Twitter Storm TONIGHT

Tomorrow, Friday 29 November, UNISON has announced ‘Speaking Up for Teaching Assistants’, a day in which the valuable work of teaching assistants will be highlighted and celebrated. This is a particularly important message at the moment as it’s been reported that some in government want to cut teaching assistants’ jobs.

We are intending to support this by creating a Twitter Storm tonight to create awareness, and we have chosen to do this between 2235 and 2335 when BBC Question Time is on. 

If you use Twitter then we need you to be online when BBC Question Time starts at 2235. The minute the programme starts we need you to start tweeting. All messages should have two hashtags in them: #loveTAs & #BBCQT

Each tweet should contain a brief message that should highlight or celebrate the work of teaching assistants. We should also be looking to educate the Question Time/Twitter audience about just how valuable teaching assistants are to teachers, head teachers, parents and students, to counteract the negative press they have received in recent months. E.g.

• Without a TA, my son/daughter would not be able to X/Y/Z #loveTAs #BBCQT
• The work that teaching assistants do is vital. We must speak up for them! #loveTAs #BBCQT
• I’m a teacher and I value the work of teaching assistants. They are completely invaluable! #loveTAs #BBCQT
• As a parent I know the difference teaching assistants make. We must make sure they are valued! #loveTAs #BBCQT
• Teaching assistants are edu-heroes! We will continue to promote the positive impact they have! #loveTAs #BBCQT
• Teaching assistants enable children to thrive at school. Give them medals, don’t undermine them! #loveTAs #BBCQT
• Did you know it’s been reported that some in government want to cut teaching assistant jobs? What a false economy #loveTAs #BBCQT

You get the general idea right? Make up your own or use the examples above. It's worth preparing a few tweets and saving them as drafts on your phone or computer so you can whack them out one after the other. Retweets don't count. But this is an occasion where it's perfectly acceptable to cut and paste others' tweets without crediting them. It's the number of original tweets that counts towards creating a Twitter storm and getting #loveTAs trending.

Please alert others on Twitter who might want to join in.

How can you help if you don't have Twitter?

1. If you have Facebook you can post your messages about why you're striking, or why you support the teachers on the BBC Question Time Facebook page here
2. Don't have a smartphone? You can still use your mobile to text Question Time. Details on how to are here

Secondary English teacher Miss M has "nothing but admiration and respect" for teaching assistants

As a Teacher of English in a UK Secondary School, I would struggle to do my job as effectively, without the help of teaching assistants. 

They provide vital support in a number of ways: mixed ability classes which have children with a variety of Special Education Needs can be difficult to manage, without the support of a TA. Lower level students, who have the help of the TA, know that they can rely on them. This has a beneficial effect on their behaviour which helps to foster a more positive learning environment for the rest of the students. When they have TA support, students are calmer and display fewer behavioural issues – the TA forms strong bonds with the student that helps the pupil feel secure. Often school is the only place that some students can feel safe and are encouraged to adhere to a routine - TAs play an important role in this.  

The TAs at my school get heavily involved in raising achievement. Two of them co-ordinate the Nessie Reading programme and they have also piloted the Paired Reading Programme where KS3 students, whose reading age is below the national average, are paired with KS4 reading mentors, twice a week, to engage and improve their reading skills. Both of these programmes are very successful. The TAs undertake all the pre-testing and copious administration that is required before the reading schemes can commence. 

I have nothing but admiration and respect for teaching assistants and the crucial role that they play in today’s education system.

Teacher Emma explains hows a reduction in teaching assistants has affected her school

Back one May evening last year an email went out to all staff announcing an 'emergency briefing' the following morning. Rumours were rife: was the head retiring, had an ex pupil committed some heinous crime, were Ofsted descending?

None of the above proved to be true. In fact, we were told that due to national budget cuts all TAs would have to reapply for their jobs and three would be unsuccessful. In addition to this, the remaining TAs would have their hours cut and so they would now only be paid to work from 9.10 (when lessons begin) to 3.15 (when lessons end).

We have been working under this new system since September, and it is not pretty. The reduction in hours has left one of my form members, who is physically disabled, to lug her heavy equipment from the  form room to lessons on her own, as nobody is in to help her with it until she should already be in her first lesson. It also means the invaluable discussions I could have with this girl's TA during form time no longer happen, and so I am somewhat out of the loop with regards to the issues she faces.

Worse though, is the effect the loss of four TAs has had on the support available to statemented pupils. It is now quite common for a TA to be assigned to three or four pupils during a one hour slot. "Well that could be worse" I initially thought to myself "a TA helping four pupils in a class is hardly a problem." What I hadn't realised was that the TAs were scheduled to be with four different pupils in different classes during that one hour.

What this means, then, is that a TA will arrive for a 15 minute slot at any given time in your lesson. I never know when this slot will be, and so planning to use them effectively is nigh-on impossible. It's also hardly helpful for those pupils with difficulties that mean they desire routine, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The TAs feel terrible about it. Three months into this new system and they still apologise to me for arriving late or leaving early. The overriding sense I get from them is that they desperately want to be able to do their jobs and help the pupils they're employed to help. But they can't.

I suppose if one positive thing has come out of this, it's renewed appreciation for the job a TA does across our school. Unfortunately though, I fear this appreciation is too little, too late and that these are only signs of worse things to come for SEN provision.

Teacher Stephen says teaching assistants "complete small miracles every day"

Teaching assistants. I've known many. 

There wass the Liverpudlian woman who came in especially to coach students in the accent for Blood Brothers. This was in her own time. 

The one who identified the difficulties one boy in my English class was having, difficulties I hadn't noticed because he was so articulate and lovely and would never have told me out of shyness. 

Most recently the wonderful TA who coached an 18 year-old with Aspergers through his A levels ( including Drama ) and is still in contact with his family now he's at university living independently in ways we'd never expected could happen. 

Some children at secondary level relate so much better to a TA, perhaps because they get the consistency of a "parental figure" which it is hard to replicate when as a 11,12,13 year-old you are going from lesson to lesson, struggling with the tasks but also with your peers and simply growing up. 

I see students every day engaging with TAs in a much more meaningful way because they are getting one-to-one attention, attention that cannot be given so easily by the teacher when there are 32 in a class. 

I have welcomed at least three ex students back as TAs who have gone onto train to be teachers. In fact it has seemed that the only way to get on some PGCE courses is to have had experience as a TA. Where does that leave future teachers in terms of recruitment onto courses if they have been denied that opportunity? 

Every day I watch in wonder as TAs do a low paid job with the same commitment as teachers. Fair enough they don't have to plan lessons, write reports, mark work or be accountable for exam results, but they do complete small miracles every day with some students who would be lost without them - as would many teaching staff.

Sarah explains why we should celebrate and defend teaching assistants

Today we're delighted to be hosting a blog post by Sarah, a teaching assistant who normally blogs here. She outlines a typical day for us - imagine what a loss of wonderful experience it would be if she, and others like her, were no longer there to support children.

I received an email yesterday from my union. I am a member of Unison and the email was to tell me about a day - 29th November 2013 - a day to celebrate Teaching Assistants. Now why would they be wanting to do that? Why celebrate Teaching Assistants? Well, the reason is because if the UK Government has its way there might not be any Teaching Assistants in schools in the future.

Unison is fighting to save Teaching Assistants. The Government has decided that Teachers can do the job of Teaching Assistants. We are an expensive luxury.

So, let me tell you a little bit about my day and you can decide whether I am an expensive luxury and whether my Teachers can do my duties instead.

I am paid, as are my colleagues, from 8.50 am. I actually arrive each day at 8.25 am and start to prepare for my day. I help my Teacher welcome the Year 1 children and look after any of them who are upset or wobbly that day. I am there for any parent who wants to chat. If a parent needs to chat to my Teacher, I take the children in so they don't have to stand in the cold.

I have organised a rota for myself, (in my own time,) so that I can fit in all the children who need extra help. Working from information collated by my Teacher I have organised the children so that all of of them can reach their potential. By 8.50 I have started 1 to 1 work on phonics, handwriting, reading, number work.At 9.05 I bring out my 2nd group for 15 minutes, catching up on phonics, High Frequency Words. During this time the Teacher has taken Register and is into the Phonics session.

All the time I am listening to the lesson in the classroom, ready to go in if needed, because there are children who have Special Needs and I might be needed to sit with them. In Year 1 children very rarely have been statemented yet so there is no funding for 1 to 1 support. Therefore the General T.A (me) has to be there for them.

By 9.15 the Literacy Lesson starts and I either sit on the carpet with particular children to support them or spend time writing up my interventions so far that morning ( because I have to provide evidence of the work done with the children). Then I start checking reading books. I either change them or initial that the record has been checked. When the children go to their tables to work I go with them. I know which table because I have spent time (my own time) reading the Teacher's detailed plans, emailed to me each week.

Most of the time I work with the children who find school tricky. The Teacher and I alternate daily with the groups so that she spends time with all the children. There are children who find it so hard to sit still, concentrate, form letters. I am there to encourage, push, support, explain.

Its amazing the number of ways you can find to explain a single thing! And its amazing how many children find the simplest thing (to you and me) impossible to grasp. If I or the Teacher wasn't sitting with them they would not know what to do, how to start. One of my greatest skills is patience. To find yet another way to explain something, but to do it with kindness and humour is what I love to do. And at the same time as I am helping this child there are another 5 on the table who need me too.

Of course the Teacher could sit with them ... but what about the other 25 five year olds?

By 10 am its time for Assembly and I keep a group back to read with. I read with every child in the class at least once a week, assessing their skills and giving them tips and encouragement as we go along. Whether that child gets lots of support at home and loves to read or receives minimum support and finds reading hard, hard, hard -  I find the way to help them achieve their best, help them enjoy reading. The joy of seeing a child move up a level or get excited about a book is just wonderful.

After break (10 minutes) I read the story while the Teacher reads with another group (they try to read with every child once a week too).

Then its Maths and the same sort of support as I have given in Literacy. My last group goes out with me at 11.50 for a quick recap on numbers - formation, number lines, counting. Then at 12 its time for home ...

But we don't go home do we? Most T.As in my school stay and get the jobs done that they couldn't do in the morning...like changing reading books, putting up displays, changing the roleplay area, filing ... Its a rare day that I go home before 12.35 and some days I stay until 1pm, an hour over my paid time. Obviously this is up to me. Its my choice that I stay, but then that's the sort of people T.As tend to be. We don't do our job for the money, we do it because we love it, love the children.

An ordinary morning is what I have described above. I haven't told you about my playground duties, my chats with children whose parents are breaking up, whose granny has died, who have seen their dad beating up their mum... I haven't told you about the chats with parents who are worried or don't "get" phonics. I haven't mentioned helping children who have wet themselves or been sick everywhere or had a massive nose bleed.

Of course the Teacher could do all these things too. She gets into work at 7.30 and stops for lunch at 12.55 ( 15 minutes break ... soooo lazy!!) then works through until 5.30 when she goes home sorts life out for her own children and then carries on with school work. The thing is though that if she did my job, the things I do, then when would she actually be teaching? Or maybe we should just forget about all the small groups I take out, forget about reading with the children?

There are Teaching Assistants in my school who work 1 to 1 with children who are autistic or have long term illness, children with behavioural problems who, if left to their own devices could be dangerous both to themselves and other children. Without their T.As these children would be lost. As it is, their parents have to fight for help. How could they access education without the care and 1 to 1 support of a Teaching Assistant? T.As deliver physiotherapy programmes, Speech and Language interventions, administer medication...

Teaching Assistants are the unsung backbone of the education system. We work for just over minimum wage and we work because we choose to give our best for the children in our care. In my school the T.As are hard working, intelligent (many are Graduates) and very caring. Often it is the T.A who has the time to sit and listen to a child, who picks up on the underlying problems a child faces. We are part of a team, with our Teachers, trying to create an environment where children can learn and enjoy learning.

Teachers work incredibly hard already. If we were not there to do the things we do then I really hate to think what would happen to the children who need us. Teachers cannot physically do their own jobs and ours. Its impossible. I despair at the short sightedness of the UK Government and their plans.

If you have a child in school then please celebrate how fortunate they are, not only to have Teachers who work their socks off, but also Teaching Assistants who do their best to support, care and guide. It has been a long time since all we did was wash up paint pots.

PRU teacher Neil Finbow is ROARing his support for teaching assistants

Mr Gove appears to believe that the halcyon days of education lie well in the past. The 50s and 60s, when learning was by rote, GCEs were rigorous and behaviour good.

I am one who had that education.

I can clearly remember this 7 year old walking home from Old Heath Primary School in 1961 chanting to myself ‘nature abhors a vacuum, nature abhors a vacuum’, with no real idea of what a vacuum was and even less idea of the meaning of ‘abhors’. Still I learnt it and remember it to this day.

I can also remember that, when I was in what would be now Year 5, two new young children arrived in our class. They were brothers, a year apart in age, but put into the same class because they had the same ‘problem’. They were illiterate.

I have no idea of any of the circumstances behind why they had never been taught to read and write, all I can remember is that they were good at football.

They were placed at the back of the class, given a copious amount of blank paper and crayons and left to colour-in and draw all day. Yes they did join in with the bits that they could. like games, listening to stories and, of course, art. But otherwise they were left to their own devices. You see there was just nothing to be done for them. It was a class of 34 now and there was nobody or no time to give them any extra help.

It is, however, very ironic that in the following year when six of us who were deemed 11+ material were hived off to the headmaster’s room every morning for a term for extra tuition to help us pass.

I have no idea what happened to these brothers, perhaps they became prolific artists, but I went to the local grammar school.

Today we have our wonderful TAs.

I am convinced that, because of the introduction into the Teacher’s Pay and Conditions document of the ’25 tasks’ that teachers are not supposed to do, Mr Gove, Mr Osborne, et al, think that all TAs do is photocopying, data entry and classroom displays. The things that teachers should still be doing. How wrong could they be?

I feel no need to list all the wonderful things that TAs do here as every head teacher, teacher, governor and parent will know from experience what a difference they have made to the education of their children. It appears to only be the ‘usual culprits’ who have no idea whatsoever what happens in a school or the problems that we have to deal with in real life, that think they could be dispensable.

When I first started teaching I was told to make friends with and be nice to the caretaker as he really ran the school. Now that advice must include the TAs as well.

In fact I would go one step further than just calling for the retention of TAs. I think we should be calling for an increase in their very meagre pay and a change to their contracts that makes them so vulnerable.