Ofsted finished

Well, we've come through the other end of a tunnel that started last Monday with a call to our school from Ofsted and our inspection is over.

Sadly, we are not actually permitted to say what the result of our Ofsted inspection is until it is published, but I will sleep well tonight.

The only really confusing thing about the whole process is the way in which our school was selected for an inspection on just the third day of term in a brand new school building which we only got the keys too 10 days ago. Our inspection team were great but stressed that they would examine us like any other school even though they were genuinely sympathetic to the fact that they had been asked to inspect a school which had literally barely unpacked, where all our resources had been locked in boxes and stored by Pickfords all summer and where the staff didn't really know where the resources were stored until last Monday, how to log in to the new computers and where children were finding is equally difficult to get their bearings.

You do have to ask though why Ofsted feel this would be the very best time to carry out an inspection.

One thing though that is good about the current Ofsted regime is that school continues as normal. Long gone thankfully is the three month notice you got under the old Chris Woodhead led Ofsted which allowed schools to be repainted, the curriculum completely altered, books could be "model marked", every wall display could be changed, and worst of all, model lessons which bore no resemblance to real lessons could be prepared with weeks of tweaking and sometimes at some expense whilst the learning of the children seemed to be ignored at the expense of schools getting a "good Ofsted".

Despite it being the first week of school, my class got proper lessons, inspectors saw what our school was really like, and we are all proud of that.

And now, I'm awaiting my curry, a bottle of wine and a very long sleep (oh, and wins for Norwich and Everton tomorrow would make my weekend even better).