I have started this year to separate out Short Inspections, which look at some schools with previous Good or Outstanding outcomes, but the small numbers reduce their significance for 2018-19. Most Short Inspections have the same assessment confirmed, but some will trigger a subsequent inspection where there are grounds to raise or lower the level. There were, in the event, just four secondary Short Inspections in Kent all confirming a previous Good Outcome, but many more primaries (article to come).

I am in the process of adding the recent Ofsted history of each Kent and Medway secondary school to my Individual Schools sections on this site for Kent and Medway, which contain data on places offered, appeals and performance for every school, amongst other information. If you would like me to give a particular school priority in this editing, or a page needs updating, please let me know. 

I have regularly seen on school websites again this year, the usual claims about best ever GCSE and A Level results. I prefer to wait until Provisional Results are published next month to authenticate these, as some tend to be selective in their choice of data. 

 Note: There were no grammar Short Inspections, and no non-selective inspections for Local Authority or Foundation schools 

Four schools saw a fall in  Ofsted Level, with the two Maidstone boys’ grammar schools dropping from Outstanding to Good, looked at here. Westlands also saw a decline, all three of these schools down from Outstanding to Good, suffering from another change of policy which had previously exempted Outstanding schools from a subsequent inspection. The fourth was The Malling School, looked at in more detail below.

Some years ago, I supported a student there, who struggled for much of his school career but subsequently graduated from university with a first class honours degree. This is a tribute to both the school and a determined mother who, like so many other parents of SEN children, would never give up and fought and fought the system for her child.

Back to the Malling Holmesdale Federation. One problem with The Malling School is that the Tydeman pupils will always bring down the overall school GCSE performance, as with other such schools possessing Units. As well as East and West Malling, it technically serves the wealthy Kings Hill area, many of whose residents developed a prejudice against the school and it suffered a loss of popularity. However, thanks to the Federation and good leadership the school improved and eventually became the stronger partner, whilst Holmesdale nosedived, as explained here. Ofsted regularly recognised the poor starting levels of pupils when awarding a series of four Good Ofsteds between 2006 and 2015. 

For those with an eye to history, the previous Year 2000 Report of the school under the headship of the unique Valerie Dagger by 13 Inspectors over a period of a week, is an eye opener. In 60 close packed pages it carries out a full analysis of the school its strengths and weaknesses including each subject area, but does not reach an overall judgement.

However, the most recent Inspection Report in June 2019 finds, in less than a quarter of the length of the 200 Report, that the school Requires Improvement although it considers the leadership is still good. It employed five inspectors, a large team for such a task these days, over two days. The previous headteacher left over the summer, joining a mini exodus of Kent heads to exotic foreign parts. New head John Vennart, in a one page introduction on the school’s website headed ‘Ofsted Report’, presents a glowing picture of the report, blaming any weaknesses on previous poor examination results (they crashed in 2018), but failing to notice significant issues in teaching, learning and assessment identified in the Report. However, the good news reported is that the quality of these areas is rapidly improving.

 However, another matter that has come to light following an FOI by me to the school is the shockingly high proportion of teachers without Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) teaching at the school. Quite simply, over a third of the 86 full time teachers at OAIOS are unqualified (30 in total) together with two of the five part timers. There is no mention of this surely unacceptable proportion in the Report section on teaching quality, so presumably Inspectors were unaware and did not enquire about it.

The school is still suffering from its dreadful reputation highlighted by having 101 out of 177 offers of places made in March being Local Authority Allocations of children who did not apply to the school but could get nowhere else, Robert Napier by contrast having 22 LAAs out of 180 offers. This pattern of high LAAs is shared by the three ‘tough love’ Kent academies, Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey (above), Ebbsfleet and Hartsdown, all running a ‘no excuses’ culture, all four being amongst the five most unpopular schools in the county by this measure. Perhaps that Ofsted Report will cause it to cut back on its tough no excuses approach which clearly sits badly with families. Indeed, the school report that it has achieved its best ever GCSE and A Level results are greeted with: ‘We are delighted with these results, as they are proof of the changed culture’ on the school website. I look forward to seeing numbers improve as the past fades away.