We Got The Call

Last Wednesday, we got the call.

If you say to any British teacher this phrase--"we got the call"--immediately, he or she will sigh an "oh no" and probably wish you luck. "The Call" is synonymous with Ofsted, the government inspectors who come into every school in England every 5-6 years to make sure the school is running properly and to award a rating: Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Good and Outstanding. These ratings really are the end-all, be-all for English schools, and so getting the dreaded call from Ofsted that they will be visiting your school is an unfortunate yet inevitable situation.

"The Call" must come by noon the day before the inspectors will arrive. So at 11:59 a.m. last Wednesday, my head teacher received the call. About two minutes before students were to be released for lunch, he came on the tannoy system and asked all teachers to report to the staff room immediately and then added, "I bet you all know what this means." We did.

I only just learned about Ofsted back in August at our Fulbright meetings. Since then, I don't think a single teaching day has passed without hearing someone mention the name at least once. Ofsted inspections are VERY important to British schools. This year, our school was due for an inspection, as the previous inspection was several years ago. At our last inspection, the school received an Outstanding rating, and there was no way the staff was going to let that rating slip away from them. As such, we've been upping the ante in just about every possible way, improving our teaching and learning, feedback to students, their response to our feedback, using new classroom questioning strategies, changing the way we plan lessons, and everything else in between. It seems like every month, another new idea has rolled out for us to try, all in the hopes of maintaining our precious Outstanding rating. And what we're doing is working, as our students' scores are incredibly high, GSCE results last year were record breaking, and in terms of value added, we are in the top five secondary schools in Britain.

Still, it's kind of like training for the big championship game. You know you've been doing all the right things, you know you've been working as hard as you possibly could, but when game time comes, all you feel is nervous and doubtful. All you want is as much extra time as possible to prepare...just in case...

Unfortunately for us, the year 8 parent night was scheduled for that Wednesday night, and on such short notice, there was no way to cancel and reschedule. So we went ahead with parent night, then after 7 p.m., everyone got to work on Thursday's lessons. The administration kept the school open until 10 p.m. and ordered us pizza so we would be able to work late. To prepare for an Oftsted inspection, you basically need to have all of your lessons prepared as if you were having a formal evaluative observation. And while Ofsted no longer requires teachers to have a formal lesson plan, they still want to see a planned lesson. That means your lessons need to be spot-on, student engagement needs to be 100 percent, and you have to be able to prove students learned during the course of your lesson. You also need to have your seating charts, your assessment data and your special needs data prepared and ready for them. Oh yes, and all your books need to be marked (aka graded) with detailed marking for pre-assessments and assessments, as well as evidence of students responding to your feedback. Woah.

It's a lot of work to do for one class/lesson, let alone for every lesson you teach. But since nobody knows when or where Ofsted will be observing--they just pop around and spend up to 25 minutes in any given classroom at a time--you have to get everything sorted and ready. If they do happen to come to your classroom to observe, you will be giving a rating as well (Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Good and Outstanding), and those ratings will be taken together in consideration of the school's overall score. Just a little pressure, eh? Along with many of my colleagues, I just happened to be teaching a six-period day on Thursday, which meant I had hours and hours of prep work to do in order to be ready. British teachers, man, they are made of tough stuff! And I guess I am, too. I ended up leaving the school at 10 p.m. when they kicked us out, then coming home and working another two hours until midnight. Thursday morning I was up at 5:15 and at school by 6:15 a.m. to finish preparing. This is about the same routine many of my colleagues took on as well. I think the adrenaline kicked in, though, because somehow we all pushed through.

My paperwork ready to go for one lesson: 5-minute lesson plan, copies of my powerpoint slides, assessment data, special needs/gifted and talented list, and a seating chart with target levels. 

The Five-Minute Lesson plan is something our colleague Anna introduced us to earlier in the school year, and I love it! Once you get your lesson planned out really well, it's easy to complete this flow-chart lesson plan, which you can then give to whoever is observing you. It's easy to complete, easy to follow, and it helps you make sure your lesson accomplishes everything it's supposed to. I am excited to introduce this to my school back home. 

Ready for my lesson and any potential Ofsted inspector. Those stacks of brown folders are
the students' assessment folders, where we keep their formal assessments and a bunch of
progress charts.

Many people were observed Thursday, but I wasn't. Honestly, it was a huge relief but also a bit of a disappointment. I had worked so hard on my lessons (which turned out great!), given up all that time and sleep, and there was nobody to see how it all came together. The kids certainly benefitted, which really is the main point, but as my colleague said, it's kind of like studying for a really big exam, taking it and then never getting to see your results.

Thursday we didn't have any after school engagements. The admin bought us pizza again though, and I stayed at school until 8 p.m. preparing Friday's lessons. The chances of me being seen Friday were slim to none, as we sort of knew which teachers in our department would be seen at that point, but just in case, I still needed to get it all ready to go. I wasn't observed during any of my morning lessons. By lunchtime on Friday, the inspectors had seen enough, and they spent the rest of the day in meetings. I had escaped observation again. I suppose this is a good thing after all, but I also couldn't help but wish I'd been able to contribute more to the school's efforts.

Those three pairs of shoes under the coat rack are all mine...oops! I sort of kept forgetting
to take them home in all the chaos of those late nights. 

Pizza Box Graveyard 

After school, we all gathered in the staff room. The admin provided us some drinks to celebrate our hard work, and so we sat around together and rehashed the last two days of utter madness, laughing and celebrating and some times commiserating with each other while we waited for the official word to come down on our rating. It seemed to take forever, but just before 4 p.m., our administrators arrived with the good news. We were all ecstatic when our head teacher told us that he thought we'd had an outstanding week...and did Ofsted! We got an Outstanding rating in all areas! It was such a huge accomplishment and the result of not only this year's hard work, but the build up of many years of hard work, solid teaching and learning, and systems implemented in the school that really work for our kids. I felt so proud to be a part of this school.

Tension, anxiety, pressure, stress. Everything was terribly intense Wednesday through Friday, and sometimes, we all felt a little too close to our breaking point. But something magical also happened amidst that chaos: we came together even more as a staff. Everywhere you looked, people were helping each other, going over lessons with each other, offering feedback on lesson ideas, sharing resources, celebrating each other's successes and supporting each other through the tough stuff. Our staff room turned into a living room, and the staff became a family.

Even though it kind of sucked, even though I was totally shattered and exhausted Friday, even though I did all that work and wasn't even observed, I'm still glad we got the call. Getting the call gave us a chance to come together and prove just how remarkable our school is.