It seems that Nanny's recent "customer" satisfaction survey, examining the impact of OFSTED letters to children, has highlighted a few "issues".
Some children have objected to the "patronising" letters they receive from inspectors, outlining Ofsted judgements about their schools, whilst younger children did not understand some of the language Ofsted used.
Ofsted said that its inspectors needed more advice about "appropriate styles of writing for different ages".
The Ofsted research covered 55 schools and 1,500 pupils.
The report said:
"Although jargon was unusual,
the meaning of some words and phrases such as 'monitoring'
and 'teachers with management responsibilities'
was lost on some of the younger pupils.
Some pupils were confused by the mix of formal and informal styles within the same letter.
Due to the formal layout of the letters and absence of colour,
they were unattractive to younger pupils."
This helps improve the quality of education how?
What a load of crap!
Given the level of educational standards and general attainment in some schools that I am acquainted with I fear that in future any OFSTED letters may have to phrased thus:
ReplyDeleteDere puPIll,
Yor skule and tEEchers is a BIt krAp. MutS Tri haRdre.
From OftSeD
I am, suddenly, transformed into a expert in education communication!
ReplyDeleteThe answer is - send a text message! 160 characters and all will be understood. Get the mobile operators to sponsor it so that the costs are covered.
Robert's your father's gay partner.
Where do I send my invoice?
What? Why the hell are the bratlings reading their dump's OFSTED reports? It's none of their business apart from the assembly where the tired teachers paraphrase it for them into a language they can understand. Tcha!! You can't 'transcribe' a detailed report without using the big scary words like that.
ReplyDeleteOh God, I just had a thought: don't forget the Epsilon's newspapers were written in words two syllables or less...shades of Aldous Huxley.
Having just read the Daily Mail's report on these letters it strikes me that most teachers could, with good reason, make a complaint about the person signing the letter for "harrassment" and causing "shock and distress" , or whatever it was that they used to penalise the B******s to Blair T-Shirt vendor.
ReplyDeleteHow many tickets are allowed before a proper prosecution?
(As an aside Ken, how about a "Balls to Brown" T-shirt?
Given that one of the Chancer's sidekicks has that name it would clearly be a simple statement of fact. Let them try to prosecute that one!
In fact might it not be possible to issue a fixed penalty to a person with an offensive name? Balls seems quite offensive to me. I can't understand why Nanny has not noticed this unforunate discrepancy in her ranks and taken steps to correct the problem.
Railwayman39 said...
ReplyDelete"Their comments are supposed to be for the staff. "
Sadly not. It does seem that the Royal Mail is indeed being tasked with delivery letters from Off-their-heads to the 4 to 7 years old school children of this country and, presumably, all the others as well.
Whether they (or their parents) can read them is another matter ...
Next project? How about the NHS assessors writing reports for the unborn about the level of pre-birth care they are receiving?