Today was not a Good day, for several reasons, but mainly because I had to discipline a teacher, and put them on a monitored teaching scheme to make sure their lessons were up to scratch. I hate doing this; sometimes I just want to go into the classroom, bore the kids with some dry Shakespeare history play and then go home.

But I am the head of English, and I do actually care that our teaching is Good. Yes that’s Good with a capital G. Ofsted Good, as it were. The ‘sted are due any minute now, and the school is going for Good status. I think we should get it, and actually seeing everyone in the school working towards Good status has (dare I say it) ‘raised standards’.

But for the English and Maths departments the pressure is oh so much higher; the big drive now is 5 A-Cs including English and Maths; because these are considered Good GCSEs, so we have to make sure ALL our pupils have the best teaching possible. And, there’s that word again. Good. It’s really quite an arbitrary way to measure something, if you think about it; I mean Kit Kats are Good, beating Arsenal is Good; a lie in is Good. But, can teaching standards and subjects merely be called ‘Good’? And how on earth can you really measure it? I know Ofsted have a criteria, but does it really mean something is actually Good, or is it just their way of judging everyone?

It’s about Ofsted. This.  It’s funny and so bang on, it’s scary. Ofsted has totally become a magic word, with the power to make good teachers go weak at the knees and bad teachers get away with shoddy teaching. It’s like a validation for everything crap, and a way for bad managers to completely demoralise good teachers. The idea behind Ofsted was good, but as usual, the delivery is shocking. Can someone put them in Special Measures?

Sorry, I’m in a bad mood. I had to spend five hours filling in a self-evaluation form this morning.

This is brilliant. What a legend; nice to see some of the trade education press come out in support of misleading reports on Ofsted we’ve endured recently. Too often headlines take precedent over the facts, and this is a prime example. Pete Henshaw, editor of Sec Ed, says it better than me: “When you have an annual report that is actually very positive presented with a massive focus on the negative, and thus resulting in a spate of unhelpful and misleading headlines, I cannot help despair at how the system currently operates.”

Sorry if this post is verging on the serious, but something has to bloody well be done. Ofsted have too free a rein to write reports, and make judgements, while seemingly even controlling the way the press report on their findings. Alot of that report was positive, but no one has had anything good to say about teachers for weeks now. It’s nice that someone is fighting our corner. ”To slam teachers in this blanket way and do it directly in front of the nation’s press is demoralising and not conducive to inspiring teachers to improve,” says Henshaw. You go dude.