In this episode, Claire meets Nicola James, the headteacher of St Andrew’s Primary School in Bishop Auckland. Having recently had an OFSTED inspection under the new framework, Nicola shares her experience with Claire in order to help other schools who may be facing an imminent inspection themselves.
After initially wanting to work in a bank (mainly so she could wear a smart suit every day!), Nicola was inspired to teach by her secondary school tutor, Mr Wilson, who told her she needed to be working with people. This inspired Nicola to want to make a difference to the lives of others, so she studied at Northumbria University before getting a teaching job as an NQT.
Having worked in schools for over 22 years, Nicola has taken on many roles: these include art lead and SLT, and, after starting St Andrew’s 6 years ago, she became deputy head after 2 terms, acting head (while her headteacher did a secondment) a year and a half later and finally became substantive head at the school a year ago. The experiences she had as a deputy encountering OFSTED and a head encountering OFSTED varied quite significantly, with Nicola calling them, “a totally different experience.”
In the podcast, Nicola speaks with Claire about her experience of her recent OFSTED inspection, the format of the days themselves, including the day before and the day after the inspection, as well as the newly-introduced ‘deep dives’. They discuss the new framework and what the inspection looked like for Nicola’s school under it.
By discussing her experiences, Nicola explains what schools, headteachers and staff can do to best prepare themselves for what is a stressful time in the lives of any school staff.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Find little ways to be as prepared as you can for the inspection.You can anticipate when OFSTED might visit, but (as was the case for Nicola who thought they might come in November but they actually came in October) they may visit earlier or later than expected. Some of the best ways to prepare include: creating an action plan so that everybody knows their role for the day of the phone call and the days of the inspections; compiling a list of questions that OFSTED might ask on their initial phone call (some authorities may already have this) and jotting down answers to them before the inspection; having mock interviews with subject leads, including some of the questions they might ask, and making sure everybody is giving the same key messages about the school and its practices.


Use the 90 minute phone call to highlight to the inspector all the strengths and positives about your school, and arm yourself with information about the inspection.The admin team will usually ring some time in the morning (for Nicola, it was 10:30) and this is followed up by a phone call with the lead inspector. After the admin call, you may want to talk to staff and inform them of the upcoming inspection and discuss what messages you are wanting to send to the inspection team about your school. On the phone call with the lead inspector, there is chance to negotiate the subjects for the deep dives, and to inform your staff of this. There is also chance for you to tell your inspector the context of your school and what makes you unique. As in Nicola’s case, it may take more than 90 minutes due to the new framework being in place. It might be useful to take notes during this time so you can feedback to staff.


A lot of the guesswork has gone from the new OFSTED framework.A key finding from the podcast is that a lot of the ‘unknown’ about the running of the inspection seems to have been eliminated from the new framework. You can negotiate the subject of deep dives (except reading and maths if you are in a primary) and a timetable is provided for the school of where the inspectors are going to be and at what time during the day. The inspectors also ensure that when a staff member is out of class to talk to one of the inspectors, the other one will not visit that class. This takes