Diary of a school Administrator

Read the diary from the start [1] Diary of a School Administrator, April 8

And so the chaos has started.  Exactly as predicted Ofsted have said they are coming on a two-day, snap surprise, out-of-the-blue inspection which will allow them to see the school as it really is because being an instant snap surprise etc etc inspection everyone knows that it is going to happen.

If one more teacher talks to me about all his or her colleagues behaving in the manner of a headless chicken, I shall personally start plucking feathers.  Besides what does a headless chicken walk around like?

The day was spent in photocopying.  Apparently we have 38 policy documents within the school and I had to make and then staple multiple copies of them all for the inspectorate.  That cost us about 25 forests.   In one sense it was a fairly straightforward job, except…

Well except that for a start twelve members of staff did not respond to the immediate request of the deputy head for up to date copies of their policies to be given to me.   Six others were in such a mess they were unprintable, and four of those that did look all right and did arrive on time had pages missing.

After printing out eight copies of the Science Department’s policy I was told that sorry, they had given me the wrong policy, that was the one from two years back, and would I mind getting rid of that one and doing copies of a new one.

I was going to scream but when Mr Hardcastle said the same about his Behaviour and Discipline policy I gave up and had lunch - during which I had the first moment’s brightness during the day.   Ms Fenwick from music sent me an email and said that her department’s policy was on the school web site, and that I could download it (she even gave me the URL) and print it automatically.   Now why doesn’t everyone do that?

Thereafter things got back.  A stream of people arrived demanding the work they had asked for - reports, attendance analysis, accounts, banking details…  I smiled at them all, told them that I had an urgent request from the deputy head for some photocopying for this Ofstedy type thing, and that unfortunately half of the things I had been given to copy were wrong and were needing to be done again.   Normal service, I suggested, might possibly be resumed post-Ofsted - although I couldn’t guarantee it.

Ah the joy - especially where the complainants were the self-same people who had failed to give me the right documents for the Great Copy Game (as we now call it) on time.

Three parents were arrested today for living further from the school than they said they did.