Excellence is something we all strive for, especially when it comes to our children. Often however, we see that it is the pursuit of excellence that causes us to break boundaries and push for new heights. When we get there though, it can be a very different matter.
In the United Kingdom the educational governing body is called Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education), and they hand out awards to schools which are designed to help parents and teachers alike to improve their schools.
The awards range from *failing school*, to *outstanding*. Of course every school wants to get the outstanding award. As this will mean your school attracts the best teachers and producers the best pupils.
However I've noticed something that happens to schools once they get the 'outstanding' award. I have come to view it as something as a curse, because as far as I can see, it happens every single time.
# The Journey To Excellence
Before my daughter joined her current school, it had been rated by Ofsted as a failing school. The lessons were of poor quality, attendance was low, and academic performance was poor. Adding to all of that, the general administrative process left a lot to be desired.
Then a year before she joined, it was taken over by an academy. The academy system in the UK has had its fair share of controversy. I for one am all for it because I believe there is a flexibility that does not exist with the purely state schools.
Essentially the academy system is part private funded, and has therefore left some of its detractors saying that academies are too business like. However that is not the issue here, so we'll leave that debate for another day.
When the academy took over my daughter's school, they immediately went about setting things right. They got rid of the teachers who didn't care and kept the ones that did. They then overhauled the school policy and focused on creating an atmosphere whereby the kids not only learned what they were supposed to learn. But also enjoyed the process.
They made sure that parents were more involved in the school and their children's education. After just a short while the improvements were palpable. The school went from 'failing' to 'requires improvement' and then to 'good'.
## When Better Is The Enemy Of Good
You may have heard a particular saying; *good is the enemy of better*. The sentiment of that saying is that when you are striving for excellence, getting something that you and others agree is good, might cause you to stop right there. Thus depriving you of creating something even better.
However I've seen with the Ofsted ratings quite the opposite happen. It seems as a school is striving to go from 'good' to 'outstanding', they are pulling out all the stops in order to achieve academic excellence.
They develop policies on bullying, special needs education. They tackle attendance and test results, and try and create as high an educational standard as they can humanly muster.
However once they get there, things start to change. Because when you're on your way to a goal, your desire is to get there. Once you do arrive, then your priority becomes to *stay* there, and therein lies the problem.
Of course a school still has to maintain high standards to remain on the 'outstanding' list. However keeping the status quo as opposed to striving for excellence seems to breed a very different mentality within the schools.
For instance, a school that can show that it improved the test scores of a struggling group of children is much more likely to become an outstanding school.
However if a pupil or set of pupils start to struggle within an outstanding system. The school is much more likely to sweep that under the carpet, by either creating easier tests, or simply getting rid of the pupil.
Luckily this hasn't happened to me personally, however I know of many parents it has happened to.
## The Casino Defence
When I was going round doing the open day circuit. Basically looking for a school for my then 5 year old daughter to attend. I asked each one of them what their policies on bullying were.
The first three schools I went to had the Ofsted badge of 'outstanding', of which they were very proud. They all told me, that bullying didn't exist in their schools!
With one teacher saying to me;
*"I can honestly say, that in the 17 years I've been a teacher at this school. I haven't seen one single case of bullying."*
Hmm, all I could think of, was the line in Martin Scorsese's gangster classic *Casino*. Whereby Robert De Niro's character Sam 'Aces' Rothstein, is explaining to the local sheriff why he had to sack his witless nephew.
*"There were 3 jackpots in a row, he shoulda known there was something wrong. He's either in on it, or too stupid to notice, either way he's out!"*
Let's face it, if you have been a teacher for seventeen years, unless you are complicit or an idiot, you have definitely seen some form of bullying.
This though is the attitude I got from the outstanding schools. Rather than admit that yes, like all schools we have bullying from time to time, and here's how we deal with it. They would rather deny its existence for fear of losing that 'outstanding' badge of excellence.
Take instead my daughter's school when I asked that question. They took me through the detailed three-step plan which started with simply talking to the bullies, and ended with a child psychologist being called in.
They were only too proud to talk about the things that were in place to improve the school.
## Auto Reset Solution
So what's the answer? How do we make sure that our kids are truly getting the best education available to them?
My solution is simple, yet I believe will be very effective.
The way to do it is to make sure that the 'outstanding' badge is only a temporary thing. Once you have achieved it, you get to keep it for a year, then automatically get bounced back down to good, or great or whatever.
Then it becomes progressively harder and harder to get an outstanding award. Kind of like different degrees of a black belt in martial arts, known as *dans*.
So a school would be a good school with one outstanding badge, or two, three, ten whatever. At least that way the school is constantly striving to get better, instead of focusing on holding onto what it already has.
In this way our kids will end up with first class educations. Delivered to them in environments that foster cooperation, growth and understanding.
Until then, whilst I want my daughter's school to keep striving for excellence. I hope they don't quite reach that point. Officially at least.
IF YOU ARE IN THE UK WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF THE OFSTED RATING SYSTEM? IF YOU AREN'T, THEN HOW DO THE LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY RATE SCHOOLS IN YOUR REGION? DOES SUCH A THING EXIST? DO YOU FEEL SCHOOLS SHOULD BE FREE FROM THIS KIND OF RATING SYSTEM?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
>Title image: Ryan Fields on Unsplash
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