Pupils paid to play truant for inspection
Various tactics are used to trick Ofsted representatives during assessments — claim
London: Disruptive pupils are being bribed up to £100 (Dh569.3) each to stay away from lessons during Ofsted inspections, it has been claimed.
Despite having good attendance records, poorly behaved students are being paid to be truant to prevent their schools getting bad ratings.
Such underhand tactics are being increasingly used to trick inspectors, according to teachers.
Other methods include headteachers ‘borrowing' outstanding staff from neighbouring schools to take lessons while telling their own weak teachers to go off sick. Some also take brilliant artwork on loan from other schools to impress inspectors.
The stunts have been revealed in evidence collected by the Times Educational Supplement.
In one example, a teacher described how he was worried about taking three of the worst classes in his ‘hell hole' school during an inspection. But, the day before, the deputy headteacher arrived and reeled off the names of more than a dozen of the most challenging pupils from the ‘worst' three classes.
He told the teacher: "None of these little **** will be in tomorrow, you have my word."
The teacher asked how he could be sure as the pupils had ‘excellent' attendance and the senior teacher showed him an ‘inch-thick wad of £20 notes'. The teacher said: "I learned later that some of those kids had received up to £100 or so not to attend school that day.
Posing as staff
"It seemed he [the deputy] had, in total, paid the equivalent of a whole class to [play] truant for the day."
Meanwhile, an advanced skills teacher (AST) told the TES he was expected to ‘guest' at another school and pretend to be the acting head of science during an inspection.
Another AST claimed several teachers were ‘on standby' to pose as staff for an inspection of a partner school at ‘45 minutes' notice'.
The TES said: "Then there is the school artwork, highly praised by Ofsted, that is loaned to neighbouring schools and proudly displayed every time inspectors visit."
The TES received almost 200 examples of schools conning inspectors.
— Daily Mail
