OFSTED

Monday again and once more a beautiful day.
I should be getting stuck into the last three assignments that are due in three weeks from today, but I really can't find it within myself to do that. I had a letter from my tutor today, asking that the group should be in attendance early this evening as there is an OFSTED inspection taking place. Bloody cheek! Last time I went in and asked for advice she wandered off to talk to someone else without giving me any real help at all.
OFSTED, are a team of men/women in grey suits with no humour. They are sent in to educational institutions to raise stress levels and destroy people's lives on the pretense of raising educational standards. On this occasion, staff are to be graded by the men in grey but will not be told their grades. (Doesn't this infringe some aspect of the data protection act?)
I remember being on the receiving end of an OFSTED inspection some years ago. Schools used to be given several months notice of these infestations and of course this meant that paranoia had a long time to incubate. For all of those months, any real education went out of the window and everything focussed on the forthcoming inspection. On the week of the inspection, the teacher busters would arrive as a team of twelve or so, and take over the school, appearing everywhere and anywhere, prodding and poking, seeking out every weakness and wherever they could, stealing good ideas. Grades were awarded, reports written and as a result, many good teachers were broken.
Have educational standards improved since OFSTED was inaugurated? I don't think so. The school where I worked for all those years has had variable OFSTED reports but from many peoples point of view it is now at an all time low in terms of both morale and achievement. Teachers are so tightly constrained by innapropriate curricula and the fear of failing to meet criteria that creativity in the classroom is becoming an endangered phenomenon.
By the way - my tutor was awarded a grade 1 at the last inspection - she knows how to play the inspection game, which is, by and large, about filling in forms and ticking boxes.
Should this sound like a rant from one who failed an inspection - I didn't. It's just a rant from someone who thinks that the whole thing is a waste of time and money.