They were working late again on Friday and then all in on Saturday and Sunday. The inspectors were due on Tuesday. All this frantic last minute preparation makes you wonder how bad the school is. It tells us a lot about the state of education in this country that teachers who have long since stopped getting involved in after school activities give up their Saturday and Sunday to prepare for an inspection. It wasn’t like this in Social Services. Yes we did all that we could to show ourselves in the best possible light- made sure the case recording was up to date, that any actions agreed at previous inspections had been carried out, were able to tell a good story about our performance figures, highlight any innovative projects and ensure staff were full briefed without appearing to have been given a script. From experience we realised the importance of providing a “minder”, someone to ferry the inspectors around make sure they got to the varies locations and meetings on time, see what they saw, hear what they heard and give us direct feedback on how it was going. As the Director I was available at the end of each day for a coffee, the opportunity to answer an questions that might have arose during meetings with staff or service users and an opportunity to correct any false impressions them may have gained. All very relaxed really and well worth the expense of having a small project team working on the preparations for a few months in advance. Blair McPherson author of UnLearning management. Follow Blair on Twitter @blairmcpherson1
