THIS POST IS IN RESPONSE...

... to a request from Dannymatt, who already knows the story, but wants to hear/read it again anyway!!

Once more it takes place at my little school in Wiltshire, the school I went to as a headteacher, tasked with the job of leading it out of Special Measures. Prior to my appointment, the then head had been literally marched off the premises by LA officials and his teaching staff had all gone with him, so I inherited a brand new staff, none of whom, fortunately for me, had any baggage left over from the previous regime.

Getting out of Special Measures is quite a challenge and is subject to rigorous termly monitoring by the Local Authority and HMI, but in just over a year we had done it. The school was transformed, standards were rising, the kids and staff were happy (in fact my over-riding memory is of laughing so much that it hurt, most days!) and we'd embarked upon, and completed, an ambitious building project. All that was needed before I moved back home was the visit from Ofsted.

And this came in the September just after I'd admitted about half a dozen pre-reception children who only stayed for the mornings and lunch, then presumably went home for an afternoon nap.

I was still teaching three other age groups in the one class and our history topic for the half-term was the good old Fire of London. We had a fabulous model in a large glass case courtesy of Wiltshire's learning resource centre, featuring London at the time of the fire and lighting up to show how widely it spread.

The kids were mesmerised by the topic and had produced wonderful art work in the form of a frieze around the room showing burning buildings and terrified occupants fleeing for their lives.

They'd examined various sources of evidence and had learned how to ask relevant questions to extend their knowledge further.

As we were getting towards the end of the topic when Ofsted arrived, we decided to focus on the questioning aspect of an inquiry and turned ourselves into history detectives, using the services of one of the pupil's dads, who just happened to be an archaeologist and who was particularly good at addressing young children in an informative, challenging but non-patronising manner. By the end of the lesson the plan was that all the children would be able to sort a range of archaeological evidence according to a fairly wide range of criteria.

The lesson was planned to the nth degree. I'd made sure that I would ask differentiated questions, that these would be open-ended and would clearly demonstrate prior-learning.

However, all did NOT go according to plan.

The lesson was scheduled for 1pm. the time when my six little ones should have all gone home for their sleeps. The inspector was sitting, clip-board in hand, having already examined the items out on display for the children to work with later and waiting for the lesson to start. Unlike some inspectors who choose to sit at the back of the class, this one had positioned himself right in the midst of my class who were gathered on the carpet, waiting with bated breath for the lesson to commence.

The only person who wasn't ready was ME. And the reason for that is that I was waiting with the little ones for their parents to come and take them away. They used to arrive at the classroom door and the hand-over would be fairly quick and amicable, only NO ONE TURNED UP ON THIS OCCASION.

So I had six little ones who were tired and getting worried, an inspector looking at his watch and I was clearly getting a little bit agitated.

It was at this point that Sam, age 5, put his hand up and said:

"Mrs Ellis, would you like me to start the lesson?"

Aaaaargh! What to do! How was I going to deal with this one then? Everything could potentially go horribly wrong. It was time for the cold sweat to set in.

So, with my heart in my mouth, I replied:

"Okay Sam, that's really kind of you. You make a start and I'll take over in a minute."

So Sam got up from the carpet and sat in my chair. He began by asking everyone to look at him and checked to see that they were ready to listen. He then proceeded to ask the class what they knew about the causes of the Fire of London and why it had spread so rapidly. His questions were open-ended and made the class think hard about the evidence they'd had access to. He asked harder questions which he said were for the Year Twos and he made a point of naming children who were a little more unsure of themselves and targeting them for questions which he knew they would be able to answer. In short, Sam provided the most perfectly brilliant start to the lesson. He demonstrated his OWN learning, that of the rest of the class and gave the inspector a clear insight into the enthusiasm they all shared for the topic.

I, meanwhile, stood at the door with the little ones, silently thanking God for Sam. And the inspector sat without moving a muscle as this child wowed him completely.

Once I was able to return to my post, the lesson continued with all the kids being given a lesson in archaeology, practically examining a range of pottery and matching these against different criteria and reporting back their findings.

The lesson ended and the inspector was quite literally speechless for a while. But when he WAS able to speak he deemed it 'an outstanding learning experience' for all the children - thanks to one little boy who recognised that his teacher was in need of help.

(And immediately after that we all trooped through into the hall for a geography lesson in a French market!)