The leader of one of England's largest school leadership unions has delivered a direct and angry warning to Ofsted, the government and the judiciary telling them they are on notice for the harm being caused to headteachers by the current inspection system. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, used his speech at the union's annual conference in Belfast on Friday to put the education establishment on notice in the clearest terms he has used to date.
As reported by the Guardian, Whiteman told delegates that Ofsted does not raise standards and does not serve children. He pushed back against the suggestion that anyone calling for a different approach to inspection is trying to lower educational standards. He said inspection should not be about pressurising dedicated professionals to the point of destruction and that the risks of further harm and possibly further tragedy were entirely foreseeable and entirely avoidable.
The backdrop to this speech is not abstract. In 2023 headteacher Ruth Perry took her own life after Ofsted inspectors planned to downgrade her primary school from outstanding to inadequate. A coroner found that the inspection was a contributing factor in her death. Her family campaigned for years to end the single-word grading system that reduced a school and the career of the person running it to one brutal judgement. That campaign succeeded and the old system was eventually replaced.
What replaced it is now the subject of fresh controversy. In November Ofsted introduced a new scorecard inspection framework that grades schools across six separate areas using a five-point scale. Teaching unions immediately and forcefully opposed it, describing it as a Nando's-style rating system that reduced complex institutions to a set of scores. The NAHT considered taking industrial action after a high court challenge to the new framework was dismissed but stepped back from that position following talks with Ofsted and the Department for Education. Those talks produced some concessions including the creation of an independent advisory group specifically tasked with monitoring the impact of inspections on headteachers' mental health and wellbeing.
Whiteman's speech made clear he does not consider those concessions sufficient. He said he was angry and used the phrase "mad as hell" to describe his feelings about a system that he believes continues to place lives at unnecessary risk. He told the conference that responsibility for any further harm or tragedy rests solely with the education establishment, the government and the judiciary who have chosen to allow the current system to continue.
The NAHT conference is the first since the new inspection framework was introduced and the atmosphere reflected how seriously school leaders are taking the concerns. Whiteman did also acknowledge positive recent government policy including the expansion of free school meals, the removal of the two-child benefit cap and the establishment of family support hubs. On special educational needs provision he called for proper funding to support the reforms outlined in a recent white paper and noted that the government had committed £4 billion to overhaul that provision in England.
