Good morning. After the death of primary school headteacher Ruth Perry, there has been an uproar from the education sector about the way Ofsted inspects schools in England. Perry took her life while waiting for a report from the schools watchdog which downgraded her school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”, with her family describing her death as “a direct result of the pressure caused by the school inspection”. At the time, Ofsted described inspections as “hugely important” in holding schools to account, and said that it was continuing to support Caversham primary school, where Perry worked.
This tragedy has intensified the conversation around reforming the body which has, for much of its three decades of existence, been in an unhappy relationship with the people and institutions it inspects. Its inspections are viewed by many as punitive, part of an opaque system of inconsistent evaluations with the power to derail entire careers. Even the head of Ofsted has admitted that there is “a culture of fear” around school inspections. In the wake of Perry’s death, there are now calls from various corners of the education sector for fundamental reforms of the agency.
