The head of Ofsted has admitted that “a culture of fear” exists around England’s school inspections but said she had no reason to doubt the system of school gradings that has been blamed for the death of a headteacher.
Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of schools in England, made the comments in her first interview since the death of the Berkshire headteacher Ruth Perry following a critical Ofsted report that abruptly downgraded Perry’s school from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg if there was a “culture of fear around Ofsted” among teachers, Spielman said: “I certainly acknowledge that it exists,” but went on to blame it on the “tiny proportion” of schools that were rated inadequate after Ofsted inspections.
“For the vast majority of schools, I know that it’s a positive and affirming experience,” Spielman said. “It’s designed to be a constructive, professional dialogue.”
Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, told the programme: “There is no doubt in my family’s mind at all that Ruth killed herself because of that Ofsted inspection. She was fine beforehand, she was not fine during and after it. So it is a potentially dangerous system.”
Spielman defended the inspection at Caversham primary school, which rated the school as good in four out of five categories but downgraded it to inadequate because of poor safeguarding training. “From what I’ve seen, I don’t have any reason to doubt the inspection,” Spielman said.
She also defended the use of single overall grades such as inadequate: “Yes, they are synthesised into an overall judgment. That’s partly to help parents, we know that parents like the clarity and simplicity of the model.
“It’s also because the wider system of school accountability that government operates does use those overall judgement. So it’s not for us to say we’re going to fundamentally change the grading system. That would have to be a bigger government decision.”
Spielman also suggested Ofsted was being blamed because of “unhappiness” in schools over ongoing funding and pay disputes with the government.
“There’s clearly a lot of bad feeling around. And when there is bad feeling around, Ofsted often becomes a sort of lightning rod through which the tensions and frustrations can be discharged,” Spielman said.
“We’re just one part of the system. We’re not the regulator. We don’t make decisions about what happens with school. We are just the inspectorate, going to look and see whether children are getting the experience they should in schools.”
Perry’s family have said they have had no contact from either Ofsted or the Department for Education following her death in January, which will be the subject of a coroner’s inquiry.
Spielman said her organisation had not approached Perry’s family since her death, saying it was a “delicate balance”.
“Of course, we’d be more than happy to speak to them if they would like to, we haven’t wanted to intrude on their grief. We haven’t had any approach. But we haven’t ignored anything and would happily speak to them,” Spielman said.
Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said Ofsted’s system of inspection was not working.
“The problem is that Ofsted doesn’t inspect all schools fairly, and Ofsted doesn’t know whether it raises qualities in schools at all. It has no research to back up the claims it makes about getting schools to be better at teaching and learning.
“And the problem that teachers and leaders have is that they’ve got no idea which inspection team will turn up at their school - one which will do a decent inspection or one which will be aggressive and demeaning,” she said.
