The family of a headteacher who killed herself have labelled Ofsted’s proposed changes to its school inspection regime “totally inadequate” and accused it of being deaf to calls for meaningful reform.
Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector, has offered a series of changes including greater support for school leaders undergoing inspections, after the death of Ruth Perry, whose family said killed herself after a critical Ofsted inspection.
Julia Waters, Perry’s sister, said Spielman and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, were “defending the indefensible” over Ofsted inspections, and that neither had been in contact with the family. This week, Keegan said she would be happy to meet the family, in response to a question from Matt Rodda, the Labour MP for Perry’s constituency.
“My sister’s death demonstrates the tragically high stakes, and yet Ofsted has so far done nothing. This latest response from the chief inspector for schools is yet again totally insensitive to the situation and deaf to the urgency of the calls for change,” Waters said.
“Ofsted has marked its own homework and is telling us that everything is under control. I think many people would score Ofsted’s current system as ‘requires improvement’ and their response to calls for reform as ‘totally inadequate’.”
Waters asked Keegan to commission a review of the inspection conducted at her sister’s school, as well as an independent review of Ofsted’s culture and structure.
The changes proposed by Spielman would allow schools to more quickly fix errors in safeguarding procedures, and improve the complaints procedure by allowing heads to lodge objections during inspections.
But Spielman said she backed the use of one-word inspection grades to summarise inspection reports as “an integral part” of England’s school system.
Perry’s death followed an Ofsted inspection that downgraded her school, Caversham primary school in Berkshire, from the highest rating of outstanding to the lowest grade, inadequate.
In her first major intervention since Perry’s family went public with the background relating to her death, Spielman said: “I certainly recognise that distilling all that a school is and does into a single word makes some in the sector uncomfortable, particularly when there are consequences of the grade awarded.
“[The] government uses Ofsted’s overall grade to determine how best to support improvement. We also know that many parents find the grading system useful, whether that’s in choosing a school or to understand the one their child attends.”
Spielman’s comments were backed by Keegan, who said: “Parents rightly want to know how their child’s school is doing and I fully support our approach to providing a clear one-word rating to inform their decisions.”
But headteachers said they were not placated by Spielman’s proposals.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Ofsted has completely lost the trust of leaders and teachers, and it will take a great deal more than this to gain their confidence and ensure that the inspection system works in a way that is effective rather than being punitive and counterproductive.”
Barton added: “Despite the chief inspector’s insistence that the grading system plays an integral part in the school system, the truth is that it is the grading system that is the single biggest problem. It reduces everything that a school does to a blunt single-word description, and when this is below good, it is deeply stigmatising and damaging to the school concerned.
“It ends careers and makes school improvement harder to secure. In what mad world can anyone seriously think this is a good thing? Ruth Perry’s death has shone a light on a problem which has been going on for years and the time for real reform is long overdue.”
The revelations around Perry’s death have caused Ofsted to come in for heavy criticism over the way it inspects schools, with the National Education Union and NASUWT teaching unions calling for the inspectorate to be abolished.
