The sister of a headteacher who took her own life after her school was downgraded to “inadequate” has pledged to continue campaigning to end one-word judgments after Ofsted said it would not remove them.
Professor Julia Waters, whose sister Ruth Perry died in January, said she and “the majority of the teaching profession” would continue to push for reform of the system that can sum up a whole school with one word — including “inadequate” or “outstanding”.
It comes after Ofsted today announced a series of reforms in the wake of Ms Perry’s death. They include giving more warning to schools rated as outstanding of when to expect their next inspection. Schools rated as inadequate due to safeguarding concerns — like Ms Perry’s — will be reinspected within three months to give them a chance to improve their grade. And headteachers will no longer have to keep the draft results of the inspection a secret.
But there will be no change to the system of one-word judgments. Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman defended the decision, saying it was not down to Ofsted to make that change. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, she said the whole school accountability system was built around the one-word judgments, and the Government decided when to step in to support schools based on them. She said: “It’s not for me to frustrate that system by changing the model.”
Asked on BBC’s Today programme if there could instead be a more nuanced judgment or a complete sentence, Ms Spielman said: “We could write a sentence that captured all the things that typically are reflected in an inadequate judgment and use that, but the feedback when we talk to people is that they know that the consequences are the same.
“If the significance of it is the same it would come to mean exactly the same very quickly. It wouldn’t really solve the underlying discomfort.”
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Professor Waters said: “The refusal to remove the single-word judgment is I think a mistake and it’s something that I, and I know the majority of the teaching profession, will continue to push to get removed.”
She added: “It is quite clear that the chief inspector has not been pushing herself for the removal of those single-word judgments which is the one most damaging feature of the current system.
“But I will continue to work with the Secretary of State for Education in pushing for the removal of that single-word judgment.”
Professor Waters said the only change announced today that would have helped her sister was the removal of the “inhumane” confidentiality requirement, which meant Ms Perry could not share the provisional results of her school’s inspection with family, friends and colleagues.
She called for greater clarity on safeguarding, adding: “My sister was dedicated, meticulous, hardworking. There is no way she would have fallen foul of clear, well spelt-out expectations… she kept those children safe and well and happy in her school but she fell foul of unclear expectations around paperwork and record-keeping.”
Ms Perry took her own life while waiting for an Ofsted report to be published, which would subsequently rate her Caversham Primary School in Reading as inadequate.
